Forced acadamisation and Primary School Ark academies. Does anyone know about them?

[Mez2000]

We have just found out today that our lovely community primary school which has served the community for over 100 years is due to become an Ark Academy as it had a bad one bad Ofsted report in March 2013. As parents we are feeling bemused and worried. The last 3 Ofsteds were were either "good" or "good with outstanding features". Ofsted judged the attainment of our children at reception, year 1 and year 2 as being "above average". Our Maths/English combined level 4 SATs far exceeds the government 60% floor target. Yet the Ofsted inspector deemed things as so bad we have been put in Special Measures. Without any consultion of the parents, we are told we are going to become an Ark academy. Does anyone know anything about Ark Primary schools? We have a lovely school and while there are things that could be better, we don't understand why being an academy is the only way for the future. Any opinions gratefully received.

niminypiminy - You cannot sell land you lease. It belongs to the landlord. In the case of an academy that is usually the LA. And the lease terminates automatically if the academy's funding agreement is terminated.

muminlondon - Schools get less support from their LA than you think, although some LAs provide more than others. And my experience of charities is that the fact bosses are highly paid does not put people off volunteering. Of course, some LA staff earn similarly high salaries.

prh47bridge schools get an allocation per head and as primaries are smaller it means less of that money is allocated per school - but as there are about four times as many primaries as secondaries in any LA they get economy of scale that way. Those services are essential and as community primaries are expanding much more rapidly then church ones to three or four form entry, losing a community primary is bad for an LA. If the LA has otherwise a good record and there are good partner schools it should be perfectly possible for improvement to be made without a sponsor. With the political will. It happened to a secondary in my LA - from special measures to outstanding without sponsor or new building in several years.

And niminypiminy is right - the Academies Act as I understand it made it possible for freehold of land to be transferred to academy and free school trusts. I know of a couple of examples of this - I think it happened with Ark Putney. There's a mention here:

'Community school land is usually held the LA and our expectation continues to be that it will be leased to the academy trust on a 125 year lease for a peppercorn rent, as at present. But the Secretary of State has the power under the Academies Act 2010 to make a scheme to transfer the land to the academy trust freehold or leasehold if necessary.'

Ark academies aren't homogenised. The centralisation is in systems, teacher training and support services. They aim to attract good heads and I've them relatively free reign

I would be delighted at the opportunity tbh

Before putting ARK on a pedestal, it's worth looking at another point of view from the Anti-academies alliance website. Hard to see the evidence from this that ARK are 'the best' of anything tbh.

ARK was set up by Hedge Fund managers, the people who pushed the world economy over the edge.

ARK currently run 11 schools of which 5 have entered pupils for GCSEs. ARK results fall from 64% to 43%, a drop of 21%, with St Albans in Birmingham dropping 45% from 67% to 22%. This is the worst drop in the country.

ARK also have some troubling permanent exclusion rates. The average for local authorities is .15%

The Globe academy excluded 1.31%, nearly 9 times the national average. Walworth academy excluded .97%.

ARK has been given 6 more schools.

A friend of mine's primary in Hammersmith was forcibly taken over by ARK last year, despite widespread objections from parents and teachers.

I agree completely with rebound's point that fundamentally what a school is like depends on its head and SLT.

People I know who teach in sponsored academies say that performance targets etc are centralised by people who have never set foot in the school, which is difficult sometimes.

Christina

Ark is a charity and good for the hedge funders to actually do something good with their money and time.

Their remit is to work in areas of gross deprivation with the most challenging social issues.

www.arkonline.org/news/ark-schools-announces-gcse-results

The point about academy chains is that there already exists organisations that can advise, make economies of scale, provide support services: they are called LEAs.

And whatever the good and bad points of a particular academy chain, we need to remember that the situation of converter academies (who go into it of their own free will) and sponsored academies (who go, mostly, at gunpoint) is very different: converter academies retain much more autonomy.

We also need to remember that there is little evidence that becoming a sponsored academy makes any difference to school improvement, and that there is actually no evidence at all relating to primary sponsored academies.

bound

Lots and lots of community primaries are based in areas of 'gross deprivation with the most challenging social issues'.

The fact remains that ARK involvement hasn't improved most of the schools they are involved with. When you look on the DFE performance tables without all the ARK spin evident on their website, it's very evident that results have gone down.

'there already exists organisations that can advise, make economies of scale, provide support services: they are called LEAs'

... and this help is also provided by staff and heads of other community schools in that local authority. My DC's primary head has been seconded a couple of times to other schools to help out where the head has needed to take sick leave. She collaborates with other heads on professional development and reports back to parents on these initiatives so we really feel it is a 'family of schools'. Our primaries declined an invitation by the DfE and LA to get the primaries to convert voluntarily to academies because they work together, generally very effectively, and because they need economy of scale and not fragmentation.

However, I think one school in my LA may have just landed in the position the OP describes (I don't know about whether it will have a sponsor imposed on it). It will be a massive blow to the community - the LA has previously been rated very highly for its primaries and I know there will be a big political embarrassment for the council because of cuts to services. The secondary I mentioned which went from special measures to outstanding without a sponsor has a brilliant head. I am 100% certain this and other schools along with the education department could provide the external support needed to the primary in question. But I do not know what might be going on behind the scenes in the murky world academy brokers.

In my experience as a governor I waver closer towards the opinion that LEAs are overly bureaucratic, expensive nightmares institutions and services bought in from approved suppliers are neither cost effective nor efficient and if I hadn't been an experienced project manager in the private world some of the building / refurbishment projects I oversaw in my time as governor would have not kept on track.

Private business skills in educational business services (Purchasing, project management, finance, HR and site) are much needed in educational institutions

What I am trying to say is that schools need excellent headteachers, SLT and committed teachers to drive and deliver an amazing education to all students BUT that the business side of running a school the finance, fabric, HR, PR, Data, IT, community involvement should be managed by experienced professionals to enable those who can teach to do so.

Yes, bound, just like E-Act, where once again a lead figure has had to resign for financial mismanagement. E-Act used to be known as Edutrust and were criticised for financial mismanagement under the previous government resulting in the resignation of the previous chairman Lord Bhatia, now Liddington has gone.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10018962/Academy-boss-quits-over-probe-into-school-finances.html

I agree that local authorities can be bureaucracy-heavy and inefficient, but handing public cash to this shambles is surely not the solution.

'the business side of running a school the finance, fabric, HR, PR, Data, IT, community involvement should be managed by experienced professionals to enable those who can teach to do so.'

It is managed by professionals. They happen to work for the council. Local management of schools has for 20 years enabled heads to ave some autonomy in these decisions. Being part of a chain restricts your options to those provided by a chain.

This is mumsnet for you, someone asks for experience of ARK academies, and 90% of replies provide rants of government policies rather than answering the question.

sanam
Ark run very few schools : it is not surprising that most of us have no experience of them.

My REAL concern is that Academy chains can amalgamate their financial results and therefore hide the management costs at each school.
Also, as an auditor, I do not share prh47's faith in the altruism of charities.
All of the Academy Chains have business arms through which they funnel service charges like IT and maintenance and then extract significant remuneration.
And we are not allowed to see their detailed accounts - as we would be if they were under LEA control and therefore subkect to Eric Pickles public sector transparency rules ...

Remember that London's LEAs are not representative of the country at large - they are too small and inefficient - thanks Maggie for dismantling ILEA

"It is managed by professionals. They happen to work for the council. Local management of schools has for 20 years enabled heads to ave some autonomy in these decisions. Being part of a chain restricts your options to those provided by a chain."

Sorry but in my experience there is a vast difference between people who work at a council level within the council bureaucracy and people who work in private fields. But that's just my experience and only of 3 London boroughs so it might be very different elsewhere

"All of the Academy Chains have business arms through which they funnel service charges like IT and maintenance and then extract significant remuneration."

I'm confused, is this true even with a "not-for-profit" charity like ARK?

Boundandrebound
London Boroughs are indeed the worst examples of LEAs

to convert to a business view

In a good LEA you will have clusters of primaries feeding into each secondary and then a spread of 6th form picking up from all the schools, both academic and vocational

at the LEA you'll have attached inspectors for each subject and specific learning area (SEN, G&T, truancy)

at an admin level there will be a head of LEA a cople of deputies and six or seven team leaders

so, in Hampshire we had the LEA overseeing a total of 680 schools
in Richmond the same LEA systems oversaw 40 schools
no wonder it did not work.

its called economies of scale and separating front and back office functions in a flattened bureaucracy
ILEA had it but each London Borough is much too small.
County LEAs are not
SAdly policy is written by people who have never lived outside central London.

ARK academies
look up company numbers 05932797, 05112090, 04589451 and many, many more
they have a company for each aspect of what they do, filing abbreviated accounts.
THey are by guarantee so do not pay divs, but the pay seems to go to non directors : a nice way to move the money around
an hour on duedil and I'll find where the money ends up but I bet its not in the UK.

Wow that sounds libellous, if I were you I'd get that removed

How is reporting what I can see on my duedil subscription be libellous?
All the base information comes from Companies House and the Charities Commission.
There is nothing illegail in anything they are doing.
Its sound commercial sense.
But please, do not think that all charities are cuddly.

'and I'll find where the money ends up but I bet its not in the UK.'

Is this relevant?

michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/gove-giver-schools-given-away.html

2010 annual report and accounts:

'ARK holds 40-60% of its funds in the ARK Masters Fund (AMF), an investment unit trust ... managed by ARK Masters Management Limited (AMML), a company registered in the Cayman Islands'

You could truly weep reading this. How have these academies been allowed to dominate our educational future? We seem to be blindly allowing this.

Our school was judged 'good with outstanding elements' in 2010. We have just changed to a (non-sponsored) Academy. The school have somehow got Ofsted to decide that they don't need to inspect again yet.

I know they are holding it off till September because they want the current Y6 SATS results included. Mostly because with a year group of 30, and an unusually high amount of very (scarily) clever DC's in this year group, the results will be excellent.

The lowest DC in the year group is working at lvl 4b - I know her mum. The majority of the class are on lvl 5. And there are at least 6/30 working on lvl 6 in English, and at least 3/30 working on lvl 7 in Maths.

Plus I think they are forward planning because the current Y4's SATS results when they are in Y6 are going to be far worse, as that year group has an unusually high amount of statemented DC's and DC's with other SEN's.

If when Y4 sit their SATS in two years time, the results don't show 2 lvls progress, and say Ofsted inspects then and downgraded the school to 'requires improvement', could the school be forced to become a sponsored Academy despite being an Academy already?