Turning all schools into academies

[KathrynL]

I've only just seen online that in today's budget the Tories are due to announce plans to turn all schools into academies. I'm not big on politics and I don't know too much about academy schools and the difference between them and community schools so could anyone fill me in on what it will mean and do I need to worry.

A useful article in "The Conversation"

theconversation.com/an-obituary-farewell-to-your-local-education-authority-56387

About what sort of things local authorities currently do.

My answer was about academies. However, I believe the issue with free school funding is that startup costs are being confused with ongoing costs.

Free schools are funded on the same basis as other schools in the area. However they are new schools and will receive additional funding for startup costs. This startup funding is, of course, short term and will disappear once the school is established.

Free Schools get significant amounts of start up funding.

In particular, for their first three years they are not funded on the number of pupils they have, but on their capacity, so they are, in effect paid for empty places.

This explains why some Free Schools closed very abruptly after three years. They had failed to recruit, been well funded for their first three years and then the money was adjusted to the ACTUAL enrolment.

There have been other cases where Free Schools have run into difficulties, it would seem because they had not anticipated a fall in funding.

They also get special help at the start such as a one off 200, 000 pound grant to spend on such things as marketing the school. This can mount up. Bellevue Ltd a for profit company setting up Free Schools through its subsidiary BPET, now has 7 schools set up in two years and so will have recieved a marketing grant worth 1.4 Million, about the cost of running a one form entry primary school for a year.

I cross posted with PRH.

I would point out that when a new school starts it obviously has to be able to recruit a head teacher and other staff BEFORE it opens and these must be paid for.

This partly explains why creating Free Schools in areas where the places are not needed is so controversial, given that money spent on opening one Free School in one place is then not available to pay for creating extra school places where there is a shortage.

I think the policy makers are being pretty London-centric, because there you can open up a school just about anywhere and it's reachable from a wide area (because transport links are so numerous), and because the association of London boroughs is warning of place shortages across the capital in the coming years.

So opening anywhere in London makes sense. How that translates into less urbanised areas may be different.

The problem Meditrina is that London land prices are hellishly expensive. The DfE simply won't pay them. So unless there is LA land or open metropolitan land that can be adapted to use its very difficult to site a free school. You can see by the records more than one free school has been successful in its application but failed to secure a site.

"Seems councils can still open new schools where they think their is a need."
Yes, they can, and have always been able to. But they do have to jump through hoops to demonstrate that they have been unable to find someone to open as a free school before being allowed to.

That's not the only way. Councils can also have up to a 19% stake in a free school trust themselves, so they can work together with local partners to set up a school. Examples would be The Kingston Academy and the Richmond upon Thames School which have both been coordinated by their respective councils, bringing together partners from other local academies, colleges, businesses etc to make up the trust board.

please give examples of the failing academies that have been given back to local authorities

That is effectively what is happening here: twickenhamacademy.org.uk/notification-of-potential-changes-to-the-academy-nov15. The two schools in question aren't going back under LA control, but they are forming a Multi-Academy Trust with two local converter academies which still work closely with the Local Authority (and they have LA reps on their trust board).

In particular, for their first three years [free schools] are not funded on the number of pupils they have, but on their capacity, so they are, in effect paid for empty places

That's not true. They are (certainly now, if not in the past) funded on a per-pupil basis like any other school.

They also get special help at the start such as a one off 200, 000 pound grant to spend on such things as marketing the school.
And things like recruiting a senior leadership team, a full complement of specialist teaching staff, buying equipment, putting systems in place etc etc. The start-up funding is exactly the same as a new maintained school would get.

Extracted from LocalGov.co.uk

Just seen this:

"Nearly 2,500 academies not signed up to healthy school meal standards

The Local Government Association (LGA) has calculated there are more than one million children attending academies and free schools that have not signed up to rules designed to improve school meals.

Community schools (and some Academies) are required to ensure children get at least one portion of vegetables or salad each day as part of their school lunch.

These schools are also restricted when it comes to providing fried or pastry-based food or sugary drinks.

Having to follow these rules was, however, optional for the 3,896 academies and free schools which opened between 2010 and 2014 because this prevented the need for introducing ‘cumbersome’ legislation.

The LGA says the Government should use its childhood obesity strategy, expected in the summer, to close this loophole in the legislation to ensure that all academies and free schools have to formally commit to the standards followed by all other schools.

LGA Community Wellbeing spokeswoman, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, said: ‘It is deeply worrying that hundreds of academies and free schools are yet to commit to providing healthy school meals to children, more than a year since they were first asked to sign up to new school food standards by government."

‘It’s not right that we have rules for some but not all.’

She continued: ‘The forthcoming childhood obesity strategy is a great opportunity for the Government to close this loophole in legislation, which will make all academies follow standards that demonstrate a nutritional safety net to parents, who can be assured that their children are eating healthy food at school, rather than meals that could be laden in high amounts of fat, salt or sugar.’

nlondondad that LGA article is disingenuous because they've simply counted the number of schools that haven't signed this pledge: www.schoolfoodplan.com/school-food-standards/.

That doesn't mean those schools are not following the standards. Most will be using external caterers whose businesses simply wouldn't survive if they didn't follow the standards and I bet you'd be hard pressed to find an academy that put their catering contract out to tender without stating that meeting the standards was a requirement.

I checked the list of signatories and the academy my children attend isn't on the list, yet they clearly state on their website that they follow the standards.

It would be more accurate to say that the land is on loan to the academy.

I keep hearing this.

When you buy a London flat, you buy a 125 year lease (if the lease is new.) Is the place just on loan to you? If you don't own it, how come you can borrow against it? Would lenders grant mortgages against flats, if the flats were just on loan? Do flat owners go around saying they've borrowed their home?

Plus - since the 1980s, leaseholders have a legal obligation to sell the freehold to their lessees under favourable terms. I'll be interested to know whether this applies to us, the public: have we got to sell the freehold of our commonly-held properties, should the owners make a suitable offer?

I was dealing with the situation where nominal ownership of the land is transferred to the academy trust. However...

Is the place just on loan to you

Yes. You don't own it. The freeholder owns it. You are renting it.

If you don't own it, how come you can borrow against it

Because the lease has a value. You are borrowing against that. If you default the lender can take possession of the lease and resell it. They cannot sell the property. That belongs to whoever owns the freehold.

Would lenders grant mortgages against flats, if the flats were just on loan

Yes. They do so all the time. That's how leasehold property works.

Do flat owners go around saying they've borrowed their home

In general no. But they don't own their home. They rent it (although the freeholder often doesn't bother collecting the rent).

leaseholders have a legal obligation to sell the freehold to their lessees under favourable terms

That obligation only applies to domestic properties. It does not apply to schools or commercial properties.