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

Sponsored academies got up to 10% of their capital funding extra from the sponsor (up to £2m), though that extra money was not required after a while because too few sponsors came forward.

'Above board', convertor academies got, IIRC, £25,000 flat rate conversion cost + up to 10% of their budget. In areas with strong LAs, where there was resistance to academy conversions, personal conversations suggest that there were some interesting 'extras' offered in terms of lower-rate services, rapidly-approved capital projects etc.

I am not saying, on the other points, that academies HAVE done these things more than LA schools have. However, if a change of leadership is sufficient of itself to cause improvement, why also require academisation? The others are simply well-known 'canny' methods of improving results (changing admissions boundaries can be particularly effective), and it would be interesting to see how widespread they have been.

dlacey - they won't have a geographical monopoly,

"on what basis can this assumption be made?"

The White Paper makes reference to geographically diverse MATs being preferable (at least, I think it was the White Paper - if not, I'll see if I can find it).

Pretty - that is interesting, because in the link urban provided above, Ofsted indicates that one of their greatest concerns about 3 of the 7 very poorly performing large MATs (and just those 3 cover 136 individual schools) is their geographical spread and the difficulties this poses for oversight.

"However, it is clear that, with such a vast spread of diverse provision, these particular trusts are still struggling to monitor performance effectively"

Perhaps a case of dogma over evidence?

(I am also slightly boggling about the idiocy of 212 'Multi Academy trusts' having only 1 Academy..... a bit like 'every child being above average', it implies a lack of comprehension about what words actually mean that is rather worrying in our policy makers...)

On the uniform front, I have just compared the uniform for a local 'sponsored' academy with a historically 'difficult' intake.

Uniform of legacy school? Plain black blazer of any type (supermarket etc), white shirt, plain grey trousers or skirt. Sports kit white top, black skirt or shorts.

Uniform of academy? Piped blazer, jumper with embroidered logo, only 1 style of skirt or trousers. Sports uniform: two coloured embroidered special sports tops and bottoms...

This is definitely anecdote not data, but the new uniform is MUCH more expensive than the old.

(OTOH, the uniforms of the naice convertor academies have not changed a jot)

Ofsted indicates that one of their greatest concerns ... is their geographical spread

You can have a bit of geographical spread, without going as far as those MATs they were most concerned about.

Localised MATs are being strongly encouraged, but a few schools in a local cluster, possibly competing against another local MAT(which may or may not cross the borough boundary), a more geographically widespread MAT and a faith-MAT, is very different to the LA-maintained model where the boundary is fixed by the electoral system and all the non-faith schools within it are in one cluster.

There was me thinking that the 'in kind' bribes to convert to academies were reasonably covert. But no - public information about a local school joining a large MAT (one of those identified as failing) a few years ago quite cheerfully states that the LA spent over £3 million on a new building to ensure the success of the move to academy status....

Which school are you referring to, as calling it a bribe without backing that up is just hot air.

teacherwith2kids, when an academy changes uniform policy, I assume it is doing so for a reason. Maybe trying to make a new start for the school, to create more of an identity, to encourage pride, maybe even to send a message to parents to take the school more seriously. Hopefully those reason raise standards. So why do you say it like it's a negative thing?

Urban, when a school changes its uniform to something that costs exactly the same amount, with a phasing-in period that means no-one has to buy new uniform until the old is outgrown, it can be positive just as you suggest. My DCs' primary and the one i work in have introduced new sweatshirts in that manner, and another local school moved from a trousers / skirt colour that was increasingly hard to buy to a more mainstream one over a period of several years.

When a school moves, overnight, from a cheap, generic uniform to one that is 3-4x more expensive and only available from a single supplier, that is different. It can signal a new start - but can also send out signals that the school is no longer 'friendly' to families on low incomes.

I will send you the link to the info on the school via pm. The word 'bribe' is my own, the line about making the transfer to academy status successful is not.

JWIM Wed 30-Mar-16 12:26:42 Can I just challenge the statement by diacey What do you mean by many [in] "They have already persuaded many successful maintained schools to convert voluntarily, but they only have 5 years in power and need to speed things up." Just over 50% of Secondary schools have converted to academy status - some will be previously good/o/s schools that are standalone converter academies, some will be forced conversion. Does anyone know the actual data or split between the two categories?Of the 15,000+ Primary schools only about 1500 have converted to academy status. Again, some will be converters but ? most will be forced conversion. Anyone know the precise numbers.

JWIM, I'm not sure if anyone answered these questions for you, but for anyone wanting some exact numbers you can download a csv file of all academies and free schools in England from here, and then use a spreadsheet to analyse the data.

The current numbers (excluding middle schools for simplicity) are as follows:

There are 3104 State Secondary Schools in England, of which 2043 (66%) are some form of academy, as follows:
Sponsored Academies: 532
Converter Academies: 1341
Free Schools: 89
Free Schools (16-19): 5
Studio Schools: 37
UTC: 39

There are 16760 State Primary Schools in England, of which 3135 (19%) are some form of academy, as follows:
Sponsored Academies:959
Converter Academies: 2059
Free Schools: 117

The uniform isn't always changed with sponsored academies either. Like everything it is dependent on the MAT. My daughter's school's uniform didn't change.

tobysmum77 was your DD school a forced academy?

I do think that urbanfox1337 has a point that the change of uniform may be/ quite likely is part of the strategy to change the image of the school. However, I wouldn't put it past some schools to use it with a clear understanding that it may well put off families on lower disposable incomes who simply can't afford the cost or don't want to feel like the poor relatives amongst the rest of the school intake. I'm going to sit on the fence for this one.

One point that I do think should be considered when assessing the improvement in performance of any school, is the change in the makeup of the intake. If the improvement is to be mapped over a number of years and the research based on "similar" schools then surely they need to at least include in the bias to conclusions as to whether the intake cohorts stayed the same between the "similar" schools being compared e.g. was there drop/increase in FSM, EAL, SEN or did the ability mix change etc.

urbanfox1337 with regards to you questioning teacherwith2kids about the use of bribes, perhaps read back a few pages to dlacey's comments about In my area the strong schools are helping the weak schools by forming a MAT with the strong heads in control. However they are being given financial carrots.

Yes it was in sm

tobysmum77 Sat 02-Apr-16 09:18:44 Yes it was in sm was it undersubscribed?

A local academy solved the problem of new uniform by buying all existing pupils a new set-blazer/shirt/tie/trousers/skirt/PE kit-which seemed a rather extravagant solution!

spanieleyes - buying all existing pupils a new set - blazer/shirt/tie/trousers/skirt/PE kit is the school located in a really deprived area?

That's what's going to happen in children's school too. When I queried why they were buying ties instead of phonics readers, it's the money left over from the conversion grant after they've paid the solicitors.

No, percentage of FSM pupils is below national average. I can understand the rationale behind changing uniform ( although it has always been a "Good " school so it wasn't making a fresh start!) but wholesale clearance seemed a little drastic!

was it undersubscribed?

Well not prior to that but it was after. All schools in SM are.

tobysmum77 Sat 02-Apr-16 09:50:14 was it undersubscribed?

Well not prior to that but it was after.

Is it still in SM and undersubscribed? If not how did they go about encouraging parents to put their children in the school?

I have an example of 'carrots' in action for you- someone I know was discussing this yesterday.

The outstanding academy in the town is being offered 1.25 million over 5 years to take over failing forced academy (low role numbers but set to rise, burdened with expensive PFI deal, accusations of previous academy head making money out of her edubusiness at the expense of school budget) It looks to me like the best possible option on the face of it, all things considered. But it's left me with a few more questions really.

So will the RSCs be bailing out schools in the future or will it still be the LA?

Does it mean we're still in the vicious circle whereby schools have to fail completely before something is done?

And would it be possible in the future for the RSC to force the deal, without the 'carrot'?

m.stokesentinel.co.uk/1-25m-bail-cash-strapped-school-open/story-29008040-detail/story.html

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/01/councils-decry-governments-academy-schools-land-grab

So originally the school land was owned by the council but when a school became an academy it was leased to the academy but still owned by the council. Now however, instead of councils leasing the land to academies, the land will be legally transferred to the DfE who will then lease it to the academies. Unless the DfE is paying for the land ( which it appears not to be) then this seems like theft! ( and what about church schools where the diocese owns the land, will this be transferred to the DfE too!)

I think that has shocked me most. So academisation really never can be undone.

And given the changes being made to the planning laws, schools really have something to worry about. A quango in London will control a huge amount of land all over the country. Well if that is not just asking for corruption...

Jumpingshipquick - And would it be possible in the future ... to force the deal, without the 'carrot'?

This is my biggest concern. If the need for incentives is going to be an ongoing thing (and often, once incentives are place, the need for them is ongoing) can they be sustained and where is the money going to come from on a long term basis?

I would also add the question of whether those "carrots" are going to need to get bigger and bigger over time. Monetary incentives are only a short term motivator, normally the money has to be increased over time to retain the motivation. In which case, again where is the money going to come from?