Do academies have to consult on changes to admissions policies?

[Pl242]

The closest secondary school to us and what will likely be our first choice is an academy. A few years ago it set up its own primary school. I think the first year of that school entered year 7 last year. Pupils from that school have priority, not over siblings, but before children by distance.

another local primary school, previously a community/lea school has now joined the trust. For 25/6 secondary transfer they don’t have priority but I’m worried they will do in the future.

the reason for my worry is that the last place offered by distance is fairly small. Where we live in relation to the school we would usually be ok but I’m worried we wouldn’t if this school is given priority as per the other feeder school. Between them they could take up to 60 of the 260 PAN.

I know there’s some really knowledgeable people in this community so asking for insight/advice on how likely it is that they’ll look to give this school priority in admissions and if so do they have to consult on that change and how (ie beyond the trust schools) and on what timescale.

my eldest will start secondary in September 27.

thanks.

Something else a lot of people don't realise is that LAs can be instrumental in setting up academy trusts in partnership with other organisations, so long as their own representation on the board is less than a certain percentage. In my area, LAs have orchestrated setting up at least 3 academy trusts - one in partnership with a local college, a local business and a local sport club, the second in partnership with a local university, and the third in partnership with local school heads and governors. That way, they've managed to shape local educational provision. Apart from an initial blip with a bad trust, they have also welcomed in good academy trusts and provide educational services to them from their service catalogue.

"Schools have lost the local support that once existed and are left floundering around touting for support services that were once a given from the LA."

Most of those services are still provided by LA's, and can be purchased by academy trusts.

It sounds like your LA have not navigated the academy process as well as many other LAs.

You’re making some pretty harsh blanket statements about MAT boards. I’m not sure what benefits you think trustees get from giving up our time for free. It is a lot of hard work, time away from our families and significant personal expense for very little recognition or appreciation.

The MAT system has allowed us to sponsor failing local schools and turn them around, improving the lives of local children and providing a more balanced local provision. I can assure you that the needs of local children were very much at the heart of those decisions.

I appreciate and respect that some people have concerns about the academy model but I find the way you have expressed your views about the motivations of MAT boards to be ill-informed and offensive. Some of us are plugging away doing our absolute best in a very challenging political, financial and social landscape.

There are some services that the LA still provide to academies - ed psych and co-ordinated admissions, for example. For other services, academies are free to buy them wherever they want.

I don't know of any academy having trouble sourcing these services, whilst I do know of some where the LA is not providing all the support it is legally required to, particularly around SEN (and don't try to make excuses saying it is because of academies - many of these LAs were falling short before academies were introduced). I do know that many academies have been able to source the support they need at much lower cost than the amount the LA used to top slice from their funding, thereby freeing up more money to spend on educating pupils.

If you think the system of LAs controlling schools is in any way child-based you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Academies (and LA schools) can source these services - but they are costly and slow to appear. For instance the recommendations of an Ed Psych ref SEND are hard, slow and expensive to obtain and their recommendations not fully funded.

My issue is that the whole academy model is a business model that has taken the focus off the children and (very importantly) the well-being of staff.

Power and influence has become removed from those on the ground and in the know regarding local communities, and MATs have become distracted from their proper function by expansionist aims and a general detachment from the classroom.

How do I know? I am chair of a primary school governing body. I have watched the efforts of local MATs to get their clutches on a well-functioning and very popular school. I have studied in depth what might be gained and lost by the school joining a MAT. Not least among the losses is the jettisoning of the entire physical assets of the school (grounds, buildings, resources) to an unelected and unaccountable academy board for whom the school would be just a small part of its remit - and these assets would be lost in perpetuity. Who knows where they might finish up? These assets are part of the local community - a legacy of former pupils and staff - a valued part of the locality. Generations of parents and local people have given their time, physical resources and effort to create the lovely buildings that we now have. Other losses relate to the autonomy that allows the school to be a part of the community, to invite in our neighbours at every opportunity, to provide a service to the local community. The staff know their pupils, they know what is best for them, they are able to be flexible and responsive; the staff are valued and loyal and would lose their security - I have looked into this aspect very carefully. The school would be subject to the ethos and values of a group of people divorced from the school, when we know that is those very values that attract parents to send their children to the school and that result in the happy and caring young people whom we send on to secondary school.

The predatory and competitive nature of the approaches from local (and sadly and very worryingly not so local) MATs is frankly sickening - their glossy brochures and corporate approach is totally at odds with the ethos of the school and the purpose of our education system.

The whole system distracts staff (and heads in particular) from their primary task, adds in unnecessary and costly layers of management, mushrooms rather than paring down management systems, feeds on itself to the point of losing focus on what really matters, allows MATs to be led by people quite literally many miles away from the schools themselves - this is not the way to run an education system. The MATs model has run away with itself and has become so embroiled in itself that it cannot stand back and really ask what is going on; what really matters. Too many executives wrapped up in business models that have nothing whatever to do with education.

As you can tell, this is a subject I have looked into in depth and have found it desperately wanting. You can probably also tell that I care very much indeed about it.

There is a school where one of my GC goes that has found itself high and dry. They are an excellent and well-functioning school - but hey what does that count for? - they entered into a loose federation with some other schools, which, for various financial, political and religious (heaven help us) reasons, is falling apart. Where does this school go now? - do they let themselves be taken over by the diocesan juggernaut, when the parents are clear they do not want a religious based school? Do they try and go it alone when the cards are deliberately stacked against that model for political reasons? Who is caring about the children, the staff and the parents in the middle of this mess? - frankly, no-one.

If only parents really knew what a mess it all is behind the scenes, and how little the well-being of their individual child really features in the priorities.

Oh - and just as an aside - how horrified they would be if they knew how much of the money that could be going to their child's education is being spent on legal fees - whole legal practices are now specialising in setting up academies, transferring assets from schools to MATs. What a waste!

"As you can tell, this is a subject I have looked into in depth and have found it desperately wanting. You can probably also tell that I care very much indeed about it."

Mischance, I am also a school governor, at an academy, and others that have posted here have said they are involved in academy governance too. We also care deeply, and our experience is not the same as yours. The mistake you are making is to assume all MATs are the enemy. You may not like your local MATs, and I can't comment on that because I don't know where you are. But I do know that there are many good MATs out there that are run by people who used to run LA schools. They bring the best of that system with them, whilst also making the most of what the academy system has to offer. They supplement their in-house skill-sets with the purchase of LA services that generally operate according to their service level agreements, and know they can buy from other LAs or education service companies if they don't. They use that flexibility to optimise their provision for their available budgets.

The physical resources at the school belong to the state - turning an LA school into an academy doesn't change that.

Perhaps the answer is to join up with other educationalists that you do trust to build an academy trust based on your values - that is what others have done. That is how people get over their political opposition, put their pragmatic pants on, and make academisation work for them.

Academies (and LA schools) can source these services - but they are costly and slow to appear. For instance the recommendations of an Ed Psych ref SEND are hard, slow and expensive to obtain and their recommendations not fully funded.

That has long been the case and is down to LAs failing to fulfil their statutory duties - nothing to do with academies. LAs are required to provide Ed Psych services and to provide individual funding for children with high needs. However, LAs have not been increasing their high needs budget by enough to keep up with inflation, and many have been making it hard to get EHCPs in order to save money.

these assets would be lost in perpetuity

No, they are not. Whilst it is true that the land and buildings are transferred to the academy trust, it is an unusual form of ownership. The academy trust cannot simply sell the land. If the academy closes or any land is no longer required for the academy, the Secretary of State decides what happens to that land and buildings. The options available are for the land and buildings to be transferred to the LA, or for it to be transferred to another school, or for the academy trust to buy the land at its value at the time.

Other losses relate to the autonomy that allows the school to be a part of the community, to invite in our neighbours at every opportunity, to provide a service to the local community

I don't know of any academy trust that prevents its schools from being part of the community, etc. Any that did would be extremely foolish. After all, if parents don't like the school, they won't want their children to go there.

Oh - and just as an aside - how horrified they would be if they knew how much of the money that could be going to their child's education is being spent on legal fees

You mean like ARK Schools, one of the biggest MATs? Their latest accounts show that they spent £76,000 on legal costs from their income of £272M.

Clearly, once involved in the academy/MAT system people have to go with the flow and find assets for this. It is a system that has been imposed for no sound reasons and I guess if you are part of it you have to look at the pros. But some of us stand outside the system and look at it objectively and see another view ... one that sees the utter pointlessness of it all ... and the wastage and unnecessary loss of autonomy.
We could not tout round the entire country to find similar schools to combine with in a MAT and academise, but that should not be necessary and what would be the point? What is wrong with a good school just getting on with being a good school?
Academies were initially intended to join together in MATs with a view to raising standards (whose?) in "failing" schools. What we now have are MATs looking for "good" schools in sound financial circumstances to add to their fold ... they don't want the struggling oones.They are businesses.The whole idea has been turned on its head.
Does the presence of nationwide MATs running schools all around the country not seem illogical ... and more fundamentally totally pointless and unnecessary? It is all a hugely costly mistake that is part of the reason why teachers are leaving.
I am surprised that anyone would would see £76000 of unnecessary expenditure as acceptable whatever proportion it is of total budget!

Mischance, 43% of primary schools and 82% of secondary schools are now academies. Some of those schools have had academisation imposed on them, but many have chosen that route because they have seen the benefits. Many schools were unhappy with their LA provision, or wanted to improve on it, so they used academisation to give them that flexibility.

As I said up thread, it seems to me that you have buried yourself in a political rabbit hole, resisting the inevitable. However, you don't have to join a large national trust. What is your local authority's stance? Ours will support schools to become academies if that is what they want, and has supported others to remain in LA control. All the secondaries are now academies, but so far only a handful of the primaries. I expect they will academise eventually but, if so, the local authority will do their best to make sure they do it in a way that leadership teams are broadly happy with.

Anyway, regardless of what is happening in your area, there is no justification for you to jump on a random discussion thread about the admissions policy of a specific academy in a completely different area and derail it with broad criticisms and insults about all academies. That is not a healthy response to your situation. If you want a debate about the raison d'etre of the academy programme, there have been many other threads over the years, but most people I know are tired of the existential debate and have moved onwards and upwards.

How do you know that £76,000 is unnecessary? That is less than one third of what the average LA spends on legal agency staff and is dwarfed by the amount the spend on their in-house legal teams.

Your dislike of academies is blinding you to reality.

I do not dislike academies as such - I am suer they are full of people who are wedded to the idea and are putting in their best efforts; I dislike the principle behind them, which is that education is a business and not a service. I have seen the huge failures, inefficiencies and wastage of resources that has followed. One local academy is under investigation for embezzlement of funds by the board. The bullied staff have left in droves.

I take the point about the high jacking of this thread and apologise to the OP for this.

"I dislike the principle behind them, which is that education is a business and not a service"

It's inaccurate to describe academy trusts as businesses. They are self-governing non-profit charitable trusts and can receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind.

Academies are not businesses. They are charities. There are aspects of the way a good charity is run that are like the way businesses are run, but they are not run for profit and there are other important differences.

Embezzlement of funds happens in LA-controlled schools too. See, for example, the case of Joanne Anderson who defrauded Fulwell Junior School, a community school, of almost £120,000. Sadly, this is not an isolated case.

Hello, resurrecting my thread here! So no changes were made last year so current y 5 children, going into y6 in September and starting secondary in 2026 will be fine.

However, my child is due to start in 2027, so still a chance that this could be introduced later this year to apply to that year.

There is a strong rumour circulating locally that they do intend to make this school a feeder to the secondary, and I am really worried/annoyed that it could be our year when it hits.

People supplied some really helpful answers to my initial post (thanks so much, really grateful) and I wanted to pick up on the points made that whilst the school/trust will be perfectly within its rights to introduce this for 2027 entry, if they consult this year/early next, that they do need to consult with the lea, let local primary school heads know etc.

If the trust do plan to make this school a feeder for 2027 entry, and therefore issue the consultation by end of 2025, when do they start talking to local schools etc about their plans etc?

If they introduce this in a non-phased way, it will really impact the secondary allocation of local families not in the trust - i.e this new feeder school had a huge catchment when this year group started reception so if they do it, families miles away will get priority over those at other primaries but less than 0.5 away from the secondary - so I think there will be a lot of concern.

I just wondered if local heads etc will know now, and we can pressure them to push the trust to introduce this in a phased way etc? I am more than aware that this might be a fight that no-one can win however.

Grateful for any insight. Many thanks.

"If the trust do plan to make this school a feeder for 2027 entry, and therefore issue the consultation by end of 2025, when do they start talking to local schools etc about their plans etc?"

@Pl242 They will obviously be talking to the potential feeder school already. They don't need to talk to other schools until they launch the consultation..However, depending on their relationship with the LA, the usual etiquette would be to discuss it with the LA's Head of Admissions beforehand to sound out their opinion, because it is helpful to have their support. The HoA might, in turn, pre-warn other local school heads that the change is in the pipeline.

Often these changes to admissions policies to prioritise schools within a MAT can be bendleficial to the "community", but maybe not to the current catchment of the "good" school. It can mean children from poor areas get opportunities that would otherwise be denied.

The potential feeder school definitely are in the know. The local rumour has been fuelled by reports that the current headteacher of the potential new feeder, who is about to leave that school, said in their farewell speech to parents that it was time for them to move on as they had achieved what they had set out to in that role, namely to ensure that the school would become a feeder for the secondary in the trust they are now both part of.

Now, nobody knows of course whether if that is 100% definite and if so, what the timescale is for that school becoming a feeder, but given the process others have pointed to, they could introduce it for 2027 entry.

Interesting to note that they are not obliged to tell anyone pre consultation. But if the consultation is meaningless as they are within their rights to tell people, it really doesn't give people meaningful notice.

I mean, if they publish a con doc December 2025, finalise their plans in February 2026, then I, as an affected parent, only have a 8 month window before I need to submit my child's secondary schools application (end of October 26 for Sep 27 start).

Schools and LEAs rightly don't want parents moving into catchments etc just for the application deadline and rightly have robust processes to prevent this type of behaviour, yet I feel like we are being punished for taking a long-term view on where to settle our family re our child's education. We took a long term view and settled ahead of primary with an eye on secondary options, yet it now seems that the goalposts can be moved and the likely catchment area significantly changed with 8 months notice. It just feels unfair and wrong.

I know there are no guarantees in the state system and if we are unlucky and there are more people closer to the school at the time of application, so be it, but this just looks like it will leapfrog a whole bunch of people ahead of us in the queue (who won't be from some identified poorly served area), and bake in their siblings for the next few years.

If they phased it in it would seem fairer to me.

But if this is really what they can do, I am torn between trying to engage our head and other local people who will likely be against this move or just accepting that if they want to make this change they will and seeing what our other options are likely to be if we fail to get a place off the back of this move, if it happens.

@Pl242 There are winners and losers with every admissions policy. If you lose out on this one, it will certainly be unlucky, and Mumsnetters can empathise with that, but it's over-dramatic to say you are being punished- that will just get you less sympathy.

Fair point. An over emotive use of language on my part. Obviously if we are unlucky, we will feel aggrieved and frustrated, but that’s for us to feel.

But beyond the potential personal impact on us as a family, if they do implement this change in the above timescale, given the nature of catchments for this group of children when they started reception, it will result in children further away getting a place, that they would not otherwise have got, at the expense of those living closer to the school.

Yet due to the distances to other schools, demographics, we won’t necessarily get places at schools closer to those families. Hence it feels like a significant number of children will be negatively impacted and it will bake that in for years to come re siblings etc.

Will this line of argument hold any sway on the decision or make them pause to consider phasing in feeder status from reception 2027 to put everyone on a level playing field?

Or will they frankly not care/see that as an issue?

@Pl242 A consultation is not a referendum. If you tell them something they haven't already thought of, and it is material to their decision, it might sway them. But if you just say how unfair you think it is because people in your area will miss out, then that's not likely to be new news to them. It's not that they don't "care", but more that they are prioritising other families above yours because they care about them more.

If you think there is an evidence-based disadvantage to a particular demographic or social group, then refer the policy to the Schools' Adjudicator after it is formally determined. They will review it.

MAT CEO’s dont need to do any illegal embezzlement, with salaries and pay rises this high.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/highest-earning-academy-chiefs-annual-pay-nears-500k/

@harkinback thank you for your insights and feedback. They’re very useful. Grateful for you taking the time to input.

Harris Federation has income of over £400M per annum and employs nearly 4,700 staff. Around £340M of their income is from public funds, the rest is from other sources. It is not surprising that their CEO's salary is high. Whether it is too high is a matter of opinion.

A local CEO earns £250,000 for 9 schools…some of which are small primaries (100-120 pupils)…

Staff at Hugh Hegarty’s trust are striking over lack of transparency in budgets and diversion of funds between schools.

The question with any CEO's salary, private sector, public sector or charity, is whether they are providing enough value to justify the salary. If, for example, a CEO is generating enough additional funding from outside the public sector to mean their schools are able to spend more per pupil than equivalent community schools and the schools are delivering good results for pupils, many would think their salary is justified.