Guest post: Nicky Morgan - "Why academisation is best for our schools"

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As parents, we all want the best for our children. We want to make sure they have access to the best opportunities and to help them grow up into well-rounded adults. Making sure that our children have a high quality education is a key part of that.

I want to outline exactly what academisation means and why I truly believe this is the best way forward for our schools. Our children only have one shot at receiving the best education and I am committed to ensuring this happens as swiftly as possible.

We need to put our trust into the hands of the people that know best how to run our schools - the teachers - and the academy system does just that. tells you more about what an academy is. It gives schools greater autonomy to make the decisions that are right for their community and pupils. After all, we have the finest generation of teachers ever and being part of an academy helps put the power back in their hands.

The most recent results show that the percentage of pupils achieving the expected level in reading, writing and maths at the end of Key Stage 2 in primary academies has risen by 4%, from 67% in 2014 to 71% in 2015. Additionally, when it comes to secondary, it's a similar story with converter academies which are performing 7.2% above the national average, with 64.3% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs.

However, a dynamic school system where all schools are academies is just one part of a much wider plan to improve our education system which I set out yesterday in our white paper.

It is every parent's right to know their child is in an excellent school no matter where in the country they live. I am confident that this move will guarantee a higher school standard with each academy held to account for the performance of their pupils.

Ultimately, I am committed to making it easier for you as a parent to play an even more active role in your child's education. In essence, I want to put young people and parents first – something that might sound obvious, but the truth is that for too long parents have been an afterthought in our education system. We want you as parents to have a much stronger voice in what happens to your child during their school years, because we know that you want the very best for your child.

So how are we doing that? Firstly, I am well aware that the education system can appear complex to many parents. I am dedicated to changing this once and for all, and putting the control firmly back in your hands. As a result of this, I plan to introduce a new, online Parents Portal from as early as next year. This portal will enable parents' access to key information and allow you to support your child's learning.

Alongside this, we have changed the curriculum and the way that students will be assessed. This will help to raise standards and make sure that your child leaves school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. It is imperative that every child fulfils their potential, and this includes stretching the most able pupils.

More young people will also study the EBacc - a combination of maths, English, two sciences, a humanity and a language - up to the age of 16. And the exams and qualifications young people are awarded will set a new international gold standard that is respected by employers, helping them to succeed in our increasingly global world.

I am a firm believer that an exceptional education transforms children's futures and everything outlined in this White Paper is committed to ensuring that parents and pupils come first. Our goal must always be to ensure every single child leaves school with the best education and the opportunity to excel in adult life. I believe that together, we can achieve that goal.

Pretty - I am assuming then that you stand in line to personally benefit from schools being forced to become academies? With no LA advisers to support schools then they will have to seek professional support from individuals like yourself.

I am a senior leader in a very successful primary school. A LA primary school. I am (well 'was' some many years ago....) one of the bright, young graduates who Gove wanted to see become teachers ('good' university, teach first etc etc). I have been on a career path towards headship (whilst being an 'outstanding' classroom teacher). I am not posting this to blow my own trumpet but merely to provide my background too.

These academy proposals will see me holding off from applying for headships. I do not want to be a leader within this proposed experiment. I suspect many others will feel similarly.

You're right the cost of conversion is actually more than I said. But I was only referring to the grants £25k per school. As you say, there are start-up grants for sponsors to be added to that.

Also to be factored in is the cost of transferring academies from one trust to another. The DfE has refused a Freedom of Information request to release the cost of transferring academies which changed hands before 31 August 2015. The DfE had to release the cost of 23 of them after a Court ruled it should do so. This showed that £3m was spent on transferring these. www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2016/01/exclusive-3m-the-cost-to-taxpayer-of-transferring-23-academies

The escalating cost makes wholesale academization even more reckless.

I am assuming then that you stand in line to personally benefit from schools being forced to become academies? With no LA advisers to support schools then they will have to seek professional support from individuals like yourself.

Not all LAs employ their own advisors; many commission the service to private businesses. Those commissioning arrangements would disappear.

The Michael Rosen article is excellent. Everyone should read.

This thread is excellent. Please do not remove.

Remember when the government tried to sell off the forests? We stopped them just because everyone thought it was a bad idea and told them so.

If everyone writes to their MPs then that is a good start. Google 'what is my mp email address' .

We have to keep pushing. If IDS's policies can fall, so can Nicky Morgan's. I will not allow my DC to be pawns in privatisation.

Pushing for what though, fork? If there is widespread objection to the Academisation agenda, then what alternatives are being proposed? Leave things as they are?

The opposition party haven't stepped up with a viable option as yet - indeed, they've handed this government the tool with which to extend their agenda regarding LAs.

McDinosaur sadly too many people with a conscience are leaving the teaching profession for reasons that you describe. The people left in SLT positions will be the hard headed individuals who have stepped over others to get up the career ladder and who view children according to their impact on data rather than as individuals with varying needs

It is definitely not too late. Democracy is not voting once every 5 years then putting up with everything. Of course it isnt!

Also i dont understand what is so bad about 'doing nothing'. It saves tens of millions of pounds at least and is good enough for wales and scotland, as well as much of the western world. Some people seem to be suffering from 'do anything-itis'

pretty the alternative is to Invest in teachers rather than in lawyers and accountants. No need to change the management - put money into training and networking and sharing good practice. My local village primary school is world class - I kid you not. And that is because of the teachers. It will be at risk if it has to join a MAT.

Democracy is not voting once every 5 years then putting up with everything. Of course it isnt!

No, but what is increasingly happening is that an awful lot of time and energy is being invested in 'fighting' which is taking that time and energy away from improving things for DCs now.

I'm not talking about classroom teachers, although if some staff room conversation was less about slagging off ministers and more about what is positive in the classrooms that wouldn't be a bad thing, but it's the money and resource being invested at an LA level to "fight" Government policy that I'm very uncomfortable about. The time invested by Senior Leaders attending meetings and briefings on what is being done to stop it, the time and money taken to campaign, protest and object when that could be put into the improving the system now.

A ex solicitor in charge of education. Unqualified at the top and unqualified teachers in schools. The EBacc crushing the Arts. Teachers leaving the profession. Work lad not decreasing. Why did the election manifesto not include all of these? It's just made up on a whim. Doomed to fail and- of course- the children suffer.

Pretty - education in England would benefit from a moratorium on all change. And some changes could be dumped without costing taxpayers a penny. Abandoning policies with no educational benefit would actually save money. Things that could be dumped are: tests for primary school pupils (no educational benefit, only used to judge schools); reduce the number of exams expected at age 16 (putting UK in line with most other countries and reduce the excessive emphasis on exam results in England with risk 'gaming', teaching to the test and the neglect of other important subjects and skills); abandoning plans for wholesale academization.

Money saved could be invested in high-quality teacher education to a recognised standard (eg Masters, as in Finland). But what are we being offered? Teacher accreditation by individual heads.

Pretty - please produce evidence that taxpayers' money has been spent on fighting academization. And then show how this compares with the billions spent on academization (£1b was overspent on the programme early in the Coalition days, remember).

Abuelita your need Nicky Morgan's job.

the alternative is to Invest in teachers rather than in lawyers and accountants. No need to change the management - put money into training and networking and sharing good practice. My local village primary school is world class - I kid you not. And that is because of the teachers

That may be true - but where is the evidence that it will work on a national scale? Individual examples of particular approaches being successful can be found for any model - the problem is, there is no one model that has been proven to work on a national scale.

The teachers at your local village school have worked within the same framework as another school that is in Special Measures and where pupils made no progress for a whole year. It worked for your school, but not all schools.

Abuelita - Hants CC is one LA which has spoken out over the last few days about the Academy agenda and been quoted in the national press. LA Officer time and resource has been used to achieve that. The HT of schools across the country who have spoken to the media, too.

I don't have access to their budgets, so can't give you figures, but could put an FOI request in, and post the reply when it is forthcoming in about a month?

That may be true - but where is the evidence that it will work on a national scale? Individual examples of particular approaches being successful can be found for any model - the problem is, there is no one model that has been proven to work on a national scale.

I guess the evidence is in the same place as all that evidence for academies....oh wait.

PrettyBrightFireflies I have an alternative change to propose - extend the experience and skills of the successful LAs to those parts of the country that have poor, or no longer functioning LA education services. Let those LAs take over failing Academy Trusts - in any event that is what the White Paper/current rules anticipate as a final safety net. Forgetting perhaps that for the children at said failing institutions that will be their one and only stab at their education in that stage (Primary/Middle/Secondary). The one failing in my proposal is that it runs contrary to the Conservative political view that LAs are to be reduced to a minor rump of activities.

By way of background...
I am a Governor at a small rural Primary School in a Shire County (deemed one of the two best by Ofsted). We have close collaborative ties with the local schools, even some cost sharing on staffing and resources - Pre-school to 6th Form. All are Good or Outstanding by Ofsted's assessment. All Primary Schools are still within the LA as that offers us the most cost effective support. For example, I have used our Legal Services SLA on just one Governance question, our staff on others. My enquiry alone would have been charged, by a legal services provider (I know, I am one in a different field) at more than our annual SLA fee to the LA.

As a group our local schools could form a successful MAT and I anticipate that some LA education services staff will be leaving to become consultants we could contract directly - at ?more or less cost - who knows. There is a fly in the proposal in that the Regional Schools Commissioner gets to approve MATs and the White Paper notes that maintaining geographic 'boundaries' may not be acceptable. Assuming that the RSC would approve my notional MAT - how is that helping the failing schools elsewhere in the country, let alone the few schools in our Shire county, but outwith our current working group of schools?

Interestingly, our Shire county has been resolutely Tory for my entire life. It has also been resolute in a consistent approach to education delivery through change of Government/Policy across the decades. My direct experience started with the introduction of comprehensive secondary education - I was in the first year at a Secondary Modern that changed to a Comprehensive school. The LA approach has always been focused on what is best for the education of children. It is being successful in extending services to neighbouring counties and achieving slow and sustainable school improvement in one area adjacent to the County, much to the irritation of the DfE - they were supposed to fail. I do not see that an independent Academy Trust provider would have any better outcomes.

The DfE White Paper needs to be properly reviewed and debated. My gut reaction is that LA schools should all sit on their hands until after the next election - the complusion to convert has an end date of 2022.

But I'm prepared to work within the system to do the best I can for DCs, rather than invest energy in trying to change something that is outside my sphere of influence.

I find this quite bizarre, Pretty. Is there really nothing you would campaign against if it outside your direct sphere of influence? I don't want to go all Godwin about this, but I'm reminded of the Niemoller poem about the consequences of not speaking out about issues that don't directly concern you. It seems equally bizarre to say, in effect, "Something has to change, so we may as well change to a system that has already been proven to have massive flaws rather than improve the system that is actually in place."

JWIM - thank you . This is the kind of debate that I believe is valuable.

Your proposed model (setting to one side for a moment the Governments wider agenda for LA's) could be a viable alternative to academisation.

I wonder though, are there enough LA's who are delivering excellence, and would they have the capacity to "take over" the running of schools in failing LA areas?

It would not be a universally popular solution; in areas where LA partnerships have been forced due to complete failure of the LA to deliver high quality services, the political and community resistance has been huge.

The assumption that everyone would be happy with a different Authority delivering higher quality education services is not evidenced in those few areas where it has happened by force. And, it would take education in those areas out of the hands of local people - local people would be unable to elect the people in change of the Education provision in their own area, that selection would lay with the people who lived in the LA which had "taken over".
It could result in significant instability within the local politics and, as has been seen in those areas in which it has happened, it risks the Education provision in the area becoming even more of a political football.

I think that it would definitely bring about improvements for DC's though.

Some LA's have already established and sponsor their own MAT's, I believe?

it's the money and resource being invested at an LA level to "fight" Government policy that I'm very uncomfortable about. The time invested by Senior Leaders attending meetings and briefings on what is being done to stop it, the time and money taken to campaign, protest and object when that could be put into the improving the system now.

But, presumably, you're perfectly happy with the time and money being used to promote academisation? In Kingston and Richmond, for instance, an awful lot of time and money has already been spent on briefings which seek to push all primary schools into becoming academies, well before last week's announcement. Why is that OK but Hampshire's activities over the last few days not OK? I can guarantee that Kingston and Richmond have spent considerably more time and money than Hampshire has.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124769 requests for a general election.

PrettyBrightFireflies I'm willing to try and make this work - on the basis that there isn't compelling evidence to support any particular model.

This suggests you’re a gambler rather than a strategist. Unfortunately you’re gambling with the future of every state educated child in the country.

PrettyBrightFireflies As for my job; I provide strategic training ... across all types of school.

So you think it makes strategic sense to make sweeping changes to the entire state education system, at huge financial cost, without first establishing the viability of the model you wish to move to?

Whilst I fully understand you thinking the state education system needs to be improved, I really don’t see the logic in your thinking when you conclude that this will come about by supporting a political initiative simply because it is different to what we currently have.

PrettyBrightFireflies it's inevitable that the changes they propose will fit with their overall ideology which is to remove service delivery from local authorities

And herein lies the problem. Some people believe that removing service delivery from local authorities isn't the underpinning objective of this exercise ;-)

pretty there are plenty of examples of good and outstanding schools within the current framework. Where is the evidence That changing the framework will benefit the poorly performing schools? If the change costs nothing then fine but it is going to be really expensive so it is madness to do it without evidence that it represents value for money.
I suppose it just makes intuitive sense that it is teachers that make the difference to schools so a model of change that focuses on teachers is more likely to work IMHO. I think what is proposed is the opposite of focussing on quality and calibre of teachers.