Pros and cons of academies (primary)

[Iop]

DS is 4 soon and we have a choice of 3 primary schools to send him to. One of these is an academy, part of the Great Learners Trust. Obviously we'll read the Ofsted reports and attend open days at all 3, but I'm unclear about what an academy is or why a school would choose to be one. Is it a red flag, wanting to be less accountable in terms of what they teach? Or is it a sign of enterprising, free thinking? I was under the impression that they tended to be religious schools that wanted to teach religious doctrine instead of a standardised curriculum, or schools for reforming poor behaviour, but from Googling it seems that I was mistaken.
Does anyone have (positive/negative) experience of this particular Trust? Or, if your kids attend an academy, how is their education different from their peers at a "regular" school?
Thanks in advance from a complete noob!

Trying to think of some pros….. 🤦‍♀️.

I work at one. It’s really good. Was dubious before I started as had only heard negatives but the one I work on is much better run and effective then the previous LA schools I worked in. For example at an LEA school the Senco or Head of Literacy would have to spend their own time trying to access new research etc and enact but there is a trust wide director who does all this work and trains all the Senco a and they can then spend their time putting it into practice. I think that there are definitely some bad trusts the main things you hear are using unqualified teachers or undercutting teachers pay and conditions. My trust keeps to exactly the same pay and conditions and rules about everything but I think there may be some dodgy ones. My last LEA school was much more toxic. So basically I would judge a school on if it’s an academy or not but rather from your own judgements when you visit

DS's school turned into an academy at the end of his reception year. We were sceptical at first but we are now 2 years down the line and there are pros and cons the same as any school.

We are pleased with the curriculum which runs across the academy chain and the teachers seem to like. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of staff turnover/sickness and the new head they brought in is reasonable . They did change the logo and the uniform which caused a bit of consternation at first but listened when parents asked for a transition period. We have access to staff that work across the chain in specialist roles that might not otherwise exist. I don't think that there is as much accountability as with a traditional governors type setup but there is a family forum.

In short I think that there are good academies and bad academies. I don't agree with the overall principle of them hence choosing one that wasn't but most of our local schools are academies now and I can't see any Government completely scrapping them.

I think as a parent the funding model is largely irrelevant as you can have good and bad schools independent of how they are funded.

Therefore I wouldn't care, I would look at more important issues such as: location, ethos, behaviour, results, how they teach reading, before/after school care, whether the y6s are how you aspire your child to be, support for SEN/high achievers etc.

DD's secondary was a 'convertor academy' and as a parent I saw no difference afterwards, it carried on being a good school.

Academies still have boards of governors. The main difference is funding comes from central gov not via la.

I would echo this.

Some academies are good, some aren't, some maintained schools are good, some aren't.

I've used 5 primary schools and 1 secondary.

(2 Ministry of defence, 2 primary academies, 1 Council primary).

Day to day there has been absolutely no difference.

Jeanette Tate.

I remember being at Butlins having a great time when I was 9 and then seeing her picture all over the paper the next morning. I was on my way to go swimming and remember thinking that she will never go swimming again. Every now and then I think about her.

I seem to remember that when academies were first introduced it was all the 'bad' schools that went down that route as a way to reinvent themselves, but now I understand that many of the better schools have gone down this route too (they just didn't want to be early adopters). I think that's why academies don't have a very good reputation. As others have said, I'd be looking at the school itself rather than what it calls itself.

I can't think of any pros of schools being academies but where I live, huge numbers of schools were forced into it, after the initial stance of bribing schools didn't work as well as it was hoped.

But, whether it is an academy or not probably won't affect the experience your dc has at school. As others have said, there are god, bad, and mostly in between schools that are maintained and the same that are academies, so I wouldn't use it as a criteria for choosing / not choosing a school for my child.

I work in education.

Impossible to generalise, there are good and bad academies just as there are maintained schools.

Pros and cons can often relate to what the LA is like and the services it provides. Maintained schools have their budgets topsliced to fund LAs, so if the LA is hopeless as a headteacher you may well question why you're paying that and think you're better off having that money direct.

But if you join an academy chain they'd take chunk too.

The whole matter is incredibly complicated though and there are many variations across the country.

That's why your accountability question is hard to answer. In the simplest form academies are accountable directly to the DfE chopping out the LA middleman. But these days most academies are in a chain or multi academy trust (MAT) so the middle man becomes the MAT.

My children are older now but if I were starting out again I'd visit the school, think about its reputation in the community, read the ofsted and go with my instincts and not worry too much about whether it's an academy.

One canny question to academies could be whether teachers are paid according to Schoolteachers' Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD). This is automatic for maintained schools and optional for academies but many choose to stick with it. Those that don't will often have some unwelcome small print in contracts which can translate into poor morale and high staff turnover.

If you get any reticence to answer this look on the website at job vacancies.

Another warning sign is that some academies especially in the primary phase have very little autonomy and are controlled with a rod of iron by the trust board/MAT/secondary school at the top of the chain.

It's true that academies have governors but for individual schools often they are Local Governing Bodies with virtually no powers. All the power and decision making ability sits higher up the chain. Sometimes there is no parent or staff representation on the LGB except the local head.

When academies were first introduced under Tony Blair, they were a means to improve the performance of failing schools. Any failing school could be forced to change to academy status and had to have a sponsor.

The coalition government opened this up so that any school could apply to become an academy with no need for a sponsor. Failing schools can still be forced to convert. In round figures, 80% of secondary schools and 40% of primary schools are now academies.

Unless you had a huge number of schools classed as failing, it is not true that huge numbers of schools were forced into it. The government has only ever been able to force failing schools to convert. Other schools can only convert if the governors vote to become an academy.

This is true. Just to add that, unless there are at least two parent governors on the LGB, the chain must have at least two parent trustees. The trustees hold all the power and decision-making ability for the chain.

Depends what you mean by "power". I'm a local governor of an academy. The trust handle a lot of the statutory functions, and we are the eyes and ears on the ground providing local support and challenge. There is a scheme of delegation which says what we are responsible for and we are supported by the trust to perform those duties, e.g. if conducting a visit they may give us a list of questions to ask, to make sure key items are covered, but then we supplement with our own questions..I think this works very effectively and gives confidence to inexperienced governors (who are all volunteers). I know that very good Chairs of governors can provide similar support, but not all schools have one of those, so the more professional help the better.

The most experienced local governors are invited to join the Trust Board, so it is not a remote relationship at all.

But ours is a small trust with just a few schools. Bigger ones may be more remote.

Go and look around all of the schools . I promise you you will know which is the best for for your child and their personality. It’s only when you are in the school / classrooms that you will really gain a sense of the ethos and the happiness of the place.

Reduced costs.

Thanks, all, this is really helpful. Sorry I didn't come back to the thread earlier and acknowledge your responses.
I think I was associating academies with "failing" schools, so it's useful to understand where that association came from (and that it's no longer necessarily the case).
Really helpful also to understand what the differences actually are - I hadn't realised they related primarily to funding and governance rather than academics or the curriculum.
Helpful to think about staff pay/conditions/turnover too, as I don't think that would have been on my radar otherwise.

@Iop schools are competing with each other for good staff, so any academy with worse pay than the nationally agreed scales would be shooting themselves in the foot. The complaint is usually the opposite - that they have the freedom to pay their staff more if they want to and therefore be more attractive to staff. But, in reality, budgets are tight, so they probably don't.

In theory academies could pay more to teachers in hard-to-fill subjects if they wanted to, but in practice they don't because other staff would either complain loudly via their union reps or vote with their feet and leave, or both.

The secondary academy where I am a governor gives its staff very slightly more holiday than an LA-funded school would have, but then so do all the other secondary academies in the local area, so it's more to keep pace with them than to build advantage.