Tell me all you know about these new Academies

[sandyballs]

Went to view one last night and was very impressed, but what are the downsides? How are they funded? I've heard they are a charity so what happenes if they run out of money?

. Marking my place.
I've read a few things about the controversy, but am interested in what others have to say.

Academies are funded in the same way as any other school - they receive funding based on the number of pupils in the school. However, they receive more funding per pupil than LA-controlled schools. This is because the LA provides the funding for LA-controlled schools after deducting money to fund services provided by the LA, whereas academies receive their money direct from the government without any deductions. The down side of that is that the school has to source the services for itself. This could be by paying the LA to provide the services, purchasing services from an independent provider or doing it themselves. Part of the motivation for schools choosing to convert is a belief that the services they receive from the LA are not worth the amount of money the LA takes for them. Some schools believe their LA takes money for services that are of no use to them.

Academies are charitable companies. If they running a deficit they must take action to sort that out and have an agreed plan with YPLA (Young People's Learning Agency) to pay off any debts.

Thanks prh. Interesting.

What are the controversial bits you have heard then ragged?

And Academies receive extra funding for the first 2 years don't they ?
Start up funding ?

No. The government is not providing any start up funding for the new academies. They do get more than LA-controlled schools as outlined in my last post but that is not limited to the first 2 years.

I'm wondering if I've confused this with Free Schools, but then again, aren't Academies a type of Free school?

Do Academies have parent and community governors like regular state schools? What I read (about whichever type of school it was) was a series of contradictory claims about the way they were run due to not having enough community and parental input (governors).... Allegations that it would be too easy to introduce selection among pupils, to pay teachers too little, to sack teachers and ignore employment rights, to ignore outside or community needs, to employ under-qualified staff, to pander too much to pushy parental demands at the expense of employees' or community rights and needs, that they would suck the bright children out of other schools, that commercial or evangelical interests would invade and indoctrinate the pupils.. all of it rather hysterical and hypothetical.

Oh, and that standards would go down because class sizes would get too big due to the fact that they would be overworking the staff.... whilst at the same time driving other schools to close by attracting all the students for miles around. . Loads of contradictory allegations like that!

Sorry ,I was thinking of the " old " Academies .

There is a lot of contradictory stuff there, Ragged!

The academies and free schools are essentially the same thing. The main difference is that the new free schools don't have to have an outside body sponsoring them.

The governing body must include at least two parent governors and the head teacher. It is up to the academy to decide whether or not to have an LA governor, a staff governor and a co-opted governor.

Academies are in control of their own admission arrangements but they are not allowed to introduce selection, although schools that are already selective (i.e. grammar schools) can continue to be selective after converting to academies.

Academies are free to set the pay and conditions of their staff. That means they can pay extra to attract good teachers or, if they wish, pay less than other schools. Of course, if they pay less than other schools they may find it difficult to attract staff. Staff will, of course, have the same legal employment rights as anyone else and academies ignore that at their peril. Having said that, academies may find it easier to sack bad teachers.

Regarding outside/community needs, whilst academies are responsible for their own admissions, they are still answerable to the local admissions forum and, if necessary, the schools adjudicator. They get additional funding for children from disadvantaged backgrounds (the "pupil premium"). They are part of the co-ordinated admissions scheme run by the local authority. And they have to make themselves attractive to local parents or they won't get any pupils!

As far as I am aware academies are under the same duties to employ qualified staff as any other school.

Pandering to pushy parents can happen at LA-controlled schools. I don't know if it is better or worse at academies.

As they aren't allowed to be selective, I can't see academies sucking the bright children out of other school, any more than a popular LA-controlled school does. However, they will have more freedom to expand if they are popular.

The academies have to follow the national curriculum in English, Maths, Science and ICT. Again, I doubt most parents would continue sending their children to a school that was indoctrinating them for commercial or evangelical interests.

I'm not here to defend academies/free schools. I'm sure they won't be perfect - nothing ever is. I am genuinely interested to see if they improve our education system in the way protagonists of this approach believe.

The downside is the teachers are run into the ground as they don't have to give them normal teachers conditions.

I have a friend who is HOD in a newly turned Academy and she is SO run down with allthe work she has to do, she is up til late every night and working all through weekends and holidays.

Also in some cases the arts are being sidelined due to initiatives to up GCSE results. The kids are being worked into the ground too and denied extra curricular stuff.

Discipline has improved 150% in the one my friend teaches at. The new head has zero tolerance.

You are correct that they can set their own holiday and term dates.

The position regarding SEN children isn't as clear cut as you think. Many LAs already keep little or no SEN funding, choosing to pass this on to the schools so that they can provide the services required. In these cases, conversion to academy status will make little or no difference.

Academies are able to purchase services from the LA provided the LA is willing to sell them. They are under the same duty to provide for SEN children as LA-controlled schools. The LA still has a legal duty to ensure the statement of SEN is fulfilled. Having said that, I know some people have concerns about SEN children.

The schools fast tracked to academy status this year are all rated as outstanding.

Good to see that 2 parent governors will be required ,our academised ( old type ) school has a tiny sponsor dominated GB with 1 parent governor ( who seems to be there in perpetuity ).
Everything is directed at GCSE years and increasing the magic C grade .
The sixth form suffers regarding things like revision classes ,support for university applications ,field trips, even teaching where sixth form classes are not covered because their teachers are used to cover absence lower down the school because all resources seem to be diverted to lower years .
There is no Parents Voice or Forum ,just hand picked parents who are selected in ones and twos to sit on little committees to look at things like uniform or newsletter format.
The teachers are incredibly overstretched and have to jump when told to .
People think the school is doing well - school uniform is worn ,the GCSE results have improved ( though not always by obvious means ) glossy year books are distributed wherin children extol the heaven ( sic ) that is now their school .
But our DC's reality is not their's .

Schools are skint now. If they convert to academies, they no longer have to give an immediate 10% of their annual budget to the LA for compulsory services, and can choose where to spend the money instead and gain best value.

This is a good thing for the academies - the controversy is that it takes money away from the LA's centralised pot for services like SEN provision, so other schools in the area suffer.

They can also do what they like with teachers' terms and conditions... that's a bit more worrying :(

Academies are run in different ways depending on the vision and ethos. some have no parent governors and run as a business. Some run a 9-3 school day and some run from 8-5 including free breakfast for all kids.

Many are much stricter with exclusion and performance management of staff. Teachers are usually TUPEd over and don't change terms and conditions. Considering that the current government seems to think that teachers pay & conditions are overly generous, I'm not surprised that many academies have varied it.

Since Academies are independent of the LA, more money will be spent employing non-teaching staff to provide certain services that SOME teachers are well placed to provide if they are given a reduced teaching load. Teachers pay and conditions and the Workload agreement prevents this from happening. You may well find Academies that have equal numbers of teaching and non teaching staff. Sadly in a redundancy situation, it becomes easier to sack teachers and make classes bigger than it is to sack non-teachers and reassign simple tasks to teachers. Which is why there may be a case for minor modifications to the burgundy book and the WA 2003

My concern is SEN provision. DS has a statement of SEN as it a school which is applying to become an Acadamy, I worried but I don't know why!

A longer term concern is that in freeing themselves of LA control, they move directly to Whitehall oversight.

This Government is very unlikely to wish to change the scope of the promised freedoms for these schools; but what about the next one, or the next, or the next. It's a centralization of control of schools that totalitarians would dream of.

cat64 - The academies are funded based on the number of pupils they have, just like any other school. They therefore lose some funding whenever they exclude a pupil.

SauvignonBlanche - The school still has an obligation to provide for your child and the LA must ensure the statement is fulfilled. I hope your fears prove to be unfounded.

cat64 - You seem to be assuming that all LA provided services are funded by top slicing the schools budget. That is not the case. Nor is it the case that academies receive all the funding that would otherwise be top sliced by the LA.

Regarding the specifics you raise, Academies do not receive money for Education Psychology services as there is a statutory requirement that these services are provided by the LA, so this money still goes to the LA. Similarly the money for SEN administration, assessment and co-ordination continues to be paid to the LA. So it doesn't cost the academy anything to get a child assessed for SEN.

Academies do not receive money that would otherwise go to PRUs, specialist behaviour schools or support for excluded pupils. They do, however, receive the behaviour support services funding so that they can buy whatever services they feel are appropriate.

Cat64 - I'm as guilty of over-simplifying as everyone else! Sorry.

There is a Word document that gives the informationhere. It is a bit complicated and not really designed for non-experts. However, if you look at the table in Annex A, in broad terms anything that has N in the "LACSEG Relevant" column isn't paid to academies, but you also have to check the "Academy notes" column as in one or two cases it does go to the academies through another route. Sorry it isn't more user friendly but I don't know of any documents on this aspect of academy funding that are.

As an example, line 2.0.1 shows that the Educational Psychology Service is not included in academy funding as it is a responsibility of the LA. An example of where it is more complicated is line 1.0.1 (Individual Schools Budget) which shows N under LACSEG Relevant but the notes say academies receive an equivalent School Budget Share, so this is included in academy funding. Are you confused yet?

This document is about as user friendly as a cornered rat. If you need any help understanding it you know where to find me!