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.

"The universities can afford it. Many have surpluses. I would be really interested to see a break down of where fees go as many students are not getting value for money (9k for 3 hours a week!)"

Off-topic but this is just so wrong. University education is incredibly expensive to deliver, and £9k doesn't actually cover the costs, let alone pay for the increased 'services' that students are demanding because they now see themselves as customers. When you factor in paying for all the facilities of a university - keeping up the library stock so that students have access to the latest publications in their field, paying for all the central services and administration, salaries, research (which is essential to keep courses up to date), sports and other facilities, and so on and so on. All these have to be paid out of £9k per student. It's not like the £9k is extra funding on top of a hefty wedge of government funding. It is £9k on top of a fairly small amount of research funding (most of which has normally to be spent on specific projects) and a small amount of funding to support teaching in the incredibly expensive STEM subjects. That's it. Universities are mostly running at a loss.

but who chases them up. there is no one to chase them up.

but who chases them up. there is no one to chase them up.

Henry - do you mean in relation to attendance? If you mean who chases schools that do not return their registers, then that is an LA function. The LA, in turn, is required to report to the DfE - if the LA in your area has stopped sending returns to the DfE, then that will soon be noted and action taken.

The suggestion that this will mean the end of LA education depts is inaccurate -it will mean the end of the School Improvement and Admission teams, but other aspects of the role will remain. Safeguarding (LADO function) and Education Welfare will still sit with the LA as it does now - although the LA can commission those services, of course.

I imagine that one of the immediate effects will be that LEA staff will simply become freelance and sell their services to MATs at consultancy rates which will be way more than what schools are presently paying for them. By this means will 'value for money' be achieved (not).

My daughter is about to embark on her GCSE'S. She has had 1 full week in school since before Christmas, communication has broken down between staff and the schools sponsor. The local MP has tried to get involved, without much success and he is conservative. I am really worried about the future if education in this country.

I imagine this will be disasterous for controlling admissions and school places available in the area. What if they all do this?

www.theguardian.com/education/2012/feb/01/academy-school-catchment-council-estates

Kids will just be left without any schools to go to. Who will be responsible for ensuring they get a place?

What if the academy decides not to take kids with learning disabilities?

tweeterer what?! Surely that's in breach of statutory obligations?!

I imagine that one of the immediate effects will be that LEA staff will simply become freelance and sell their services to MATs at consultancy rates which will be way more than what schools are presently paying for them.

This has already happened in many LAs. Where I am, the LA no longer delivers schools H&S, HR, Equality or payroll services to name a few. The staff doing those jobs in the LA were made redundant and the schools have to buy in those services from the private sector.
Several of the former LA staff set up in business and are now contracted by the school.

Interestingly though, having spoken to several school business managers, they say that the cost of these services is less now they are buying direct than when their budgets were top-sliced by the LA to deliver direct.

And of course, many MATs have their own services, or commission them - so there are economies of scale for many of those services and added value - so, counselling services for staff as part of a HR package for instance, which can't be offered through the LA.

There was a LA department that covered certain groups of children hard to place, I dread to think what the consequences will now be for these groups.

Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Drakey Lakey, Goosey Loosey, Gander Lander, Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy are all on mumsnet screaming "The sky is falling down, the sky is falling down!"

when our local schools became an academy, they said it would be better for everyone, that they would have more buying power, better to be in control of their own budget etc.

Last year they laid off most of the TA's as they couldn't afford to keep them!! and also laid off some of the kitchen staff.

They have been able to build a shiny new secondary school by obtaining funds that they couldn't get before they were an academy though.

More parents have removed children since they became an academy though than they did before.

I feel I don't know enough about it, to be fully aware of how awful this is going to be.

Mistigri you'd have thought? Apart from last week there has been stike action everyweek. The shame of it is, its a brand new school building worth millions of ££££'s. Start of the art everything. But the sponsors seem to have let things slip, resulting in one huge mess. Have a read at local press....www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/Newark-Academy-strike-School-hit-by-fourth-d

Not wishing to get into a huge debate but my taught MA (non-funded) cost £3,000 in 2000-1. I am shocked that an arts undergrad now costs £9,000. I have had this debate in school with students, I would return (personally) to 20% and fund fully (as in my year), I would couple this with expanding OU provision. Given the increase in fees, I think it's criminal that the OU had it's funding cut.
Back to the main point, the real implications of this policy will not be felt for a few years. There is far too much non-researched, non-trialed change occurring in schools at the present.

tweet It's staff strike action that's causing the disruption to classes, though - and they are striking because they object to the restructure the Trust is implementing?

I'm not sure the Academy Trust can be held accountable for that - they can't only implement changes that are universally welcomed by staff; any change will be resisted by a proportion of the workforce, no matter how desperately needed it is.

Fireflies, of course the Academy Trust can be held accountable. It is the Trust's duty to find a way to work with their staff to provide an education for the children they are supposed to be providing an education for.

Fireflies are you deliberately misreading? Yes, the disruption is caused by staff strikes (obviously) but the strikes are because the academy trust has announced redundancies which will leave the CHILDREN short of specialist teachers. The staff are taking action in defence of the kids they teach. No one goes on strike just like that - this will have been at the end of a long process which clearly hasn't resolved the issues. Interesting that the academy trust is not saying that the redundancies are about low pupil numbers.

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

But presumably that won't be the case in future if LAs have no role in schools.

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

That's one of the things that worries me. The failure rate to date amongst academies is significantly high and the DfE struggles to keep up; what guarantee realistically do we have that the system will cope in future without the LA safety net?

The suggestion that this will mean the end of LA education depts is inaccurate -it will mean the end of the School Improvement and Admission teams, but other aspects of the role will remain. Safeguarding (LADO function) and Education Welfare will still sit with the LA as it does now

Where does that come from? Have formal proposals been issued? Is there in fact any logic in LAs having any education function if they don't control schools?

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/10/academy-chains-come-under-fire-from-ofsted-chief

"Wilshaw said he was publishing the appraisal in light of “the government’s clear intention to move to a fully academised system and, in the prime minister’s words, ‘make local authorities running schools a thing of the past’”."

“Ofsted has identified a number of very serious concerns within these academy chains. The lack of oversight, the lack of capacity within the governance structures and failure to deliver improvements are all issues we have been raising for months,” said Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary.

“As the government continues, without evidence, with its agenda to turn all schools into academies and no system of local oversight to spot and challenge underperformance early, these problems will only get worse.”

OK this is the shadow education sec. but I think that this rush to academisation can ONLY be a mistake, given that there are already some huge failures in the model.

The issue most people have with this is the lack of supporting evidence or trialling. But then that's been true if all the changes to education recently.

Yes, the disruption is caused by staff strikes (obviously) but the strikes are because the academy trust has announced redundancies which will leave the CHILDREN short of specialist teachers

The staff and Trust disagree on how best to deliver services to the Children within the budget available.

That's always going to be the case. There will never be consensus.

The staff have the option of starting a local free school if they believe they can do things differently.

In the private sector, your staff being on strike does not liberate you from contractual or statutory obligations. I work in an industry where in the recent past during a strike companies considered declaring force majeure as the only way of getting out of their contractual obligations without penalty

Why is it different for an academy, fireflies? Would you be so sanguine if the school in question were an LA school? Bottom line: schools have or should have statutory duties towards their pupils.

Fireflies, the fact that staff are striking is a failure of management.

There will never be a consensus. Huh??! Many schools are managing to provide a good education to children without causing staff to strike.

"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

• But presumably that won't be the case in future if LAs have no role in schools. "

But the LA doesn't and won't have "no role" in schools. The expectation above is already for academies; the LA and the Regional Commissioners currently have the ability to take over academies which go into bankruptcy or fail. There has been no suggestion this will change.

The LA retains a number of education responsibilities even for academies, this is well documented (for examplewww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335723/ESG_AnnexA_reformatted.pdf). For example, the LA retains responsibility for home to school transport, monitoring of SEN provision and co-ordinating admissions arrangements.