Can anyone answer my question that is probably v naive?

[Anothernamechange3]

Our primary school has been an academy for the last few years. Am I right in thinking that it is now run like a company with investors/shareholders receiving dividends according to profit? If I’ve got that wrong ignore the rest of this because my question has been answered already. I’m really just questioning why we as parents are being asked to bake cakes to raise money for reading books when I consider this cost to be a fundamental core cost of being able to operate as a school rather than a ‘nice to have’? (I’d also rather give a tenner to the school if it is legit rather than spend more than that on ingredients and the time it takes to cook them but that’s another story). Please don’t take this as a teacher bashing thread I know it’s a hard job and I love what my children’s teachers do for them I’m just trying to understand how it all works

you think your school is raking in profits for investors? Are you serious? Legit question

No that’s not my question. I’m surprised that we’re being asked to raise money for reading books (which I think should be a statutory requirement for a school to run effectively) rather than school trips (which would be a lovely added extra for my children). If shareholders are receiving a share of profits along the way then I think my question is even more valid. I tried to be very clear in my op that I’m not trying to criticise and my starting assumptions might be wildly wrong in which question my point is moot but I apologise if that’s how this question came across.

That is not my understanding of an academy- I may be wrong but I understand that the school or group of schools (in a multi academy trust) receive money direct from councils and can then use it as they see fit rather than having to go through the council for goods or services. They operate in more of a business manner as they are responsible for sourcing these goods and services and allocate their pot of money as they see fit. In your case I would suspect that they have decided asking for donations for reading books is likely to get more buy in from parents than saying it will go towards a teachers CPD course or 10 hours of an educational psychologists time but essentially it is just topping up the pot.

Funding comes direct to the trust rather than being funded and run by the local authority. No shareholders, definitely not profit making.

Still having to share the £ around too many outgoings, not enough coming in etc

That makes sense, thank you. I tried to make clear in my thread title that I’m aware I obviously haven’t got the complete picture which is why I came here as I knew I’d get better information. When other parents are telling you things about investors and profits and you’re being asked to raise money for reading books it can make you feel uneasy. Like I say I’m not here to criticise and I love what my school has done for my children but if this stuff is being talked about surely it’s better to question and get the full facts. If other parents are questioning this it could be beneficial for the school to know to set the record straight as well. I’m posting on here anonymously to find out the real picture not complaining to school for a reason.

It just seems sad to me that a school has to leave their real objective of caring for/teaching children to try and find ways to raise money for them to have essential resources to be able to do their job effectively.

A lot of academies I've worked with or know people who work in have many levels of people whose job seems to involve little more that auditing teachers' work - constant learning walks, book scrutinies, behaviour drop ins etc. LA schools don't have these. So that's a lot of people taking very nice salaries taking money away from employing more teachers and TAs to put in front of children. Jobs often seems to go to 'the chosen few' rather than there being a particularly transparent recruitment process. I'm amazed this isn't more widely recognised.

Also my question isn’t are teachers working to make profit for shareholders but rather the other way round. If a previously public service is privatised my question is more like is there pressure to make a profit for shareholders which is a different thing in my opinion. I’m very glad you’ve set me straight and private/not local authority doesn’t necessarily mean profit making. I don’t mean to offend by asking the question but I don’t know how it works so that’s why I’m asking.

Good on you for checking and now you know you can't totally rely on the mum chat - some of the claims I see on our WhatsApp group are quite astonishing but it stirs everyone up unnecessarily! If your school has any parent engagement events then you should go to those too - ours have them once per term with some agenda items set by the head but always a chance for parents to ask questions about anything so you can get a much better sense of what's going on across the school, what the challenges are, question why they've done things a particular way, feedback on their proposals etc. It always makes me smile that the serial moaners can never attend - not even the online ones mid lockdown!!

@FoxIvy this is what I’d like to know more about rather than just accepting it’s ok for parents to basically be funding essential resources in schools. I don’t want to be controversial but I would like to be able to have all the information

A company surely has to be floated on the stock exchange in order to sell shares so look up the school and see if it’s listed. If not I’m guessing it cant be selling shares?

I thought all schools did fundraisers as they never have enough money. Much like our local church.

I understand that but I feel like we as a society/government have more of a responsibility to make sure kids have books to be able to learn to read than for a church to run. I understand this is a contentious topic and I don’t want to offend anyone but also think if I’m im an interested party and don’t fully understand the issues I have a right to ask and understand. This thread has helped me see that it’s not v clear cut, as I suspected, but I was just asking for more information to understand why.

A company has to be listed to be able to sell shares publicly, but I’m not sure if there’s one or two investors who receive profits that the same rules apply. I could be wrong though and this comment isn’t meant to be a criticism of schools or academies, just a general question about how companies work.

The first response to my op was, in my opinion, a reinterpretation to my question that could make it seem unreasonable, and that demonstrates the problem to me. People working in schools are doing their best and quite rightly feel a little bit attacked when that is questioned. Parents don’t really know what’s going on and just see it from the perspective of their own experience. I think it’s important we’re all transparent and able to get information so we can understand. I know at the ‘ground level’ we’re all working as hard as we can for our children but the policies at the top can’t be immune from questioning and understanding.

There's an academy chain near us that has a paid social media manager, pays for adverts on the radio and sponsored FB posts. I happen to know they set their own employment contracts for teaching staff with unpaid holidays, longer mandated hours etc. It's run very much in a business fashion.

I always raise an eyebrow when they ask for donation for a cake sale or charge for second hand uniform for eg. I just think, stop paying for the adverts and unecessary jobs....

I teach at an academy. We don't have shareholders or investors and we definitely don't make a profit!! As stated above it means that as a school we are given the funding directly rather than via the council. It means that we can choose our own services rather than having to access them through the council. As a result we're able to access educational psychologists more easily, we can provide private counselling for children if needed as well as little things like being able to choose a refuse provider who will recycle our waste (something that was very important to our children).
Unfortunately school budgets are crap and there's often very little left in the pot for 'extras'. As history co-ordinator I get about £150-200 a year to purchase resources for all four year groups - it doesn't go far!

as far as I know, academies are not private companies listed on the stock market. however, there have been cases of academies paying far too much money to private contractors for 'services' which may not have been appropriate

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/08/nepotism-waste-and-cheating-welcome-to-englands-school-system

www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/mar/05/newschools.schools

This might be helpful here.

Could you not just have googled it? The information that academies are non-profit charitable trusts isn’t exactly hard to find.

They get funded per pupil so some cram in lots of pupils, use unqualified teachers (which they are allowed to do) and pay many layers of unnecessary management huge salaries, which in a way is sort of making a profit out of it for some

@FoxIvy
All those things are done in LA schools, what on earth makes you think they aren't.
Some are done by governors and therefore don't cost the school anything but some are carried out by school improvement partners from the LA that the school pay for

@Beetlebum1981 has explained it perfectly. Definitely no profit sharing involved! Funding is exactly the same as when a school was controlled by a Local Authority, except the local authority don't get their cut for the services they provide - we have the freedom to choose our providers. Basically, the amount we receive per child is exactly the same.

Academy's are state schools under funded in the same way. Money on come from state. Money out goes on running the school.

Where I teach there are four levels of management above me who don’t set foot in the classroom apart from to judge either me or the children….deputy head- head of school- executive head- ceo- but we don’t have enough money to pay for much needs TAs on minimum wage…..

Academies aren’t businesses. They are funded per pupil like all state schools (and they are state schools). The main financial difference is not procuring services via the LA. All their revenue remains in the school to fund costs or keep as reserves in case of emergency needs. There are no distributions to anyone of any description.

All state schools whether academies or LA run are dealing with significant financial hardship. In real terms their funding has gone down substantially and costs, particularly for staff due to new pension arrangements, have gone up. Covid has made the situation much worse.

Most state schools to balance the books are having to make very hard choices and are having to cut provisions and/ or ask parents for help. One of our local LA schools rents out its facilities on the weekends and during the holidays to various private groups to raise extra money and this is increasingly common as well.

In London these financial difficulties are compounded by falling pupil numbers which is forcing a number of schools to close as they aren’t financially viable.

Each school uses their funding from government differently which is monitored by the governing board. Join the resource committee as a parent governor or speak to the governors if you think the school is wasting money. Otherwise just help if you can as the situation is dire.