Primary schools into academies

[academyblues]

Regular but name changed as my geographical area will be obvious to some and I don't want to out myself.

It looks like my dc's primary is going to be made into an academy, presumably from Sept 2012. It wasn't on Gove's original list of 200, but there seems to have been some behind the scenes negotiations with the LA.

I know that no-one knows how primary schools will function as academies as our children are the first in this particular educational and social experiment, but can someone give me some ideas of what to expect?

What exactly is the process? How are the head/sponsor appointed/decided on? Is there any mechanism for parents to have a say in the school's specialisms or to try to hold on the the aspects of the school that are good, of which there are many?

The plan is for a very sizeable proportion of our borough's (Haringey) primaries to become academies over the next couple of years, hence undermining the LA infrastructure sufficiently for the rest to be forced to convert, it would seem.

Like most parents, I just like a decent local school - is this possible with academy status.

Whether or not a school is an academy will make no difference to how easy/difficult it is to get a statement. That remains the LA's responsibility.

I obviously didn't make it sufficiently clear in my last post. The LA remains responsible for monitoring ALL SEN provision, not just provision for children with statements. So if you are unhappy with provision for children on SA or SA+ your first port of call is still the LA.

And of course complaining to the LA won't help any more than complaining to the Secretary of State will.

If your school can't support your child - they can't support them. All the complaining in the world won't change things.

A couple of interesting articles from yesterday, one that mrz has already linked to.

The privatisation of schools and the 'sink or swim' ethos of the free market have absolutely no place in education.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/28/us-charter-academies-free-schools

ww.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/29/council-condemns-acadmey-move-michael-gove

Whilst i would accept that academies that have a sponsor could be considered to be particially privatised, I fail to understand how you believe that converter academies are privatised, what is private about them?
As for sink or swim ethos I agree with that principle. Maybe if we had such an ethos 15 or 20 years ago many of our problem schools now would not be problem schools. They would have sunk without a trace, without being propped up by LAs, that did not have the guts to do what was necessary and would have been replaced by a school that did give the pupils a decent education.

I'm talking about sponsored academies.

And yet your messages are all opposing the new academies which are generally not sponsored.

Interesting. There are just over 4 times as many converter academies as there are sponsored academies. They are all outstanding or good with outstanding schools and by the very nature of inspection they are considered to be doing a good job by Ofsted. To me all that matters is that all pupils receive the best possible education and quite frankly we are a long way away from that ideal at the moment.
Academy status is not the panacea for everything and the one thing you can guarantee is that in the next 3 years there will be some absolute disasters within the Academy set up, but anything that potentially allows schools to bring about an improvement in their education of pupils has got to be worth doing.

Not if it involves the private sector.

I don't agree that exposing children to "some absolute disasters within the Academy set up" is an politically or morally acceptable direction for the UK education system.

I think it's safe to say that the proportion of sponsored academies is going to increase very dramatically over the next few years - that's Gove's plan and the wheels are in motion.

No, that is most definitely not Gove's plan. If it was he wouldn't have introduced free schools (which do not require sponsors) nor would he have removed the requirement for academies to be sponsored and actively encouraged the new academies to go without sponsors. The proportion of sponsored academies has already reduced dramatically and will continue to do so.

You proposal is that instead of exposing children to some absolute disasters within the Academy set up we should continue exposing them to some absolute disasters within the maintained school set up and continue accepting our education system sliding down the international league tables. I do not think that is a morally acceptable direction. In my view preserving the status quo is not an option. Academies may not be the right solution but the current system is failing far too many children.

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

No, my proposal is not to continue exposing children 'to some disasters within the maintained school set up'. Where have I said that?

Part of my proposal is that Haringey schools are properly funded. They currently receive outer London funding rates, though have to pay their staff inner London rates and are compared to inner London schools on the League tables, but an average 2 form entry school has half a million pound smaller budget that the same size school a couple of streets away in a different borough.

There will be future disasters in the maintained sector, as there have been for the last 20 years and nothing will change that. To believe that all will be fine by remaining as is, is just putting on rose tinted specs.

What you want for Haringey is unlikely to happen. They are funded as outer London rates and actually schools in Haringey should therefore be paying their staff on the outer London rates, not inner london rates.

Haringey's GUF (guaranteed unit of funding) is £6306.81 per pupil and I accept that is less than Tower Hamlet which is £8051.51 but how would you fancy having to run schools in leicestershire where the figure is £4428.70, the lowest in the country I believe.

I know that everybody says cost of living is higher etc living in London but lets be honest 85% of a schools budget is on wages, so the relative pay scales are all important. Taking the salary of M6 level teachers, outside London that is £31552, outer London is £35116 and inner London £36387, that is a differential of 11.3% and of 15.3%. The differential between Leicestershire and Haringey is 42.4% and between Leicestershire and Tower Hamlets is a staggering 81.8%. Those are figures that successive governments have failed to address and the London boroughs have continued to get funding out of all proportion to actual need.

If Mr Gove is actually true to his promises and does deliver a national formula that is transparent and fair, sorry all the schools in the London area are going to have to rethink the way they operate because they are going to lose a lot of funding.

Schools in Haringey tried to pay their staff outer London rates and couldn't attract staff. They have no choice.

Haringey is called an 'Inner London' school in the SATS tables, where it performs less well than other better funded boroughs.

Our borough certainly doesn't get disproportionate amounts of funding to need. We have some of the highest rates of child poverty, temporary housing and unemployment (especially young people) - social needs that directly affect the educational needs of the children involved.

I don't understand how the schools in Haringey are allowed to chose what they pay their teachers?

I thought the whole point of this national pay and conditions, was that all schools had to pay their teachers the same.

If Haringey is classified as an outer London school, how are they allowed to pay inner London wages?

I've got no idea about how they are 'allowed'.

I just know that is the current situation. Haringey is sometimes classed as a inner London borough ie in the national league tables, so maybe it's something to do with that?

As admission points out, in London at least there is a direct correlation between well funded boroughs and good academic achievement ie in Tower Hamlets. I suspect that an average sized primary school being half a million down on its yearly budget in Haringey doesn't help their educational provision.