Academy status - pros and cons.

[LauraNorder]

I am attending a meeting later on in the week about the possibility of our school becoming an Academy. I am a recently elected Parent Governor and don't know a lot about it but have been asked to read up a bit and come prepared to avoid lengthy explanations.

So what are the pros and cons and also is there a good on line resource I could tap into to find out more?

An academy does not lose all access to LA teams. Some services continue to be provided centrally such as Ed Psych, SEN assessments and PRUs.

There is no reason why academies cannot work collaboratively. Many do. Indeed, the high performing schools converting to academies at the moment are required to work with an underperforming school to help it improve.

Existing teachers retain their current pay and conditions under TUPE. An academy can, however, choose to vary pay and conditions for new teachers.

An academy has the ability to purchase services from whoever they choose, just as any school has at the moment. In reality community schools buy back services from the local authority for things like HR, legal, training, payroll etc. When a school becomes an academy they can continue to buy back the services from the LA, but it has to be at full cost recovery which is typically about 10 % more. Given how strapped for cash LAs are, it is not going to be long before all schools will have to pay full cost recovery as the LA simply does not have the funding to support services that are not legally required. I would also point out that legally the Governing Body set the budget and therefore are responsible for all purchases for which responsibility is then devolved down to the school staff. The head teacher will have a maximum allowable spend per item above which any spending decision has to be taken by the governing body or a committee of same.

What would happen if the LA decided NOT to become the middle-man? If the LA contracted so much it was not able to offer the services for the Academies to 'buy back', would the Academies then have to find a private practitioner?

What about if one Academy (A) has 10% of pupils with SEN (not statemented), and the next one up the road (B) only has 1%? Would they both get the same funding per pupil overall, or would the Academy A get more money than Academy B? Because from what I have read, it seems that both the Academies will get the same funding - which means that the children with non-statemented SEN at Academy A will have less budget available to spend on non-statemented dc than Academy B would. How does THAT work?

Surely Academy A would then have a financial incentive to do more to 'manage out' the SEN dc? Where would that leave dc with SEN that were already at Academy A before it became an Academy?

If the LA is unwilling/unable to provide services to academies they must either provide them in-house or find someone else willing to provide them.

As I have tried to explain to you a couple of times, the answer to your question depends on where you are. In most LAs both academies would get pretty much the same funding per pupil overall.

Now imagine that they are both maintained schools. Maintained School A has 10% of pupils with SEN, Maintained School B only has 1%. In most LAs both schools get pretty much the same funding per pupil and would be expected to fund services for non-statemented SEN pupils from within their own budgets. By your argument, Maintained School A therefore has a financial incentive to manage out the SEN children. Whether or not you agree with it, that is the system established by the last government.

In actual fact Academy A will be in a slightly better position than Maintained School A because the Academy will get a small amount of additional funding for each child on SA or SA+.

Another little mentioned 'con' is that academies are much less regulated eg they have no obligation to provide education for a certain number of days each year as maintained school are'

sayingno.org/cms/2011/11/27/no-legal-obligation-to-educate-children-for-a-certain-number-of-days-dfe-says/

prh, who pays for the actual SEN provision ie the day to day teaching in an academy?

one of the areas our confederation of 11 schools looked at was social exclusion...we live in an area of high social deprivation (on 40th centile) on the border and in the same area as schools on the 99th centile. Ie we are a poor area in a rich borough. The issue that concerned us was that academies get to select their own admission criteria. Given the choice, who would not jump quickly and select an area that is a) wealthy and b) has a high proportion of intelligent families? Of course your results would be great, your parents supportive financially - whats not to like?

The concern was that children from poor areas would all end up in the same schools, creating "ghetto" schools of children - having to pick up children from potentially high need areas, and vulnerable families like travellers, children with SEN, children where there are safeguarding concerns...

(our school had 50+ % children at end KS1 in school action or School action plus. Average 30% every year).

We already see this in our area - more well to do parents drive their children 4 miles to another infants rather than use ours, because of the high number of SEN kids. Plus they want to get little Tarquin into school X, which already has an admission policy that favours children from certain social classes schools.

So its the very worst form of social engineering.

It was felt, in our federation, that we would be forced by weight of numbers to go academy at some point - after all, who wants to be left with a catchment area of 4 rough council estates, spread over two districts? However, only one primary has, as yet, decided to go for academy status, and they cannot, as they got a satisfactory ofsted (and you need an outstanding or to be a failing school to get academy status.)

There were also concerns about finances....recently the council offered internet services at a HUGE premium, most schools in the area accepted the term! We opted out, and made a cost saving of several thousands. Likewise, building work - council offered their contractors at £70k; we opted out and got work done for £30k.

Where schools go academy, especially small infants like ours, we lose the head teacher autonomy and end up going down the path of least resistance (which may not be the most economical).

"and you need an outstanding or to be a failing school to get academy status."

Really? If only it was an transparent as that.

Come to Haringey where the DoF has its eye on 19 schools (out of 56 including faith, so over half the community schools), the great majority of which do not meet that criteria.

When the first lot of academies opened, they started out by excluding lots of kids. Consequently the PRUs struggled to cope - and academies lost no funding by excluding, and weren't paying into the PRU. I know, I was there.

Academy near us is refusing to engage with any LA services. So they can basically do what the hell they want, with only OfSTED and Gove to answer to.

Worries me that I get this feeling it's about a school being a business. And that the responsibility, or checks and balances system, is much more distant. It seems to me that the best interests of our kids is not at the forefront of a push for academy status?

I agree 40. There will be winner and losers if the principles of the free market apply to education, with powerless children the losers.

How many academies (not the original sponsorship academies) but the converter academies have actually changed their admission arrangements? The answer appears to be very few at present, which could be because of the 12 month + lag in being able to change such things or it could be that they simply do not want to make such a decision. Whilst it is easy to say that admission arrangements will change and they will cream of pupils, the honest truth is that all faith schools and all schools that are foundation schools (which combined is well over 50% of all schools) actually have been able to do that for years but have not. The reason is that they are generally tied to an area and do not want to change their intake.

I have to say I cannot say the same about the 300+ sponsored academies , some of which have made major changes to their admission arrangements.

academyblues - As I have pointed out many times previously, the answer is exactly the same for both academies and maintained schools. For most SEN children the school pays for actual SEN provision regardless of whether it is an academy or a maintained school. However, for children needing special tailored provision the LA pays.

prh47bridge.: What I fail to understand, is if it is all the same, as you keep assuring us, why are you the goverment so keen for schools to become academies?

What is the advantage to the goverment?

So when academies have their budgets stretched to breaking point (as admission explains above) there will indeed be extra incentive for them to 'manage out' SEN pupils as getdown has had experience of.

choc, some advantages to the government is that academies weaken LA control and regulation, erode central and local negotiating power for teachers and effectively allow very dodgy and disreputable parts of the private sector (with no track record in improving schools) to privatise the UK education system.

Like these guys antiacademies.org.uk/2011/11/gove-approves-us-for-profit-charter-companies-to-take-over-schools/

The fact that completely innocent children who have no choice where they live or where they go to school will be the pawns in this very dangerous social experiment (and it's certainly gone tits up in the States) is secondary to the free market ideology of the Tory party (and not a stranger to the Labour party, which were the first to introduce academies though not with the same revolutionary zeal and coertion as the current government).

academyblues - They will have exactly the same incentive to manage out SEN pupils as maintained schools. Both have to fund SEN services out of their budget. That is what happens in Haringey. No school in Haringey receives any additional funding for SEN pupils other than those who need expensive tailored provision, nor does Haringey provide any significant level of central SEN support services - the SEN services it does provide centrally are those it will have to supply to academies free of charge. And, to pick up on your last post, part of the point of what the government is doing is to create a choice. I am not saying they will succeed but that is certainly one of their objectives.

GetDownNesbitt is misinformed. She says academies weren't paying into the PRU. She misunderstands how PRUs are funded. No school pays into a PRU. It is funded by the LA which deducts an element from school funding before passing it on to maintained schools. The LA continues to receive the element of the academy's funding that is for the PRU direct from the government. Also, the effect on funding when a pupil is excluded is identical for both maintained schools and academies. Neither will immediately lose any funding but both will lose funding in the following financial year if they have not been able to replace the pupil.

Having said that, I would agree that there is evidence that academies are more likely to exclude pupils either permanently or for fixed periods than maintained schools. Unfortunately the statistics available, both from this government and the previous government, do not indicate whether academies are better or worse than maintained schools in terms of excluding SEN students. The big unanswered question is why academies have higher exclusion rates. All the academies included in the most recent exclusion statistics converted under the last government and were failing schools at the time they converted. Does the high exclusion rate reflect a need to enforce discipline in these schools? Do the teachers involved believe the school will be better off financially? Or is there some other reason? I am sure you have an opinion on this but, in the absence of serious, unbiased research I am unwilling to draw any conclusions.

choccyp1g - I am not saying it is all the same but the repeated concerns about SEN students are misplaced. There is no reason to believe they will be any worse off, or any better off, than in maintained schools.

The academy programme is certainly not intended to save money. As I understand it the goals are:

• to free schools from LA control so that they are more responsive to parents
• to improve school standards
• to create a genuine choice for parents

I am not offering any opinion as to whether this is the right policy to achieve these goals.

I'd say that the goals are

• to erode teacher's terms and conditions and collective negotiating power
• to let the private sector run riot aka the States
• to deliberately restrict the 'choice' for some parents

On this last point, if DfE get their way, all the primaries near us will be sponsored academies. My neighbours and I will have no 'choice' of a maintained school.

Regarding increased exclusions in academies, I've got 2 friends who teach in secondary academies and are very clear that it's done to manipulate exam stats.

If those were the goals this is not the right way to go about it.

I'm not going to get into a discussion on teachers' terms and conditions beyond saying there is no evidence that existing academies have in any way undermined these. They need to recruit good staff. They aren't going to do that if they don't pay the rate for the job.

It is a funny sort of privatisation that says academies and free schools cannot be run for profit, that removes the requirement for academies to have an external sponsor, that encourages the new academies to be independent rather than have a sponsor and so on. You clearly are of the school of thought that believes the Conservatives want to privatise everything. I am sure some Conservatives do, just as some in the Labour movement want to nationalise everything. But neither is an accurate characterisation of the respective parties.

I accept that some people may not have the choice of a maintained school but that isn't really the point. Most parents don't care about whether or not the school is controlled by the LA. They care about the education their children receive. And many people already don't have the choice of an LA-controlled school - they are surrounded by faith schools. Gove is more interested in giving people a choice in the way the school operates, the way it delivers the curriculum, the emphasis it puts on different subjects and so on. That is of far more interest to most parents than who controls the school.

Exclusions to manipulate exam results is a common charge and it is certainly possible. However, I would like to see some real research instead of relying on anecdotal evidence. I don't see any reason why an academy would be more prone to manipulating exam results in this way than a maintained school.

Some research quoted in The Guardian, albeit in 2008 but there's nothing to contradict is since is that in 2006/7 academies made up 0.3% of schools, but accounted for 2% of the temporary exclusions and 3% of the permanent ones. One academy in Sunderland excluded 40 pupils in 2 weeks in September 2008.

I care about who owns and controls my children's school. My 'choice' of schools is severely restricted by the majority of primaries near us being faith schools - I also dislike this, and I don't understand how ensuring that more families have their 'choice' restricted by sponsored academies makes this lack of 'choice' anymore acceptable.

Privatisation occurs when public assets are given to private companies to operate with. Sponsored academies are given public assets to run schools with. This isn't a 'funny sort of privatisation' - it is privatisation.

Yes, I would say that the current government wants to privatise everything. What on earth else are they doing with the NHS and sponsored academies.

I don't my - or other children's - school to be run by a private company with no experience in eduction but with an vested interest in lining their own pockets. (Yes, I know on paper that when CAPITA run schools the school doesn't seem to make a profit, but the services they buy back from themselves certainly rake in the cash).

I'm surprised that this seems unfathomable to you.

There have been some lurid tales about exclusion rates in sponsored academies but given that most were failing schools with lousy behaviour, it is no great surprise if the exclusion rate goes up to start with, when a new regime of teaching staff comes in who are prepared to stand no nonsense on behaviour.

I will be siting on an independant appeal panel next week for a community maintained school that has a terrible reputation for getting rid of pupils that they do not want there. So whilst I can't deny that getting rid of pupils does happen, I actually would say it is not the type of school that determines that, it is the attitude of the head teacher.

Sponsored academies are not given any public assets. They lease the premises from the LA.

As far as I am aware Capita does not run any schools.

Your figures on exclusions are out of date. The most recent figures show that 6.1% of secondary schools are academies. The academies were responsible for 11.5% of all exclusions. The figures indicate that Exclusions have been falling in both maintained schools and academies for a number of years. Haringey is one of the few LAs were exclusions are still rising and it has one of the highest exclusion rates in the country.

I have never said that I do not understand your concern over how schools are controlled. It clearly matters to you. I merely pointed out that most parents couldn't care less as long as the school delivers a good education.

But the parents want the school to deliver a good education to ALL the dc there - including the SEN ones. Which is why it is such an issue for parents of dc with SEN that don't (quite) qualify for a statement. Which when you consider that in my LA, even dc that are working at a NC level that is 4 years behind what is expected for their age group can't get a statement, is most dc with SEN. Even quite significant SEN.

And the thing that worries me was a simple comment from the HT of my DD's Secondary (that is going through the process of becoming an Academy right now). The comment from the HT was "Well, the Government are determined to get rid of SA and SA+, so only dc with statements of Special Needs will class as having SEN, and needing help to access the curriculum". What does SHE know that we don't? And if this IS true, given my LA's reticence to even ASSESS for a statement - what happens to dc like my DD, who has numerous SN / SEN that prevent her from accessing the curriculum without help?

My DD has asd, she is partially deaf, she has hypermobility syndrome, she has Learning Difficulties (diagnosed as PDD-NOS), she has epilepsy that causes memory problems, she has Auditory processing Disorder, and she also has two leaky heart valves that need replacing by open heart surgery soon.

She does not have a statement, and my LA have refused to assess her 11 times in the 9 years she has been attending FT school. She is on SA+.

Without help to access the curriculum, she would not understand any of the work, and would end up having a meltdown, thus disturbing the class, and giving the school a reason to exclude her. And if the Government change the goalposts and get rid of SA and SA+, then the parents WON'T be able to complain to anyone - not the LA or the SoS. Because their dc won't be classed as having SN / SEN. .

Pretty much what the Government has done to the classification of disability since coming to power...

THIS is why parents of dc with SEN are concerned about the implications of their schools becoming Academies.

Sponsored academies are given public assets - they are given tax payers money to run schools.

That's interesting about Haringey's exclusion rates. I can only speak for our school but our current head of 7 years has never temporarily or permanently excluded a pupil. Our school does, however, has significantly above national average progress and attendance rates for parts of the community eg travellers, Roma who are let down badly by other schools.

No, Capita doesn't run any schools at the moment. It's desperately trying to though, so that it can line its own pockets by buying in its own educational software.

Huntycat,
I suspect that the headteacher is picking up on the current Green Paper on SEN, which does talk about changing the definitions of SEN.
I know that the DfE has now realised how complicated the SEN situation is and that a simple one size fits all approach is not going to work, so i think that we have to wait to see what next comes out from the DfE before any conclusions are reached.
I would certainly not underestimate the incredibly difficult problem that does exist with pupils such as you illustrate with your daughter's situation. I don't see this as a problem around academies this is a problem around all schools and the LAs ability to fund special needs.