Academy status for 'outstanding' primary - what do you think?

[Wordsmith]

I am a parent governor at my sons' primary school which was awarded 'oustanding' in its recent OFSTED report. It's a lovely little school, in a relatively well off area, with a good cross-section of pupils and parents and no real social difficulties.

Thanks to the policies of the new government we can apply for academy status on the basis of our outstanding OFSTED. We have a Governors meeting to discuss this in the next few weeks. I am instinctively against it as I don't believe in a two-tier education system in the state sector and, although no-one would say no to some extra money, I don't believe this should be at the expense of other, less fortunate primary schools in the LA which need the money far more than we do.

I'm not 100% sure about where academy funding comes from and how it affects other schools if one school gets funding. I'm going to try and research this before our meeting but would welcome any info/opinions from wise MNers...

bump

I know nothing about the money aspect.

But I'm a bit concerned about the not having to follow the NC bit. AFAIK an academy can choose to teach anything - the earth is flat, whatever. So check out stuff like that.

Whatever they tell you now, what if in a few years they get a charismatic head of science who wants to teach creationism?

Not that I necessarily agree with all of the NC. So if you can use this to your advantage - great. But you will want to 'future proof' your decisions.

Also not sure what academies legal responsibilities are to do with SEN, G&T and EAL. Do all the same laws apply to them? Will your school still be as inclusive as it has always been?

I know nothing about academies. But these are the areas I would be researching - as well as budgets.

This is how I understand it (though I stand to be corrected).

Previously, all state funding was sent by central Govt to LEAs and LEA then distributed as they saw fit (many things taken into consideration of course) to schools within their authority.

Academies are going to get their money directly from central government (cutting out the middleman as it were). Then the school is at will to budget howsoever they wish.

In theory this should not affect old-style school funding but in practise, I imagine as the LEA's 'pot' is reduced accordingly then surely there will be less to spread around the 'more needy' non-academy schools.

Ultimately, this will have a knock on effect on those poorer performing schools usually (but by no means always) those in disadvantaged/challenging areas.

Have I got this right?

Ds's school is ofsted outstanding and us governors have vaguely discussed academy status. But not taken it any further as there are massive financial implications - the risks we would be taking on are huge. And we'd lose all the support we get from the LEA - even though they drive us mad, they are actually quite useful, especially the school improvement partner.

Why don't you have a look on governor.net to find our more about the guidance/implications and see what other governors are discussing?

As the Chair of an outstanding Primary school, our GB discussed it back in July and took the decision not to pursue it at this point. We know that one of the reasons why we are outstanding is due to the excellent support of our LA. We will review it annually or if the Government become proscriptive in the delivery of the curriculum.

Financially it would make little difference to our school as our LA devolved the purchasing element to schools in the Borough back in the 90s, with the argument that you knew your own schools strengths and weaknesses best and therefore where you should be investing your resources.

I am delighted that no school in my borough is pursuing academy status.

governor.net! Of course - why didn't I think of that. Thanks Edam, and thanks for everyone else's comments.

The money comes directly from the government instead of going to the LA to be allocated to the school
It seems the worst schools may be compelled to become academies Michael Gove: worst primary schools 'will become academies'

Here's a sad post from a different thread on the SN board about the problems of schools becoming academies:

We have just had it confirmed this morning, that the school my ds's primary feeds into and for which we are in the catchment area, has won its application to become one of the new Academies.

In the letter to parents back in July the Head stated that Academy status would enable them to be more selective in their admissions and reduce the overcrowded roll by eliminating 'those pupils not suited to our school'. I am in no doubt that this now means our ds will not be able to attend that school. This, despite the fact that he is achieving well academically and amongst the top few children in his year. He will be devastated when the time comes as it means he will not be going to the same schools as his best friend.

Unfortuately, I have also discovered today that the state school that we would have chosen as an alternative has also been awarded Academy status this week.

We are now left with very slim pickings and a choice of schools, all of which would require ds to catch several buses to and from school every day (something he is unlikely to be able to do).

Not nice.

IndigoBell - How sad. It's exactly this sort of problem I would anticipate could occur.

Academies are not allowed to exclude SN children. In particular, if an SN child has a statement naming an academy, the academy MUST admit the child.

Regarding funding, the extra you will receive as an academy will not reduce the funding available to other schools in the area. It will reduce the amount of money the LA has available to spend on the central services it provides to schools. Many schools believe the LA services are poor value for money and that they can do better, either by doing it themselves or by getting a private sector supplier to handle these things.

In essence, if an LA has 10 schools (small LA!) and one of them becomes an academy, the amount of money it has available to spend on central services will go down by 10%. The 9 non-academy schools will receive exactly the same level of funding as before.

The academy receives the money that usually goes to an LEA to provide services, but of course they then have to source those services elsewhere... initially that may prove to be cheaper, but I am sure there will be leechlike companies set-up soon offering their services to schools that will have little option but to buy.

I don't see many private governor support type services around...

An academy will still have to adhere to the law governing admissions criteria, and so will not be permitted to "exclude" SN children. However, since they will be able to set their own admission criteria (like faith schools etc already do) they could alter things like catchment areas. I suppose this could be described as "eliminating 'those pupils not suited to our school'" if, for example, it shifts the area to exclude a more deprived location and include a less deprived one.

Also, couldn't this be an opportunity to the LEA to sell their services to the academies? They are already providing them to other schools so have the infrastructure in place. It could be positive and allow the LEA to cover the full costs of provision from the academies. If they do it efficiently, they shouldn't be any more expensive than a private supplier, and will have a proven track record and excellent contacts within the schools.

As to teaching creationism etc, since the governors of a school are instrumental in the appointment of staff (the head teacher as a minimum), they have significant say in the ethos of the school. Unless this is the desire of the governing body, it should be preventable. It goes with selecting a head who shares the overall ethos, be that someone who believes in collective worship or someone who believes children should be set etc.

I suppose the big issue is that it puts much more emphasis on the abilities of the management team to run a successful school.

As a school governor I appreciate the support that our school has from the local authority, so I wouldn't be keen to opt out of local authority control.

Any school trying to exclude a deprived location will find itself in trouble. As there is a pupil premium for academies taking children from disadvantaged backgrounds, it is also a stupid thing to do.

I agree that LAs should be trying to sell their services to the academies. If they can provide services academies want at a price they are willing to pay that would be a good thing. Personally I think that would be better than the current approach where the LA decides which services it will provide to schools and all schools pay for them regardless of whether or not they want the service and whether or not it is good value for money.

Can I also suggest you take a look at the advice from the NGA, which has been really good and thorough. Also look at the UK Governors Forum which was created when we became frustrated with Governornet.

I would also point out to prh47... that each LA works in a different way, ours delegated funding to the schools back in the 1990s so we have chosen which SLAs our pupils need and where we buy them from - for example we opted out of the LA payroll scheme to a private provider to drive down costs.