Forcing schools to become Academies

Yes sorry Jess. Thought maybe the sense was "in theory, badly spent", but wasn't sure. Over-sensitive, moi?
I agree that generally primaries probably got more out of the support and certainly many of them valued it more.
You are quite right Anno. I think you can already see evidence of people saying "why doesn't the LEA / council do something about xyz?", when the fact is that the people are no longer there. I think I see much of this agenda as a long struggle for power between central and local government, which central government has won. People talk of freedom from Local Authority control when the reality is that everything now comes from central government.

With the increasing number of academies and the loss of LEA advisers, my concern is for children with special needs. The SEN team in 'my' authority worked well with schools and in my time chairing the committee (this was before 'cabinet' government at local level) we made considerable progress with integration especially in primary schools. I wonder how such arrangements will survive in the brave new competitive world of Mr Gove.

suzied, my dad took early retirement out of education (teacher training) during the Thatcher years for similar reasons to your husband – he felt that all he had worked to achieve during his career was just being trashed. Crazy world.

mamie the clue was in the "the theory is" which is different to in my opinion
From my position, ours was not great. Bit of a bonfire and then they started building a new team with more than half a dozen appointments at head level salaries. Then all the advisers were got rid of - we recruited the best 2 I think.
Then the newly appointed assistant directors were got rid of.
They never added a great deal to our progress but for small primaries it is essential to have that backup.
The future looks like "successful" secondary academies teaming up with a group of primaries I think. One of my concerns is that "successful" often means lots of middle class families that get their children coached. And it also relies on having really good governors. And the head being willing to work with them.

The last three posts are an indicator of some of the things that are going wrong since Gove accelerated the process of privatisation. suzied you and your husband have all my sympathy.

Hope that isn't a universal judgement on LEA teams, Jess. Obviously some large, some small, some good, some bad, some excellent. There was certainly room for improvement in some services in some LEAs, but sweeping away the good ones is pretty counter-productive I think. LEAs like schools have been the target of sustained criticism from government and media. Doing a difficult job on ever decreasing budgets is never going to make anyone popular.
Of course many of the people who have lost their jobs as local services have been slashed, have gone to work for the private companies now, so I don't suppose the actual people will change much!
Sympathies Suzied, that must be so hard.

eloethan - in theory they will be getting money that was badly spent on large LEA teams. But schools will still have to buy in services and much of this will in future be private sector e.g. instead of LA HR advice, you have a private adviser.
suzied i really dont know why anyone wants to be head of a challenging school these days. The goalposts seem to change every year and they are constantly labelled as "failing" if they cannot keep up with those moving targets.
"my" school improved english and maths results every year for about the last 6. We finished just one percentage point below the current "30% should get 5 a to cs including english and maths" - which would still be branded "failure". Of course that has changed again, and the whole ebac thing meant that option plans had been drawn up and then had to be changed again when there was a climb down. "my" head had and continues to have an exceptional level of energy, comittment and resilience but such creatures are rare.

My husband is the head of a large and very popular, successful comp now academy. The effect of Gove has been they have been given one Bible with Goves name on it, they have had their budget slashed as the funding formula for sixth formers has change i.e. downgraded and aa a school with 600 children in the sixth form this will have a devastating effect. Fewer hours of a level teaching, no enrichment activities for sixth formers, redundancies and staff who leave will not be replaced. Meanwhile "free" schools with a few children in them have been given vast sums of public money and friends of Gove have high salary jobs trying to give more public money away to unaccountable individuals and commercial sponsors. It is strange that several of the Harris bigwigs have been given gongs and knighthoods recently.
No wonder my husband has decided to take early retirement this year as he doesn't want to have to take apart all the things he has spent years building up.

Lilygran - yes, it seems logical that once all schools are academies, everything will be back to square one. Except that they will not be bound by the same rules re pay and qualifications for teachers or support staff, or standards of nutrition for school meals. Doesn't seem like a progressive step to me.

The days when you had a big bribe to become an academy are gone.

Early joiners get lots of cash. Cash all gone by the time others join. Probably not a ponzi but where will the extra funds come from to give all schools extra? And as Mamie says, local authorities have very small slices of the pie now.

absolutely not re your first post. absolute minefield.
not following the ponzi scheme thought though?

Also, it looks rather like a ponzi scheme, doesn't it?

Jess yes, it does sound fine and where school has chosen to opt in, it seems to work well although there is very little reliable research evidence on that. But do you think it's a good idea to hand over public money and assets to a commercial firm with no background in education? Or to a rather dubious religious organisation?

All schools, and all children- deserve a good education - we shouldn't set one school against the other and create multi-tier systems. The idea of competition may seem good from afar, but not from close-up as far as I've seen.

Sounds OK Mishap. I remember we discussed this last year. School will in theory get some extra money that would replace money previously going to LA. But you may end up spending it out on things like HR advisers, ed psychs etc.
Probably a good result in the circumstances.

There are some that are doing well Mishap. My eldest GD will go to one that has been the local sink school for years, but an inspirational senior management team has turned it round. The huge amount of extra money helped them recruit some really good people. I don't think the ones that are converting now have anywhere near as much extra cash. I don't buy the bit about freedom from the LEA though, schools have controlled their own budgets since the mid eighties and LEA's have had very low budgets, which have now pretty much disappeared. I think the thing that really upsets me is that primary schools are being forced to convert though. If you look at the Roke story, as I understand it, they wanted to go in with the local secondary, but they were turned down by the DfE and told they had to go to Harris.
Primary schools have always needed support from LEAs more than secondaries as their budgets and resources are much smaller and economies of scale make sense.
Secondary schools sometimes think they can tell primaries how to do things, not realising that teaching and learning can be very different with younger children. Of course, some are very good, but I used to get annoyed when secondary teachers told me they thought teaching in primary must be easy. I used to suggest that they tried a day in Reception!

The academy of which we are about to become part has no sponsor - no-one to make a financial profit. It is doing very well, considering its pupil intake (very difficult housing estate nearby) and using its money in the way it sees fit now that it has freedom from the LA.

Am I missing something here?

Mamie, I don't think people do realise what's going on. Where schools have chosen to become academies, it has been quite low profile and the result of consultation between governors and other interested parties. Also, in those cases where the school is judged successful, there is often no sponsor involved and the school itself may become a non-commercial sponsor of other schools. But Gove set a target of schools converting and when it appeared this target wasn't going to be met through volunteers, brought in this dreadful alliance between Ofsted (supposed to be independent body) and the DoE to find schools failing and force them to become academies. It's only the fuss about Roke that has made this process public. In my local area, one of the schools that became an academy in the Labour wave was failing twenty years ago and in spite of new buildings, is still in trouble. The school I attended - was grammar, then comp - converted without fanfare, was doing very well, is still doing very well, has been doing very well for a 100+ years.....the whole thing would be laughable nonsense if it weren't for the effect on a generation of children.

I agree it is a terrible thing - creating different tiers of education. One of the problem in the UK is that we have a long tradition of choice of schools- setting up one school 'against' another. The lack of protest is probably due to parents of schools becoming academies being perceived as 'better' than the one next door.

I think that is a really interesting question Eloethan. I think people have been very concerned (rightly) about changes to the NHS and this has slipped under the radar. I think Gove has had a very easy ride in the press and it has been rare for serious journalists to write about what is happening. I think Labour have been pathetic and have failed to challenge, partly because of their own policies on Academies. I think many people have believed all the negative spin and misrepresentation of statistics. I think people are somehow always ready to believe the worst of schools and teachers. Some time ago I started a thread asking for people's views of their grandchildren's schools. The views were almost all positive, but there is still a perception that "out there" everything is wrong.
I am very interested to hear what other people think about this and why there are not more people protesting.

What a waste of money and resources - Academies, "Free" Schools, etc., etc. Why aren't people in general, and parents in particular, protesting more about these changes?

Match fund? You're joking! How do they make a profit? Academies do not have to employ qualified teachers (lower salaries). They can employ one 'principal' or 'CEO' for a number of schools (only one salary) and do not have to put supplies and services out to tender so they can provide services and supplies themselves at prices they set, just as local authorities used to until they were made to 'outsource' everything by law. The 'educational trusts' have charitable status so get tax benefits. I'm sure there are lots of other ways in which profits can be made. ......

I am instinctively against Academy status..as a parent, former headteacher and current governor. Basically it is bringing in 'for profit' education for every school. Education should not be a profitable business! It should be producing well rounded citizens fit for employment and life in the 21 century. I do not understand how profit is made from state education! If the DfE gives money to academy sponsors, who match fund, why is not all that money being ploughed into the education: staffing /resources/buildings/sports facilities..how is there any money left for profit. Is Lord Harris et al doing this altruistically

My school's budget was always tight. The LA services, though excellent, were run on a shoestring and that was prior to current cuts.

Where is Gove finding all this money from to fund academies... surely not from the cuts made to LA school and LA central funds.

There have been several academies that have had poor OFSTED outcomes but these are quietly ignored by DfE when promoting Academies as the cure all!

I am a governor at a very small rural primary school which is just about to become an academy, joining with a nearby through-academy which has been providing us with executive headship for a year.

We really had no choice. We have an excellent school with a caring ethos, but insufficient numbers to be sustainable in the longer term. This was the only option that would give some medium-term security.

I am clear about the advantages for our school, but wary about this jump into the unknown. Trying to find models of governance that might guide us in negotiating governor representation on the academy board is impossible - I have looked everywhere, and the local governor services of the LA say they will send stuff and don't. I think that their morale is at rock bottom because their jobs are on teh line as the education dept dwindles.

The political principles behind academies (and the nonsense concept that this "re-branding" will make them better schools) did not come into it - in the end it was a pragmatic decision.

I have had concerns all along about the business model as inappropriate for the service sector (I have first hand knowledge of how this has b******d up health and social services) - but we had to ensure the school's survival. That was the bottom line.