your thoughts on the whole academy thing?

[ArfurBrain]

My child's secondary has just announced consultation into becoming one.

By my reckoning, this now means all the town's secondaries will be (potentially) academies.
I dare say many of my questions will be answered at the parents' evening. But the whole academy thing appears to be so rushed that I'm sure there are loads of issues which no-one really knows what will happen until they rear their heads, so to speak.

From a social point of view, what implications might this have on the town?
Admissions etc?

What will happen to those academies which have a less afluent parent pool?
SEN services?
Exclusions?
I mean if all the schools are no longer in LEA control, whose responsibliy is it to ensure each child gets a school place ?

And as I understand it, once a school has become an academy, it cannot go back to LEA control,
I sort of feel our children are being guinea pigs in a ratheruncontrolled educational experiment.
Would just like to know what MNetters feel.

Hello all. I am new to Mumsnet and need advice on how to set up a discussion with people in my area on the subject of academies. My local school is due to decide soon. Can anyone help please?

Hi

My firs time on Mumsnet too (still trying to work out what DD, DS and DC are something to do with sons, daughters and children I guess)and as you can see I've been quite vocal!

I joined after about 1/3 of the way through this. Ive just been writing stuff here and people have been commenting...

Hi, marvindorfler, my sympathies - not easy but the views were so against it at the 'consultation' meeting that we got moving. Talked to sympathetic governors and to NUT.

Then one of the parents bought a book and set up a website. The biggest problem publicising it but it getting a lot of hits. Race against time though. We have used it to pubilsh open letters to governors requesting meetings etc.

There is talk of a legal challenge but don't know how difficult this is. It is all happening very fast and our fear is that it is poorly thought through.

www.antiacademies.org.uk/

This is a good starting point, but googling "academies parental opposition" might bring up some more stuff. But yes, speed is the essence if you have concerns, because it can all become a reality in a matter of a few weeks.

none of this is making me wish to support our school's decision...
I cannot see ANY advantages at all, having skimmed that ATL Q&A site :(
(great link, many thanks!)
And talking to work colleagues and friends this weekend and the community at large, NOBODY has any awareness or knowledge or seems to care.
We got the letter last week informing us of the intention and we have to submit all comments by 30th March. That is just awful, when there is so much to look into.
And i am just a normal parent,with fairly average intellect and understanding; not a governor, or a businessperson, or a pillar of the community.
How am I and others like me supposed to make ourselves heard?

ArfurBrain; I am afraid I do not think that Michael Gove wants you or teachers or support staff or anyone else to be heard. He has stated his wish for all school to become academies, for all new schools opened to be free schools and he has legislated for governors to all but bypass consultation and for there to be no way back once the decision to become an academy is made. There is a politcal agenda here that has no regard for democratic process.

I want to make my voice heard which is why I am posting here with as much support as I can muster; but how do we make ourselves heard (this is not a rhetorical question)

All I can suggest is that EVERYBODY emails and calls the DFE with their queries
every day
they don't want LEAs to deal with schools. FINE they can deal with it .......

It appears from my experience locally that the schools are being pressured by government to convert and that governors are being led largely by head teachers. Each school is announcing its plans at very short notice leaving parents/teachers insufficient time to resist effectively. The solution could lie with parents grouping nationally and pressuring government directly to try and influence policy rather than taking on each school individually. No idea how to do this but the few of us on this site could at least be the start?

UPDATE
URGENT
UPDATE
I was chatting to an insurance broker today.
Schools that were in the LEA and are now converting to academies are going to have to take out full buildings and contents insurance (under the LEAs they have - quite reasonably - self insured)
For a primary the annual premium will be OIRO £20,000
For a secondary, the premium will be OIRO £150,000

for the next year or so, the DfE will refund this expense, but from then on (or once there is a change in government) it will come out of the school budget
annually
which utterly burgers any benefit to being an academy

The insurers are rubbing their hands at being gifted this huge chunk of the "education budget"
what was our teachers / books will turn into brokers' BMW's
is that what we want???

The description "But from then on or once there is a change in Government" sounds rather woolly. Which is it? From "then on" is just one years time. We won't get a change in Government for at least three years.

Sorry, I see your post says "for the next year or so". Even so, this does not read like a definite change, just yet another risk to factor in to the decision. (Of which there are many, granted)

Kez
the point is that for now, Gove has stated that Insurance is a "refundable cost"
BUT
he's not had to write the cheques yet......
and once he has, what is the chance that they will continue?
bearing in minds that this is an ADDITIONAL cost to the education budget that did not exist pre Academies...

I agree it's a risk but it's not a certainty; that's what I am trying to establish.

Academies are not locally democratic. The composition of governing bodies in Local Authority (LA) schools is subject to the law - they have to have representatives of the locality for example. Academy governing bodies select themselves and have no legal obligation to select people from the local area. They will have the power to set term times, timing of the school day, teachers' pay and conditions. Existing teachers in schools that convert should have their pay and conditions protected under something called TUPE but teacher unions say that some academies are not honouring this. George Osborne has said he wants to get rid of TUPE so that if one organisation takes over another then the pay and conditions of staff do not have to be protected (NHS staff watch out if private organisations take over NHS work).

Many schools are converting for financial reasons, although the Department for Education says that no school should gain a financial advantage on conversion. The extra money on offer, they say, is to pay for those services which are provided by the Local Authority. However, two of my local schools who wish to convert said in their consultation letters that the reason was financial. If this is true, then academies will receive more than their fair share of money at the expense of LA schools. This is unethical and immoral.

Anyone wishing to know more should go to the Local Schools Network:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/

It would worry me that some of these financial moves are just delaying the inevitable. Using money to protect redundancies or improve poor buildings but then the learners will lose whatever other services they now don't have the money to buy. There is also no stretcher bearer if finances deteriorate in the future.

See the post below for concerns about academy chains:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/03/blog-on-academy-chains-accountability/#comment-4799

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Apologies for ignorance (fairly new to MN and new to this thread) but aren't the new academies different from the old academies ? I agree that govt has been clever in using same name for both. Why is it that only outstanding schools are allowed to convert - is this because they have shown at least according to ofsted that they are good at what they do ? Sounds like they would do well whether academy or not. I have had a quick look at anti academy alliance site but this seems to relate to the first tranche of academies that were failing schools needing outside help. We are still at primary stage with DC but 3 out of 4 outstanding/very good state secondaries in our area have converted to academy status in September 2010 and I am not sure what this will mean in the future.

With the new-style academies, Outstanding and Good with Outstanding Features schools are being allowed to apply for academy status; but "the word is" that the govt plan that this will be rolled out to all school eventually, leading to the privatisation of the entire education system, and the disbanding of LEA's.

The thing is though, if the Government want it then they will get it, won't they? Governng Bodies have to do what is best for their children. If LEA funding is so low the schools pips are squealing but they can become an academy and get hundreds of thousands more, then it's bound to happen.

Sure, there will be some academies which due to liabilities they are taking on, it won't be worth it, but many many more that it will. Because GB's are tasked with doing best for their school not doing best for education as a whole, the writing is on the wall I fear (unless the Government change their mind)

there are threads about this on Primary too

@darvit, happy to talk to you if you PM me. We got hit with invoices from the local authority for HR services, payroll services, health & safety, risk management, facilities management, SEN support, free school meals assessment, IT support, ed psych, Education Welfare services, occupational health referrals. We were removed from the corporate contracts for catering and cleaning services and had to go through the EU tender process. The LA removed some equipment and gave them to other maintained schools during the holiday before conversion.

We are no longer offered school absence insurance, buildings & contents insurance, SIMS and student data services, press support or legal advice. We have had to source these from private providers. Our LGPS Employer Pensions contribution is 10% higher than it was pre-conversion as we were assessed separately by the actuaries and found to be a higher 'risk' as a separate entity (salary bill is now higher as a result). TUPE means that any existing legal cases, equal pay claims and issues transfer from the LA as employer to the governing body as new employer.

Some academies have found this to be liberating as it gave them an opportunity to use their professional skills to secure the same or better outcomes. Others have found it a steep learning curve and spent a lot of money employing professionals to handle the business and organisational aspects. It may distract some SLTs from the core business of education if the right skills to co-ordinate the non-academic aspects are not available or bought-in.

finefatmam
HOLY SHIT
removal of equpiment - how the FERK does that fit with "every child matters"

on the up side - as at early March there were around 2,000 secondaries considering academy status
as at the latest reports, about 300 converted on 1 April, 200 of them in 5 LEAs - which says a lot more about those LEAs than it does about the academy process.

I will keep banging on as is it the HUGE BULL ELEPHANT in the room...
Insurance
INSURANCE
INSURANCE
At present NO premiums are paid by LEA schools as they self insure through the LEA. When a claim arises, it is paid. No lost money.
Academies will HAVE to pay for inusrance - out of their teaching budget - money that will be lost to education for all the years they do not claim.
The LOSS to the education budget is around £150,000 per secondary school per year
which is a LOT of teachers, LSAs and books

And dont even get me started on accountability (see Oasis Mayfiled for proof)

Who says they will have to pay?

From earlier posts you are guessing they might but that is all it is - a guess. The Government say academies should be at no financial advantage or disadvantage. So, while I can understand (on that basis) the argument that the financial carrots will no longer continue, I do not understand why what the Government say means insurance will come out of teaching budgets.

So are you saying currently, insurance is paid by LEA outside of funding given to schools ? Once it becomes an academy, the school will be liable to pay this insurance out of the funding it gets ? That sounds like 'financial disadvantage' to me ?

This issue has got me really rattled because I just can't make out what is going on - I know the buck stops at headteachers when things go wrong but it sounds like they are the ones to gain the most when converting to academy status, with no obvious benefit to the children, surely that is why schools exist, to teach children.

Am I missing something here ? This insurance thing is huge, surely schools/headteachers are not that naive ? They must have to prepare some kind type of financial reports/forecasts/budgets that go beyond one year ?

insurance is currently refunded by the ypla as are business rates.