Did Supply in a new Academy yesterday and feel sad

[gabid]

Yesterday I went into a once failing school in a deprived area that has been an Academy for a year now. The first impression was good - new buildings, great photos of children in the reception area, but at the end of the day I felt sad .

There was no ino given to me (e.g. rewards and sanctions, map of the school etc) so I felt I was sent into the classroom 'naked'. I had to ask someone in the staffroom.

In general, I felt the kids weren't motivated or interested, even the better groups, behaviour in class and around the school was very poor (shouting, swearing - just lots of noise). I entered a couple of classrooms and there was lots of rubbish on the floor (in period 4 and 5).

I spoke to some members of staff and they didn't seem to have enough textbooks to go round, I didn't see many in the classrooms either.

And in P5 I taught a bottom Y9 group who didn't know their timestables and after the lesson on the way out I had to break up a fight.

Shouldn't things change and improve with turning a school into an Academy?

*My impression of academies has always been that they give teachers, etc. etc.

It seems very clear now that the mists are beginning to clear that the academy agenda has little to nothing to do with teaching and learning and lots to do with weakening LA control and diverting as much public money into the private sector as possible.

There's absolutely no evidence that academy conversion is a method of school improvement and increasingly mounting evidence that it's very much not.

Being a close friend of one of the cabinet or a major Tory donor seems to give a person extra points in terms of how many schools they'll get handed to them.

I think you are probably correct about the cronyism, but it not just the Tory party, its common to all parties it seems. Its a sad state of affairs when the quality of our childrens education is at stake. The chain academy companies have become very political, they have to be if they are to be given the academies by Mr Gove. If your school is going to become an academy its probably best to stick with 'converter' status, not linked to any of the academy chains if possible and therefore retain a little bit of independence and local control.

Unfortunately, many schools don't have that 'choice', warwick and are having unwanted and unproven sponsors forced on them.

If these new academies are getting such great funding (doodlecloud), and teachers are being given 'a say' in how its spent, why are so many having to shed staff in order to balance budgets now?

Turning schools into academies to improve education standards hasn't worked anywhere else in the world, so why would it work here? Some academies improve, some only improve for a while, some get even worse, some don't change overall standards at all, just waste money on new uniforms and branding. And some close down, leaving b*gger all provision for the local community until some other chancer comes along to have another stab at it and waste more money on rebranding it - but hey, at least no-one electable is directly responsible for the mess any more, are they?

sorry to change topic /hijack but on comment Textbooks = lazy teaching has hit a sore point. I wish I wish I wish my children had 1 textbook + 1 exercise book for each subject - if it makes life easier for the teacher, so much the better. Instead they have a sheet of paper for every lesson - what nonsense - my older ds's bedroom is knee deep in the bloody things - surely the person who wrote the textbook knows how to design a program of learning?

Re Textbooks - they might work fine if the government (of whatever colour) didn't change the goalposts every 5 minutes. Not so bad for Keystage 3, my kids still can pretty much use Textbooks for science which are 5 + years old. But for GCSE, the syllabus is changing yearly. But my DC are fortunate to go to a school which has textbooks and gives them to the kids. Other schools which have them, just hand them out for lessons, and they are not able to bring them home.

DCs school is a new academy and isn't shedding teachers.

VERY interesting article on Charter schools in the Economist ....
www.economist.com/node/21558255
basically they work really well where there is a strong inspection regime and FAST sanctions against failing schools
and really badly where any fool can set up a school and inspections do not have teeth.
Pretty obvious really.
Shame Gove won't read it.

yes DS's school is new academy - we're only about 8 months in, but nothing has changed really ... but was already (deservedly) 'outstanding' with great staff and head - some kids come from v. difficult backgrounds but are supported v. well

don't wish to out myself by saying too much more, but govey does have v. good advisors in one area - Educational technology - e-learning and the like -they are fostering good links and drawing on knowledge from the TEL program and London knowledge lab. Shame he doesn't access that kind of support for other areas of education. but there are none so blind as them what can't see....or them what want to save huge wads of cash.

Some of the problem with over used educational technology in schools 0800900 is that children end up relying on it to much and can't function fully without (spelling, english and maths included). Some academy chains appear to use the technology for more and more online courses, supervised in school by non qualified staff (similar to distance learning). Cuts costs (read teachers)for the academy and provides income for the chain academy company.

I would also suggest that 8 months isn't long enough to judge yet 0800900. However if you are a converter academy and haven't been taken over by one of Mr Gove's LA replacement, unaccountable, chain groups, you may escape the worst consequences. At least then your academy won't be used to make the chain academy trust company money. Hopefully this is so for your DS, unfortunately others haven't been so lucky so remain aware.

This is a pretty dismal thread; how outrageous that potentially able children in schools such as these are given absolutely no chance.

So much has been done by successive governments to bring the good schools down, nothing is done to ensure a decent education for all.

You have misunderstood the point of ARK having a a projects subsidiary. It is required to have a separate project management co by the government so that funds that come in from DFE specifically to procure say building services from outside contractors (who tender competitively to provide services on basis of quality and value for money) are kept in separate company from revenue funding for running the schools. it is a ringfencing, transparency and protection issue so that if anything went wrong on the projects side no school funding would be at risk. The academy chain does not make a profit or have access to capital funds for any purpose other than building a school (usualy under supervision of Government or the LEA or PFS) or fixing the roof and it only gets enough funding (indeed usualy not enough) to carry ot the necessary work after a long process of value enginering with the DFE or PFS in which they whittle down the cost to the bare minimum. This out for a profit conspiracy is ridiculous.

Dawntreader if the project management subsidiary is part of the ARK group of companies and that subsidiary makes a profit from it's business then the ARK group is making a profit. The school could use another project management provider outside the ARK group of companies - more arms length and less likely to attract 'profit conspiracy' comments.

I agree that schools in receipt of DfE money for large scale building projects are required to demonstrate that the money will be spent appropriately and accounted for. We have used our LA for this purpose and have paid a project management fee.

Toby young thinks is school is bril. Any other views on Mr Youngs London school?

You will also find if you check their accounts Dawntreader that the CEO's and directors of some of these academy chain companies are very, very well paid, (often much more than the PM), that board members earn consultancy fees and that often these directors and CEO's are also directors with the 'with profit' subsidiary companies or suppliers used by the academy chain company. So all in all, which ever way you look at it, it appears a very lucrative business. I am not sure that it was meant to go this way when the idea of academy chain groups taking over from local authorities was first thought of by the previous government.