Every school to be an academy?

[CamboricumMinor]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35814215

Apparently this is expected in tomorrow's budget. I'm sure this isn't going to be a good move for school staff but what about the children? I'm not convinced at all.

No I'm not a politician or related to one!

Don't assume you know my politics. I've voted for all major parties (and sometimes none) in my voting lifetime.

I don't see the "majority" of educationalists against Academies. I don't think the idea has been dreamt up out of thin air without the input of those who know a lot more than any of us about how to deliver education.

firefly - a great measured post

A longer day (as is perfectly normal and expected in the independent sector) allows for sport, activities such as music and drama ie a more rounded school experience, one that is not frantically focussed on academic results. It can only help working parents.

bungo but higher education is not in fact compulsory. That's the difference. VFM is a different conversation, I agree it's ridiculous when you see some contact hours info (my DS should be going in Seot so I'm over invested in this info atm!)

The person who was to cover my mat leave never showed up so it's been a succession of supply. Yes I think they wanted to get a temporary hod to cover my hod's maternity but I'm worried that they won't get one (there is supply in every department because no one wants to work there) and I'll be roped in doing it for free as a pp said. All in all, I'm not looking forward to going back because my department is in a shambles.

What happens with pupils with sen who are not in mainstream school. For example if a child needs an autism specific provision is there still a local authority duty to provide a place in one? Who will ensure that schools like this still exist?

The universities can afford it. Many have surpluses.

Hmm... The Uni I work for had a surplus of £7million in the most recent annual accounts I can find. Which sounds like a lot.... they were also servicing a debt of £40million that yr, and £7million represented < 4% of their annual budget. Costs < £7million to put up a new building & we have a lot of ageing unfit-for-purpose buildings.

HESA reckons that UK Universities had a joint surplus of £2bn in 2014-15. Sounds like a lot but still only 6% of total income, and I haven't dug thru to find out what debt the sector is carrying... presumably ~5x more than the surplus. I mean, how financially close to the wind are Unis supposed to sail?

It's pretty easy to find summary financial accounts online for any university, which will include things like detailed breakdown of student fees, other income and categories of expenditure.

What concerns me is that I chose a school under LA for DS1, but it was converted to an academy prior to him starting. existing parents get no say other than voting with their feet. You would be hard pressed to find a non academy locally.

One of the big issues around academies is lack of accountability. Until recently, academies were accountable to the DfE but this didn't work because they were so many of them. Now there are 8 regional commissioners who are responsible for oversight of academies. By the figures on the BBC website about current numbers of academies, I reckon each regional commissioner has oversight for approximately 565 schools.

My local catchment school is shit. 39% A* to Cs in one of the most affluent areas in one of the most towns in England. It's been OFSTED requires improvement for as long as anyone can remember. It been part of a multi-academy trust for the past 10 years. Has the Regional Commissioner done anything about this? No. He hasn't. Because he has 655 other schools to look after so, you know, he's a bit distracted.

Some MATs have done away with governing bodies for individual schools, removing local accountability but also local knowledge of what particular communities know to be important. One of the key roles of boards is to engage with stakeholders.

From what I can see, many schools sign up to be part of MATs without being totally clear what powers they are signing away. In MATs there are usually two tiers of governance - the board of the MAT trust and the school governing body. In many MATs, the MAT trust board has the power to decide what powers to delegate to schools and what to keep for themselves. So, for example, a school might initially sign up to by part of a MAT and retain the power to for their school's governing body to set their own admissions criteria or pay and conditions for teachers. However, if the MAT trust board decides they want to centralise policies, they can impose new admissions or pay policies onto individual schools within the MAT and there is absolutely nothing school governing bodies can do about it.

It's simply not viable for most primary schools to be standalone academies because they are too small to make it work. They will therefore have to join in MATs with other schools. I predict a huge amount of time and effort put towards trying to establish a pecking order, time that frankly could be better spent focusing on raising the quality of teaching and learning.

My Facebook news feed is full of posts about it this morning. From the sounds of it no one is happy about this. There are some mums saying that they have kids at faith schools so they should be ok but then people are commenting nastily saying that they shouldn't have the right to these schools and that it's not fair that their own kids will miss out just because they haven't had the luxury of being baptised. It's all kicking off lol.

Faith schools won't be exempt. They will probably join up in MATs with other faith schools.

Faith schools are included in the Academisation agenda - both Voluntary Aided (aided by the LA) and Voluntary Controlled (controlled by the LA) schools will need to join Multi-Academy Trusts under the proposals.

Ah right. I didn't realise that. I thought most faith schools governed themselves anyway? Sorry I don't know much about the proposals, I've only had a quick read.

X-posts, apologies.

There have been some interesting faith/community school Federations taking place locally; it's by no means essential that all schools in a MAT would have the same religious ethos.

Ah right. I didn't realise that. I thought most faith schools governed themselves anyway?

Currently, Funding for faith schools is channelled through the local authority, and If a faith school is failing, the LA is responsible to raising standards by providing support and "special measures"

Voluntary aided schools have more autonomy - the GB is the employer and they can set their own admission policy, but they are still considered an LA school.

Three local secondaries (1 academy. 1 free, 1 LA) to me, dont have a science teacher. They are taught by a mixture of other teachers, PE, English, Computing.

How is that good for pupils? There is an exodus. At the local infant, 1 class has had three teachers in a year. It's a good school, nice class a lot of support.

I get it now, thanks Pretty. My eldest is at a community high school, my youngest two are at Catholic primary. It won't affect my eldest as he leaves in two years time but it will affect my youngest two by the sounds of it.

How is that good for pupils? There is an exodus.

It's not. But it's not attributable to the Academisation agenda, as the LA school has a recruitment problem too.

Arguably, the exodus is one of the justifications for changing things - academies can vary terms and conditions to attract and retain teachers in hard to recruit subjects and areas in a way that LA schools can't.

Another solution would be to change the law so that there was more flexibility in teachers pay and conditions in LA schools, but that would result in Union action against the government. Far better that individual MATs make the decisions.

What I read here is fear of change, tinged with a certain political outlook that would object to any proposals made by this government that threatens entrenched practices.

I don't think it is fear of change. The point is that this isn't wholesale change, because we've already seen how academies work. The concerns raised are founded on a very sound basis of knowledge of how badly they can work, particularly for the most vulnerable pupils, coupled with a major concern that they will be left free to do so without any local authority safety net.

There are failing LA schools, there is a lot of wastage, and teachers are already leaving in droves, is disingenuous to suggest that the Academisation agenda is responsible for that.

Yes, but the rate of improvement, particularly in London, has been impressive. The problem is that the failure rate amongst academies is in fact higher in proportion to the numbers involved.

And, the free-school model will still be available, as far as I know so parents/ teaches can remain in control of their schools if they want to.

The free school model is an academy model.

prh, I fear that you have an extraordinarily rose-tinted view of the beneficence of Academy Trusts and their ability to get round purported restrictions on profit-making for the individuals concerned. It simply isn't borne out by reality.

In many counties already they are 100% academy. They have no dept in local authority for education. Academies are not accountable for children not attending school. The council isn't. for a fact if a child does not turn up at high school in this situation they will not be chased up. A lost generation not educated!
Per of Osbornes plan involves the academies have a 125 year lease on the land the school is located. So reversing this by a future govt would not be possible. A lease on land owned by the tax payer.
Pay and conditions for a regular teacher is poor in most academies. under such cirumstances, why would you stay in such a position if you could get better pay and conditions in the private sector. For many its not so much the pay but the consistent poor working conditions ie very long hours, threats of losing your job etc. What about the unions? academies do not allow union membership or allow them on site, they have no power.
Take them to court - no legal aid . Apart from the stress of it, you would get stalled in court for an extended period till you run out of money.
Most of the information is out there as a matter of public record. It is not widely publicised. The whole european issue will be pushed across the BBC, a good distraction!

The free school model is an academy model.

Without the involve the of MATs and the requirement that the school trust is administered locally.

At the moment, there is little difference between the administration of a Stand Alone Academy and that of a Free School once they have been set up. The proposals being announced today create a larger differential between the two.

They have no dept in local authority for education. Academies are not accountable for children not attending school. The council isn't. for a fact if a child does not turn up at high school in this situation they will not be chased up. A lost generation not educated!

That's a failure of the LA involved, not the system.

All schools, be they LA, academy or in the independent sector have a legal obligation to send their registers to the LA. The LA is legally responsible for ensuring that DCs are in some form of education.
The LA can't just say "oh, we've no schools now, we don't have to do that any more"

Well, they can, but there are consequences - which often involve those responsibilities being handed to another LA.

My school already has extracurricular provision which we do voluntarily. Many, not all, independents pay extra for this. My students assumed I got paid extra to do plays with them. If only...

PrettyBrightFireflies, it is undoubtedly the law now that LAs are legally responsible for ensuring that there are sufficient suitable educational placements available for all children within their area. However, it must at the very least be highly questionable whether that can possibly continue if LAs have no role in running schools and no power to direct that schools admit pupils. If, for instance, an academy school went bankrupt and closed down at short notice, it would make absolutely no difference that LAs have a duty to ensure that the pupils are placed back in full time education - if the places aren't available and they have no power to open schools, what are they supposed to do about it?

if the places aren't available and they have no power to open schools, what are they supposed to do about it?

I asked our LA the same question - in my area, the opposite is the case, several free schools have opened, resulting in significant overcapacity of schools which has also had a detrimental impact on standards.

The expectation is that the LA and Regional Commissioners will have powers to step in and "take over" a school that declares bankruptcy or ceases trading for whatever reason. The current checks and balances mean that a school can't suddenly get into financial difficulties without the Regional Commisioners being aware - and while I totally accept the pp that say that the caseload of these teams is far too high, there are automated systems that "flag" schools causing concern before they go under.

Seeking new MATs for existing academies is a significant proportion of the Commissioners' workload at present.