Converting to academy status - what should I ask?

[Parliamo]

There is a parent meeting tonight to consult about converting. I haven't had time to do as much research as I would like, so was hoping someone might be able to give me some good questions to ask.

Just to make it clear, I am deeply suspicious of this policy as I am a secondary teacher and we worry about changes to pay and conditions. However as a parent my priorities are different. My Dd1 has only just started in reception and I have two others to follow her so we will be involved with the school for a long time. I want them to get it right!

So what do I need to ask?

So a new academy can have different admissions criteria if it chooses, so long as those fit the national rules

Yes, that is correct. As Friday16 says the national rules are very restrictive. SEN children should not appear in the admission criteria at all as the school must admit any child with a statement naming the school. Ignoring faith schools where it is a little more complicated, the first category must be looked after children. After that they can give priority based on social/medical need, siblings, attendance at feeder schools (only relevant if it is a secondary school), catchment (if they have one - most don't) and distance. They can give priority to children of staff under certain conditions and they can use a lottery rather than distance as a tie breaker. But that is pretty much it. The Admissions Code includes a long list of things that they cannot use so there is no real scope for them to do anything discriminatory and still comply with the code.

parents lose rights

If there is a sponsor there may be some truth in this but if there is no sponsor I cannot see how parents lose rights.

Where is the dynamism and vigour to get things done and challenge the Head

That would be the biggest worry for me, although it is really unrelated to whether or not they convert to academy status. There are too many schools where the governors simply rubber stamp the head's decisions.

I have concerns about the governors too, but I would expect the board to be pretty average. After all it is an unpaid time-consuming role with a great deal of responsibility, and if a trustee as well, personal liability. As for parent governors, again, not atypical to have vacancies. All the 'dynamic' people with the skills and knowledge to be rigourous are presumably using them in a paid role, and when they're not working, taking care of their young families.

To the poster suggesting I take up the vacancy, I only could make the meeting because I'm on maternity leave. When I go back to work I will not have the time or energy to be rigourous, nor do I have any skills that may be useful. I could only offer deep pessimism about where this is all heading.

I am conscious that I am probably catastrophising about academies, but I stand by 'financial disaster waiting to happen'. I don't think it's totally unreasonable to think that handing several million pounds to a bunch of volunteers and time poor teachers with limited administrative support and no business, accounting, legal or hr expertise is likely to lead to major problems.

I am conscious that I am probably catastrophising about academies,

But the problems you describe are those that are likely to arise in free schools. Academies aren't run by volunteers any more than maintained schools are, and buy in the same LEA HR and legal support as they had before. They're entirely different to free schools, which arguably are a disaster waiting to happen.

Two free schools have already collapsed (the Discovery New School in Crawley and the obvious case in Derby). To my knowledge, no academy has done likewise, even though there are orders of magnitude more of them, and there is no particular reason to believe that one will.

I'm so with you on that last post Parliamo, and then it's things that LAs currently do, that they won't be there for, once Gove's broken them all up - like rehouse whole schools within a week after a fire or serious flood at a school (2 actual experiences in my LA) - things you think won't happen to you, but I bet that's what the schools it happened to thought, too.

BackforGood - The academy trust will be constituted as a company limited by guarantee so the governors will not be personally liable. And the bunch of volunteers you refer to are already handed potentially several million pounds every year (depending on the number of pupils). That is one of the roles of the governors. They are given a pot of money and told to run the school. They are not told how to spend that money. On conversion to academy status they will be given a slightly larger pot of money and told to run the school. The school gets limited administrative support already. It has to handle all its own purchasing, both goods and services, for example. Contrary to what appears to be popular belief these things are not handled by the LA. In reality, of course, sorting out the school's budget and dealing with other administrative issues is already part of the role of the head teacher and other senior staff.

They're entirely different to free schools

How? As far as I can see a free school is simply an academy which has been set up from scratch rather than converting from an existing school. Discovery New School has not collapsed yet as far as I am aware but it is in danger of being closed if it does not come up with an adequate plan to get the school out of special measures.

As far as I can see a free school is simply an academy which has been set up from scratch rather than converting from an existing school.

That "simply" covers a massive set of differences. Taking over a school as a going concern, with its buildings, staff and processes, and most of its governance, is an entirely different task to converting an old office block and trying to start the whole thing from scratch

It is not, after all, unheard of for LA controlled schools to go into special measures either, and usually for the same reasons: division amongst the governors, inadequate head, sudden changes to catchment or demographic, etc. Such is the way of established schools, and the incidence of failing academies is not out of line with the incidence of failing maintained schools (especially as a disproportionate number of the academies started life as already-failed controlled schools). The free schools that have collapsed were never functioning schools in the first place.

To hear some speak, you would have to believe that no LEA school ever went into special measures. How could they, with all the fantastic support they were getting from the authority?

prh47 - I don't understand why you've tagged me in that answer ?

I have no idea either! It was aimed at Parliamo. Sorry.

friday16 - Sorry, I thought we were talking about a different type of failure. Yes, of course some academies and free schools will go into special measures or fail completely just as some community schools do. It is too early to say whether this will happen more or less often than with community schools.