Worst-performing Primaries In England Become Academies

[Thingy]

Hello all

 

I am thinking I am really missing something here with Mr Goves latest suggestions.

 

Here is a link to the BBC piece Worst-performing primaries in England become academies

 

The sentence that I don't understand is;

 

The new academies, taken out of local authority control, will be run by more successful local schools.

 

What if the more successful school is run by the same LA thus suggesting it is the school management that is failing and not the LA.

 

If the school is run by another LA does the failing school then get access to the advisory staff and training offered by the LA thus stretching their probably already limited funds even thinner.

 

It must be really demoralising if you are in a struggling school and now you have the worry of a new management coming in and taking over, of course that could make things better for all concerned but if you are a teacher whose group is failing for an assortment of social & economic factors and not your professional skills it would be a very stressful transition.

 

Of course it goes without saying that bad management and poor teachers need identifying and removing but how easy is that in practise.

 

I would love to hear from people who have experience of how these academies have worked in secondary schools as Mr Gove said academy status was "a tried and tested way" of getting the right head teacher in place to turn a school around. I don't know any parents or children affected so don't know if this claim is accurate.

 

What does anyone else think?

 

Thingy

[Cait]

There's an interesting article on academy status here although I can't help but wonder if it's just Grant Maintained under another name. I'd like to see where it was 'tried and tested' and for how long.

[Guest]

Hi

i am in a primary school that was asssessed as good in last ofsted inspection. We are now part of an academy with an outstanding secondary school. Should be interesting to find out how things develop, but we are certainly not a failing primary.

[Thingy]

Hi

i am in a primary school that was asssessed as good in last ofsted inspection. We are now part of an academy with an outstanding secondary school. Should be interesting to find out how things develop, but we are certainly not a failing primary.

 

That's interesting, you have become an academy by virtue of the secondary school - have I understood that correctly? Does that mean that people may assume that your primary school was failing when it wasn't?

[Thingy]

Cait

 

Thanks for the link, found this bit very helpful reading;

 

Perhaps the most misleading, and frequently repeated, claim is that becoming an academy allows schools to "escape local authority control".

 

This is ridiculous because local councils no longer have "control" of schools.

 

Successive reforms over the past two decades have given all schools much greater autonomy.

 

Town halls no longer determine how schools spend their money, what or how they teach, or how they are held accountable.

 

Schools are constrained in many ways.

 

But these constraints come from national government or national bodies, be it the national curriculum, national tests, Ofsted, or government legislation on issues such as safeguarding or Every Child Matters.

 

Local education authorities are a pale shadow of their former selves.

 

Their last remaining influence is in the provision of school places, organisation of the school admissions process, and as the stretcher-bearers when schools fail.

 

So will taking the school away form the LA help really?

[Guest]

as far as I know they don't. we are oversubscribed in nursery and year R

[catma]

The LA has no responsibility for an academy, although Gove replied to me when I wrote asking about the status of the EYFS framework in an academy and it is still a legal requirement which is hopeful.

 

We would hope academies would engage with the LA but we would have no responsibility for them in practice.

 

Cx

[hali]

i do feel Catma that when settings/schools go for 'acadamy status ' we have no hope of getting in

[JacquieL]

There is a brief explanation about Academies on the Young Persons Learning Agency website.

http://www.ypla.gov.uk/academies/

The latest news re under-perfoming primaries would come under successful schools providing support, but that doesn't mean that all primaries with Academy status are under-performing, quite the opposite in fact.

[catma]

i do feel Catma that when settings/schools go for 'acadamy status ' we have no hope of getting in

 

True!!! It's hard enough with some when they do have to account for themselves to the LA. However I think our CS lead is so scary that schools would do anything rather than be below floor!!!!

 

Cx