Lower School Academy Status-advice please

[Megatron]

Hi there

First off I should explain that I am slightly clueless about this so I thought I'd ask here for some advice.

DCs school is considering converting to Academy status. It is a very small (around 80 pupils) lower school in a rural location so I believe they have to 'join forces' with another school(s) for this to be considered.

I wonder if any of you can give me some opinions of what the pros and cons of converting are?

What are the implications of joining forces with another school?

I believe that the government funding is received but what happens if the school cannot sustain full self provision with this funding. where does the rest of the money come from?

Anyone else been through conversion and what happened (if anything)?

Off out now for a while but will check in later to see if any replies. Thanks in advance.

The most likely reason they are considering converting is they have calculated they'll be better off financially if they convert.

There are several threads running on this at the moment - have a look through those.

OK thanks, I didn't realise.

I assume that the school is classed by Ofsted as outstanding or good, as they are the schools that are allowed to apply for converter academy status. What will happen is that in simple terms they have to "help" another school. That does not mean that they join forces or have any physical tie up unless they want to.
The funding for Academies is the same as for any maintained community school plus what is called LACSEG funding, which is funding that the LA currently keep and use across all schools for all sorts of activities. In effect the school will get the appropriate slice of this funding based on the number of pupils involved. With only 80 pupils this will not be massive. The bottom line is that they will get the funding and they have to live within the funding they get, that is, cut their cloth appropriately when it comes to staffing.
I know of one small primary school (60 pupils) that has become an academy. It chose this route because it was under threat of closure. By becoming an academy and getting Ofsted outstanding they now have 120 pupils! But it is not something that a small school should be considering without a great deal of careful consideration.