Anyone any experience of state schools becoming an Academy ?

[LilyLoo]

Work in a Secondary school that is proposing to become an Academy in September. It's main catchment area is a large sprawling mainly council owned housing estate. Was in special measures a couple of years ago. Has now come out and has drastically improved however reputations are harder to shake.
The sponsors seem to talk a great tale about how fantastic this new school will be but what is the reality of life in these establishments for pupils and staff ?

Anyone ?

In Reading a school was known as Ashmead. Got resukts of 7%GCSE passes! Shut down & reopened as Thamesbridge college. Same building, same catchment (poorest part of Town) same results!

Now it has become the Madjeski Academy (John Madjeski owns Reading FC, now in Premiership for 1st year). They are doing up the sports centre & the school.

I really hope it works as the kids in that part of town are not the sort with Parents who can drive them elsewhere (where schools are oversubscribed with everyone avoiding this one!). It will take years though. Posh buildings don't teach kids - motivated teachers do.

we are rumoured to be becoming an academy in the future ao willwatch this with interest

The staff morale really poor at the minute as they really feel that they are being left in the dark and their seems to be a bit of a mass exodus at the summer
Tbh think staff reluctant to give up the advantages of working for the council.

LilyLoo - I'm intrigued by your last sentence.

What advantages do staff have to give up when a school becomes an Academy?

I'll be watching this thread with interest too. Our area is currently in consultation for fairly drastic secondary re-organisation. One of the more likely proposals on the table is closing 4 schools and re-opening one or two, with at least one being a completely new build.

All I can think is perhaps my gym discount! which isn't much to give up

They being very cagey about pensions and carrying over time served with the LEA if we want to go back to work for the council it may not be recognised.
Also a lot of unrest for the staff not on permanent contracts, basically we will prob have to move over automatically on to an academy contract.

Milliways - agree entirely.
It used to frustate DW when she taught in a tough (bottom of the the table) comp that Ofsted would always mark them down and they'd be told that this, that and the other was "below average" - and yet they were specifically assessed by the LEA on their teaching and the conclusion was that it really couldn't be better. So the conclusion is they are getting the best they possibly can (around 23%) out of kids from a very poor area.

just heard dd2 school is set to become an acamedy in sept 2008. not sure how it will affect her education( she will be in year 11 by then).It such a short time scale it can't be a positive thing but hope its not too negative. ie staff mote concerned with new acamedyand own jobs (2 schools are merging).

just heard dd2 school is set to become an acamedy in sept 2008. not sure how it will affect her education( she will be in year 11 by then).It such a short time scale it can't be a positive thing but hope its not too negative. ie staff mote concerned with new acamedyand own jobs (2 schools are merging).

sorry

If it's going to be one of those owned by some dodgy bible-spewing Foundation like the Vardyites, then they can kick kids out as and when they feel like it to artificially "improve" their results. This is what Blair wants all our secondary schools to become - selective faith schools by another name.

Interesting points raised on this thread. I thought that the City Academies were supposed to be another way of directing government money along with private investment, into poorer, inner city areas. Therefore, the kids' education should benefit as there will be more money around.

However I didn't realise that teachers' contracts and working conditions would be put at risk. So, a word of warning.....

I've recently moved from the state sector into the private education and got a bit of a rude awakening. They don't pay as much, don't recognise threshold pay, don't have very good Inset, staff development etc etc etc. Of course it's longer holidays and not as much pressure but you've got to way up the pros and cons.

Ny advice is to speak to your union and don't sign anything or agree to anything that needs careful thought.

Good luck!

Loked into acamedies more now.
The private sponsor puts up to £2m into a school and in return gets to choose who is in the governing body. They can have parents but they don't have to!
They then have the power to hire and fire staff, change admission policy, expel pupils and uniforms.
Why would this be a good thing?
What do these people know about running a school?

.