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.

prettybright - there is already a crisis in teaching. Do you not read the news?

My school may well be worse than others but we have very few fully staffed departments at the moment. We are relying on cover supervisors and supply teachers, and are doing way more cover ourselves than the old P&C document says is acceptable (but then, we're an academy so no point complaining) Our head of maths is leaving next week - he had a better offer. That will leave only one fully qualified maths teacher in the school. We have no candidates to replace the HOD.

There is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Maybe "mass exodus" sounds like an exaggeration, but ask the year 11 child who is on their 3rd English teacher this year, or who has had 8 maths teachers in the last 3 years. There is a crisis.

Certainly can't argue about the messing around with the exam/testing regime etc, must be v demoralising, confusing, generate more work etc

Re "lack of standard terms and conditions"- this is what it is for all other employees in all other professions.

Re possible bankruptcy, I'd like to get my house that there are provisions in the contracts to deal with this just like hospitals which have recently been managed direct by government when their financial position has gone tits up

Re "academies are businesses" - so are independent schools. I don't see the teachers in those establishments claiming their position is "immoral" or that they do anything else than put their students' interests first. As for boards of governors/trustees/whatever you call them perhaps being free of LA control and having much more scope to run schools in a different way might actually attract professionals to the roles they may not have contemplated filling before?

A friend of mine works in a business that offers services to private schools and academies. He tells me that academies are invariably cash-strapped because, despite their apparently generous budgets, they now have to pay for services that were provided by local authorities before and no-one really factored that in properly when making the decision to convert. When it snows, for instance, there tends to be a bit of a panic as it dawns on the head that it's down to him to organise snow clearance and gritting and pay for it. In fact my friend is quite pissed off, because in his office performance is judged by how much money you bring in, but because he primarily works for academies and they can only afford half of what private schools pay, his figures always look crap. His company is thinking of closing down academy contracts altogether.

One of my children is on their second maths teacher of the year and third English teacher - this is not an inner city school, not a challenging school - when I started working there we called it a retirement home for teachers because it was seen as relatively cushy so staff rarely left and competition to teach there was high. They are now repeatedly placing adverts and getting no or very few applicants - many of whom are not great tbh.

home- why, when many many teachers are already at breaking point, would they stay for reduced pay, impaired conditions, reduced PPA, increased hours etc.
40% of new trainees do not stay after the first year. That is incredible, and I don't know another sector that has such a retention issue. Even more worrying is the fact that fewer and fewer people are training to become teachers in the first place!
There is already a recruitment crisis in some subjects such as maths, MFL, geography etc.
10,000 senior staff in schools (HTs, DHTs, AHTs) are over 55, and will therefore be looking to retire in the next five-ten years.
That coupled with the bulge in pupil numbers (there will be 650,000 more pupils in the school system by 2020 than there are today) and reduced funding per pupil mean ever more pressure on staff remaining, and it becomes a vicious circle, more pressure, more leave.
Performance related pay for teachers is based on performance of children, not performance of teachers. Do other sectors have performance related pay based on the performance of their clients?
All the changes to the curriculum and assessment system are unmanageable. Fine -reform things. But do four Key Stages at once? Expect primary teachers to assess children in May against criteria that are only published in Feb/March? (and then publish it during the holiday ). Expect Secondary teachers to teach courses in September 2016 that they have not yet seen the specifications of, or even have been approved?

I'm not a teacher, and I sure as hell would never be one. My children are in the fee-paying sector, so they're not affected by these changes (certainly no difficulties recruiting in their schools). I am extremely worried about what is happening to the education of the other 93% though.

home - the "that's what it's like for everyone else" argument is tired and pointless. I chose to go into teaching, many years ago, and accepted what the P&C were. Changing that without consultation is unfair - and would be in any other job. That's the point. All jobs are different. I get long holidays, DH gets a massive bonus each year. Are you saying that if DH's company decided suddenly not to give bonuses except to company partners, he would have no grounds for complaint? Of course he would.

Fedup, academies can't refuse to take children with SEN if they are named in their EHC Plans. However:
(a) the vast majority of children with SEN don't have EHC Plans and it's much easier to manipulate the system to refuse places in that situation; and
(b) they can permanently exclude children with EHC Plans, and regularly do so.

Under the current system, if a child is permanently excluded, the LA has to arrange full time education from the 6th day. How is that going to work if the LA has no schools in which to place excluded children? I wonder if all those teachers leaving education will end up working for LA tuition services? It would be approximately the most inefficient use of funds imaginable.

I'm pretty shocked. It seems like they are determined to ruin education. WHY!?!

Similarly seeing people leaving in droves from my lovely little infant school that was able to talk about high retention of staff when I looked around it, many many teachers that had been there forever. Now mainly nqts....

What is education going to look like in a few years.... (I don't want to homeschool but I dont want to fuck up their education either)

Re "lack of standard terms and conditions"- this is what it is for all other employees in all other professions

I have left teaching and therefore this is not out of self interest ( other than as a parent who wants to use the state sector). I want teachers to have the best terms and conditions possible so that the best apply and stay in the job. I don't want my children taught by mediocre , worn out, pissed off people who are only in the job because they can't get another job.

Re "academies are businesses" - so are independent schools. I don't see the teachers in those establishments claiming their position is "immoral" or that they do anything else than put their students' interests first.

But working conditions for teachers in independent schools are considerably better than those in academies. They really aren't comparable.

Also, independent schools tend to be individual institutions. MAT are not. The man at the top of the MAT that runs my school has never set foot in the place. Many MATs are not run by educationalists. That is wrong.

Elementary- there will be no LEA!

I have to say that before I moved, the (academy) primary school my son went to got loads of help with his needs and he wasn't even officially diagnosed. A lot of outside help and I was more than happy. Not sure why people are saying no help will be given when they convert

Sooooooooooo Wales has play based learning until year 3 and isn't turning its schools into academies. Looks at house prices in Wales

Was it a chain academy or a stand-alone dolly?

The teacher recruitment/retention issue, it seems to me, is entirely independent of the issue of whether all schools should be academies and us mostly related to changes in testing, targets etc etc which is a whole other discussion.

As to contract terms being better in the independent sector, who says academies won't offer the same better contracts? Why all the assumption that it will be worse? And yes contract terms can be changed in any job, and the law provides very clearly for consultation etc but the bottom line is that if you don't like the new terms you either suck it up or go elsewhere. No different in any walk of life. I don't see why teachers or any other profession should get special treatment in that regard.

And if working conditions are better in independent schools why not emulate them?

Guerre, there are no LEAs now, they were abolished some time ago.

Many things are better in the independent sector, however, emulating them isn't something people seem all that keen on. Fees paid by parents are a lot higher in most independent schools than the amount of funding received from DfE per child in state-maintained schools. It's an easy matter keeping pupil:teacher ratio low when you have twice (or more times) as much money per capita to spend.

homebythesea do you not want to attract the best people into teaching?

I have to say that before I moved, the (academy) primary school my son went to got loads of help with his needs and he wasn't even officially diagnosed. A lot of outside help and I was more than happy. Not sure why people are saying no help will be given when they convert

Because experience shows that the majority of academies don't work that way, and don't allocate anything approaching adequate support to children with SEN. In an academy local to me, they don't employ invigilators for pubic exams, they just divert all the one to one teaching assistants paid for out of funds allocated to pupils' statements and EHCPs.

who says academies won't offer the same better contracts?

Current experience demonstrates that they don't.

MrsJorah State education is already royally fucked. This government have destroyed it. They have a political agenda that discriminates against social justice in any form and will destroy all public services and ensure the working classes stay in their place.

What will happen when there's the need for a new school because of increased pupil numbers in an area? Who will identify the need and make sure a new school is set up?

Elementary - that's shocking.

home- if you're a private company, and someone comes to you and says I can deliver XYZ for costA, someone else coming along and offering XYZ for 2/3 of CostA is a much more attractive offer. You won't realise that what they're offering is not actually XYZ, but X, 1/2 of Y, and 1/10th of Z until it's too late. These are not widgets being manufactured, they're children. They don't get a second chance if they don't get the GCSEs they wanted to get into medical school (let alone is they have to re-sit an AS level). Academies are run according to the bottom line. There will be no penalties if their pupils fail their exams. What will DfE do? Send in OFSTED? What can OFSTED do? The land and school buildings are more valuable in many places than the DfE contract. What will stop the academy declaring the school closed, and selling off the land at a huge profit? Academics have to source everything themselves (thus losing the scale of large economy). So they cut corners. How long before it's HSE corners that are being cut?
I know this sounds completely like doom-mongering, but academies are run on a profit basis, as a business. How many businesses can afford to run at a loss?