fighting conversion to MAT - help?

[Jumpingshipquick]

My children's school is pushing for conversion to MAT. It's a school considered 'good' with a governing body considered 'effective' by OFSTED, within a local authority that performs well. It's a single form entry school, and has no good reason to convert - it won't give them anything they can't already do. I have my suspicions why, but the argument so far is that it is better to lead rather than be forced. Whilst I don't doubt the good intentions of the people currently running the school, I have serious concerns about the implications of the change of structure. I would really appreciate someone looking over my points to see whether I am right for now.

• My school will legally cease to exist.
• Funding will go to the MAT, not individual schools within the MAT and the Board of Directors is required to make spending decisions based on the MAT priorities, not individual (ex)school priorities.
• The Board of Directors of the MAT can be paid for their roles.
• Teachers are employed by the MAT, not the individual schools (and can therefore be deployed anywhere within the MAT)
• There is no legal requirement to keep the individual school’s board of governors, and as it will have no power beyond what the Board happen to devolve, it will only be a talking shop anyway.
• The MAT will be run by a board of governors, akin to the board of directors in a business. This board will consist purely of co-opted members, no requirement for parent governors, no teachers, not necessary local people. Appointments are neither required to be advertised, nor elected and members can only be removed by the Secretary of State, from London.
• The only form of public scrutiny is the published accounts.
• The only way parents can hold the MAT board to account is via the Regional Schools Commissioner. (There are going to be 8 for the whole country) The RSC will be appointed by the Secretary of State.
• The Secretary of State retains the right to remove, or force schools/ MATs to join other MATs.

Thanks

e.g. Numbers for Hampshire ...

Academy Converter - 6%
Academy Sponsor Led - 2%
Community School - 59%
Community Special School - 4%
Foundation School - 2%
LA Nursery School - 1%
Pupil Referral Unit - 1%
VA Schools - 10%
VC Schools - 14%

The VA schools are likely to do whatever their diocese advises. I guess it's less clear cut for the VC schools though.

So Hampshire has 8% of LA maintained schools (mostly secondary) that have become academies plus maybe 3 VA primary schools (if I recall some Diocese figures correctly).

I do not agree that VA schools will do what the Diocese advises. They will do what is best for the children at the school. In our case we could make a strong case for not joining the Diocese MAT.

I can understand why Governing Bodies in Hampshire have decided not to convert to academies - the LA Childrens Services has one of the best reputations in England and their school improvement services are comprehensive and high quality (but rather expensive!).

But now they have no choice, pretty

That's not quite true evil - even if the legislation is passed, the timeline for academisation isn't due to be completed until 2022.
I'd be very surprised if any LA can maintain the same level of service to schools over the next 6 years as they are now.
Hants is already cutting staff and increasing charges to schools. At some point, the schools are going to have to make some tough decisions.

PrettyBrightFireflies - I'd be very surprised if any LA can maintain the same level of service to schools over the next 6 years as they are now.

Which is odd given seemingly large amount of money that is available to facilitate the mass converstion to adademy status.

So your argument is that Hampshire is an excellent LA but forced academisation is ok because chances are by 2022 they won't be an excellent LA any more?

Not sure what's odd about it - the Government have been cutting funding to LAs for years.

It comes down to whether or not LAs (as a collective) are doing a good enough job; Wilshaw says no, they're not. The proposed system allows the 'good' LAs to remain involved but gives the RSCs the power to remove schools from poor MATs in a way they can't be from poor LAs.

It reminds me of what happened when OFSTED took responsibility for childcare inspections. Up until then, each LA had been responsible for their own inspection framework. Some were very good, others were dreadful. So the Government handed responsibility over to OFSTED.
When the OFSTED framework was published, there was outcry in the area I was working because the standards published by OFSTED were less stringent that the standards that the individual LA was enforcing at the time.
But, overall, that change has led to an increase in standards for DCs across the country.

"the Government have been cutting funding to LAs for years"

But it is possible - as in the example given by a poster above, to find £1.25 million for a SINGLE failing secondary over 5 years to be helped by a SINGLE adjacent high-performing academy [the principal difference between the two is highly likely to be intake, btw - nothing to do with status].

Any school would improve given £1.25 million of extra money, and if every LA was given an extra £1.25 million over 5 years for every poorly performing secondary in its remit, the schools would certainly improve. If that kind of money - as i think urban suggested - is 'a legitimate cost to take on an extra resbonsibility/burden' - ie the real cost of doing the job of turning the poorer school round' - then why can it only be done in the context of academisation? And if this model is replicated countrywide, how much is it going to cost?? And conversely, since it is obviously unsustainable, how much genuine improvement is going to be achieved when there is actually zero extra money provided for either the 'better' or the 'worse' school, its all expected to be done my the 'magic ingredient' that is called academisation?

the Government have been cutting funding to LAs for years

So let me get this right.

It's unlikely that this LA will be able to continue to provide the same excellent support and services to its schools for the next six years, not because it's not good enough, but because the government will systematically reduce its budget year on year, leaving it unable to provide the same level of service?

And supporters of academisation will then say - "Look, it's not good any more. We need to convert these schools to academies.".

That can't be true, can it?

if every LA was given an extra £1.25 million over 5 years for every poorly performing secondary in its remit, the schools would certainly improve

I'm not sure I share your confidence.

A good LA would certainly bring about improvements but there are rarely schools in special measures in good LAs.
A poor LA is less likely to use the money efficiently.

The academisation agenda provides the government with the ability to intervene at an LA Education level without having to make changes to the local Governement legislation - which would cause far greater objections in parliament.

That can't be true, can it?

I think it is. This government has a wider agenda in relation to LAs.
The impact of that agenda is that LAs won't be able to deliver the same services to schools. So the academisation agenda is a solution to the impact of their wider agenda.

That can't be true, can it?

Yes that's pretty much exactly what's happening. So at individual school level the result is that parents start to consider academisation to be the best option.

Pretty whilst we may occasionally whinge about the cost of our SLAs from HCC we cannot source cheaper, high quality core services from external free market providers. We do link with our cluster to source/fund pertinent training when that is in the best interest of the children in our schools that will be from external providers so we do know how to make our funding work for us.

HCC services may, in your view, be expensive but if the return on cost spent is the vast majority of schools being rated good/o/s across all levels of provision then perhaps that is value for money. And HCC is good at extending their services to neighbouring LA schools where those LA education services have been cut to the bone.

If it were possible, but the White Paper clearly signposts that RSCs will not approve, an HCC wide MAT would probably be a solution for HCC schools - maintained, community, VC and VA.

I think it is. This government has a wider agenda in relation to LAs.
The impact of that agenda is that LAs won't be able to deliver the same services to schools. So the academisation agenda is a solution to the impact of their wider agenda.

So, pretty, you've been on this thread from the start arguing that reason why academisation is the right thing is because LAs don't always do a good job. And yet you admit that the government is actively making sure they can't do a good job by reducing their funding and you still think academisation is a good idea?

We hear about 'poor LAs' in the justification for academisation

Can I just clarify that we are comparing like with like here, as it is a bit like 'poor schools', which may be poor educational establishments, but may also be facing

• Less funding than in other areas
• A significantly deprived neighbourhood
• Low levels of education or value of education in the local population (remembering that maternal level of education is a very strong indicator of a child's educational success)
• A high level of worklessness - often for multiple generations - in the population, meaning that children in the school have nothing to aspire to once they leave school.

So at a school level, if we are comparing:

• A school in a high-funded area with one in a low funded area (the difference can be 1000s of pounds PER PUPIL)
• 8% FSM vs 68% FSM
• A historically deprived area (e.g. one where traditional employment has disappeared, one that is the result of urban resettlement, remote seaside towns)
• The majority of parents with degress vs the vast majority of parents with few or no GCSEs
• An area of almost complete employment vs 60%+ unemployment
• A secondary school taking in 60%+ of pupils with level 5s+ in SATs vs a school taking in over 50% with Level 3s or below

then we are not comparing like with like.

Equally at LA level, is there a ['true' comparison? Obviously just comparing one LA with another and saying 'one has more good schools than another' is a nonsense - the schools may be good for reasons of intake, area and funding, nothing whatever to do with the LA. If we compare LAs fairly - ie comparing those with identical (or very similar - one of the weirdnesses of education is that there is so much variation) funding, a spread of schools with very similar intakes, a similar number taken out because of academisation, the same degree of selection (ie none, all or small amount) and roughly similar demographics within their area - which are performing well and which are performing less well?

The comparison is the OFSTED judgement, surely?

OFSTED the into account demographics when the judge schools and when they judge LAs.

The LA inspection framework was only put in place 4 years ago - I'm still trying to collate the outcomes from the OFSTED website to see whether it is the findings of those reports that may be a factor in the governments current agenda.

So, pretty, you've been on this thread from the start arguing that reason why academisation is the right thing is because LAs don't always do a good job. And yet you admit that the government is actively making sure they can't do a good job by reducing their funding and you still think academisation is a good idea?

The reasons that funding to LAs is being reduced is far wider than education.
The impact of decisions the Governement are making for other reasons has a knock on effect on education - whether or not it is currently good.

The academy agenda is a response to that impact.

It's kind of irrelevant that the government are cutting funding to councils for other reasons, though.

The fact that their cuts are both affecting the provision of support to LA-supported schools and being used as a reason to justify academisation on the grounds that those LAs may now be underperforming because of lack of funds is immoral.

Pretty,

I have just searched the Ofsted website for reports on Local Authorities' School Improvement arrangements (which seem to be the closest proxy fopr an inspection of 'how well they look after the schools in their area - unless I'm reading the site wrongly, there are no direct inspections of their school oversight responsibilities?)

I have checked all the LAs local to me - which would provide a reasonably fair comparison, because they are quite similar counties.

Nothing. As in, not a single letter or report for any of them. So how can LAs be deemed to be 'failing' in their school improvement or school oversight roles, when the latter isn't inspected at all and the data on the former appears to be incredibly patchy?

(The data on school improvement, having dug a little further, appears to be from a set of inspections done a few years ago, focusing solely on those that seemed to be performing badly (the conclusion was that many weren't actually doing too badly at all) If it is this data that is being generalised, it is a notable case of selection bias in the use of statistics - select for inspection only those performing badly, then extrapolate the results to the whole as if the selection was random....)

Par for the course then if it is being put forward by the DfE.

I would have thought the reason the LAs can't continue delivering those services is because they used to take the top slice, and the smaller that amount gets as academisation goes through, the less they can offer. plenty of schools (especially small primary schools) will still want to buy in that support (HR/ payroll type services come to mind) as numerous examples have been given because they do it well, but the big secondaries, or big MATs have in house services ( like the school I work at) will opt out, and so it becomes less efficient for the LA, hence more expensive ... And so on. Suddenly everybody, especially small primary schools, will be paying more, not less, for all the services the LAs used to provide for and can't anymore. And will be more fragmented.

Jumping Why will they be paying more for these services? Many payroll/HR services exist which support the small charity sector/nannies and are very reasonably priced.