'Zealot' Michael Gove is accused of 'lunacy' in £400m free school row...how is this affecting your children's education?

[MillyDLA]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/classroom-controversy-zealot-michael-gove-accused-of-lunacy-in-free-schools-budget-row-9350075.html

I would like some reactions and thoughts to this. As a teacher in an oversubscribed school, surrounded by other over subscribed schools money would have been better spent creating more places where they are needed in the state sector.

"its the abruptness of it"

Hmm, you might be right, although here are the reasons for termination of the agreement "forthwith" instead of with a notice period ....

^"123) The Secretary of State may at any time by notice in writing terminate this Agreement forthwith on the occurrence of any of the following events:-
a) the Academy Trust calls a meeting of its creditors (whether formal or informal) orenters into any composition or arrangement (whether formal or informal) with its creditors; or
b) the Academy Trust proposes a voluntary arrangement within Section 1 of the Insolvency Act 1986; or
^c) the Academy Trust is unable to pay its debts within the meaning of Section 123 of Insolvency Act 1986 provided that, for the purposes of this clause, Section 123 (1)(a)
of the Insolvency Act 1986 shall have effect as if the amount of £10,000 was
substituted for £750. The Academy Trust shall not be deemed unable to pay its
debts for the purposes of this clause if any such demand as is mentioned in the said
Section is being contested in good faith by the Academy Trust; or
d) the Academy Trust has a receiver and manager (with the exception of Receivers and
Managers or Interim Managers appointed by the Charity Commission under the
Charities Act 1993 or any subsequent re-enactment of that Act), administrator or
administrative receiver appointed over all or any part of its undertakings, assets or
income; or
e) any distraint, execution or other process is levied or enforced on any of the Academy
Trust's property and is not paid out, withdrawn or discharged within fifteen Business
Days; or
f) the Academy Trust has passed a resolution for its winding up; or
g) an order is made for the winding up or administration of the Academy Trust.

... oops, clicked submit before I'd finished the formatting.

Anyway, the reasons given by the trust in their statement seem to correspond to (f) in that list, rather than any of the other points, although obviously they may have decided to jump before they were pushed.

And I'm not sure how those duplicate posts happened! I'll ask for them to be withdrawn.

Reading their statement it seems to have been ultimately a commercial decision by the parent, a for profit company, which describes itself as an "employee owned mutual" which seems to mean that while it has shares they are all owned by employees.

So, in effect, the parent company (profits up by 5 per cent last year) has decided to withdraw from the Academies line of business, but it would seem is concerned to do so in an orderly manner. So a strategic retreat, taken for business reasons, rather than the disorderly rout of an insolvency.

Taking the Trust's statement at face value this should reassure as disruption to the schools ought to be minimised.

But it is impossible not to notice the extent to which parents have been consulted or regarded as legitimate stakeholders.

That is, not at all.

Nlondondad, I read it differently - as an admission that they weren't up to the job. In those circumstances, speedy withdrawl is a good thing, because it allows an alternative provider to be put in place quickly. According to the BBC one of the school principals has described it as an "exciting opportunity".

one of the school principals has described it as an "exciting opportunity"

If I was issuing a PR statement designed to calm parents and keep the school looking attractive to future sponsors so that I could retain children and teachers and keep my own job, that's what I would say too.

www.paigntoncommunitycollege.com/important-news-concerning-prospects-academies-trust/

Another factor contributing to this failure is reported below:

www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Sponsor-withdraws-support-Gloucestershire-academy/story-21104102-detail/story.html

'"The Trust has found it very difficult over the past year to provide the required support and services to all our academies because of the geographical spread of the Trust academies.'

So national chains aren't a good idea then?

A national chain means you can't share teachers - the whole economy of scale thing only applies to about 10-15% of the budget, and if your schools are undersubscribed you have even less to play with.

But a local chain means a monopoly like Harris in SE London. Less choice for parents and as academy chains, less consultation and accountability than from LAs.

" If I was issuing a PR statement designed to calm parents and keep the school looking attractive to future sponsors so that I could retain children and teachers and keep my own job, that's what I would say too."

Yes, me too, but if I had regrets about the departure I would find a way to express that too.

I expect there are other heads out there who would very much like a similar opportunity, and wouldn't mind at all if it came about suddenly, rather than with a year's notice as might have been the case if they hadn't withdrawn voluntarily.

'Good riddance and no regrets' is the message then?

The real problem here is that neither parents nor the wider community have a say in the new sponsor.

@medtrina just seen your posting of 18 May.

You asked :

" as the 144 figure is not applicants with no places, what is the real figure for that? "

The figure for "that" is zero. Both then, and now.

As of today, 22 May, the number of applicants who have not yet received an offer for one of their original(up to six, but not everyone uses six) preferences is down to 102, from 144 mostly in the south of the borough. As the number of vacant reception places in Islington is larger than 102, the number is still zero. Offers continue to be made, and another batch of people confirming whether they are accepting or rejecting places is expected soon.

Either someone has received an offer or they haven't.

It is ambiguous to use the descriptors like 'no offer at any of preferred schools' because that includes both those who have received an offer (just not at a preference) and those who have received no offer at all.

If all have a place (but not at a preference) and they still have 102 vacancies, that is a highly unusual situation. So unusual that I suspect there's a misunderstanding somewhere. (More likely is that some/most/all have no place at all at present, but the Candy Crush of rejections/re-offers and late offers is still underway and there are still hopes enough places will emerge in time).

" So unusual that I suspect there's a misunderstanding somewhere."

Is it because the number of offers is higher than the number of places?

In my area they "over-book" (to use airline terminology) the places, because they know a certain proportion will drop out of the system. It's a risky strategy, but given that there are local elections going on it is also risky (for incumbent politicians) to have families still without places in May.

@meditrina

I really wish you would read posts, including your own more carefully.

You asked how many applicants had no places, and I answered:

None.

There are enough places for all applicants.

But the number of people yet to receive an OFFER of a place at a particular school, as of today is 102.

That is down from 179, and now down 144. Slightly better than this time last year.

Please try to grasp that we are talking about a process here that goes on for weeks.

My "descriptor' was not exactly as you quoted it. I wrote that the "number of applicants" ..(as of today) who had not (yet) had an offer at a school for which an application had been made - that is a preference indicated - was 102. Offers continue to be made to these pupils, as further offers become possible. These will be only at schools for which they have indicated a preference. In Islington, no one has yet received an offer, for a school they did not apply for.

At the end of the process, in August, if there are any people remaining without an offer at one of their preferences (last year there were five) than those candidates will be "allocated" to schools. That is to say, schools for which they did not originally apply but, at the end have the relevant vacancies. So last year five people got offers, but not until August, at schools they had not applied for.

The reason why, despite the fact that, as of today, 102 families are awaiting an offer for one of the schools they applied for , we know that they will all get an offer, eventually, in some Islington school, is that there are, today, more vacant places in Islington schools than there are applicants.

This matters because it demonstrates arithmetically that there is no shortage of school places, in Islington again this year. This supports the case that the over 10 million pound costing Whitehall Park School is not needed. Especially, on that site in the extreme North of the Borough when the growth in the school population is in the South. And at a cost of over three million to the Islington schools' repair and refurb budget.

It shows that the forecasts Islington are working to are accurate, and give confidence to future forecasts which further increased demand in the south of the borough, and flat, or reducing demand in the North.

The DfE by the way accept this. They say that the Free School has been approved, not because places are needed, but to "increase choice"

@icecreamsoup

(Worth stressing again that I am talking about Islington practice, as you point out Boroughs vary)

I hope my posting above has cleared things up, but to answer your question.

In Islington they take a strict view and do not offer any more places than they have. So if a school has 60 reception places they only offer 60 places, and then wait for a refusal, before re offering the place. Makes the process slow. And I do not think it is really properly explained to parents.

In Haringey, like Islington they only offer exactly the number on offer day, but unlike Islington they make everyone an offer on offer day. If you do not get one of your preferences you get an "allocated" place. Islington take the view that the gain of giving everyone a place of some kind is out weighed by the fact, that very few of the allocated places are taken up in the end as most parents get better offers (ie for a school they had applied for, and closer to them ) by the end of the process.

In your Borough, if they offer more places than they have at offer day, it will be because they have quite high levels of refusal in the first round (are you in Richmond?) and they rely on this, so they know that if it usually takes 70 offers to fill a particular 60 place school, then they take the calculated risk of offering 70 on offer day. Must speed things up a lot. Maybe Islington should consider it.

"Maybe Islington should consider it."

It sounds like they don't need to yet because everyone has an offer (whether it be at a preferred school or an allocated school), implying that once a proportion of people have dropped out of the system, there will be surplus places.

Overbooking is something they may consider when application numbers increase, and not everyone can be given an allocation on Offer Day.

In my area the system is tuned towards having zero surplus at the end of the process in September rather than on Offer Day.

@icecreamsoup

Ah the thing is that while Haringey give everyone an offer on offer day, which will either be a preference offer, that is for a school people actually applied for, or if they did not get that an "allocated" offer, soeveryone gets an offer of some kind, Islington do not.

The Islington view is that although they COULD have given everyone an offer on offer day, they only give people offers at preference schools, that is a school they have actually applied for. Although they could they do not make any allocated offers.

All the offers on offer day are based on the Permitted Admission Numbers for the schools -the dreaded PAN - but after offer day they stand ready when they see which schools have physical capacity AND long waiting lists, to if need be, create bulge classes. So they did this last year with some schools, and then turned the bulge clases into permanent increases in PAN for this year.

They do actually plan to have a surplus at the end of the process, which will then be concentrated, in general, in the less popular schools, but not more than 5 per cent of total. This is needed, they reckon to deal with subsequent in year applications.

Its only at the end that they make allocated offers, if they have to.

last year they made five, out of over 2000, all in the south of the borough and no where near the proposed Free School.

But I do see your point that if you are doing things Haringeys way overbooking, providing you get it right is a good way of getting the best fit between places and accepted offers.

In Islington the advantage, at present, is it would speed things up.

It's interesting to see how different the allocation processes are in different areas. Presumably the forecasting methods are very variable too. There's no standardisation on that so it must be difficult for the Govt to know if it's getting consistency in the numbers.

In London the association of London Councils and the GLA do work together so there is a degree of London wide standardisation, and also there is an iterative process of looking at how accurate forecasts were in the past. However forecasting can never be exact, which is why actual figures generated by the admissions system are so important.

" In London the association of London Councils and the GLA do work together so there is a degree of London wide standardisation"

There may be knowledge sharing, but there's also a strong element of policy/attitude in the degree of ruthlessness applied in different areas. My LA's target surplus of 0% contrasts markedly with yours, which has 5%. It is the social consequences of that difference that I'm interested in. If other LA's are looking over the parapet and thinking of copying that approach, then the social consequences need to be understood. I.e. Full(er) schools but unhappier residents/voters.

icecreamsoup you might be mixing up LA policies for secondaries and primaries, however. Nlondondad was talking specifically about primaries. I think you were thinking about secondaries. I don't believe LAs can 'overbook' allocations on primaries without taking a great risk, because class size regulations apply specifically to 'Infant Class Sizes' and the only exceptions are cases like twins or army children. If they exceeded them by 5 children they would have to provide a teacher if they all accepted. The rules don't apply to secondaries but even if they did, with the specialist teachers required the teacher-pupil ratio is lower to start off with.

On free schools, and Sulivan primary school in Hammersmith and Fulham - Labour's regain of that council may be a reprieve for them.

Straggle, yes it is the secondary places that they overbook rather than the primary places (so there were many unplaced applicants on primary offer day, on top of those who didn't get any of their 6 preferences). However the target surplus for planning purposes is still 0% for both primaries and secondaries.

There is a posting on the Local Schools network site which seems to me to combine the discussion in the last few posts of how school admissions work, and the overarching theme on this thread, which is basically to ask whether lots of money is being spent on Free Schools which are in areas without a place shortage, while some areas WITH a place shortage go un catered for.

Its here:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2014/03/when-is-a-more-than-half-empty-school-an-oversubscribed-school-when-it-is-the-whitehall-park-school-islington-this-autumn/