Government's backdown on forced academies welcome but not quite what it seems

Yesterday the government announced a modification of its forced academies policy.  It is not quite the u-turn that some called it on first sight. Forced academisation is still kept as an option and academisation of all schools remain a government aim.

It is clear that the change of policy is largely to appease the Tory shires who protested at the policy as well as those seeking to protect small rural schools. Non Tory LAs will remain a target and the new 'impossible' performance targets will be used to penalise 'under-performing' local authorities.
 
The government adds to its armoury the power to convert all schools in a local authority to academy status if 'it is clear that the local authority can no longer viably support its remaining schools because a critical mass of schools in that area has converted.'

In addition it can convert all schools if 'the local authority consistently fails to meet minimum performance threshold across its schools, demonstrating an ability to bring about meaningful school improvement.'

As with many government decisions it is not clear who will make the decisions on viability and performance but the continuing voluntary conversion of schools to academy status in some LAs, particularly where the government has cut funding and LA support is minimal, and forced conversion of schools in a category, will mean the academisation process will continue albeit at a slower pace until it reaches the trigger point for academisation of remaining LA schools.

The performance threshold will put pressure on local authorities, mainly Labour, in deprived areas and high mobility areas where funding is due to be cut. Even high performing schools, or those that do well taking into account contextual factors, will be caught if their LA is deemed to be failing overall.

As someone put it on Twitter yesterday: the government is closing one trap door but opening several new ones.

The Parents Defending Education Campaign said:

We have won a partial retreat - it is an important victory. But piecemeal academy conversion will continue unless parents and teachers fight every attempt to convert. It shows clearly that this government has lost the plot on education. The White Paper and other aspects of government policy remain deeply unpopular.

Now we know Nicky Morgan really does have a reverse gear, we should use this as an opportunity to launch an all out assault on the testing regime. No more SATS; No exam factories; No more funding cuts and good school place for every child.

It is clear that the campaign against academies and free schools and for the retention  of properly funded and democratically accountable local authorities must  continue.

This change of policy was a victory for parent campaigners, teachers, headteachers and councillors and we must learn form that unity to continue our campaign.

This is the DfE press release

The government is committed to ensuring every child has an excellent education which allows them to achieve their full potential. The reforms of the past 6 years have led to 1.4 million more children being taught in ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools. Central to this improvement has been the academy programme. 

The academy programme puts control of running schools in the hands of teachers and school leaders - the people who know best how to run their schools. That’s why the government is committed to every school becoming an academy. This system will allow us to tackle underperformance far more swiftly than in a local-authority-maintained system where many schools have been allowed to languish in failure for years. At the same time, it will allow our most successful and popular schools to expand their reach to even more children. 

Since launching our proposals in the education white paper, the government has listened to feedback from MPs, teachers, school leaders and parents. 

It is clear from those conversations that the impact academies have in transforming young people’s life chances is widely accepted and that more and more schools are keen to embrace academy status. 

As a result of these conversations, the government has decided, while reaffirming our continued determination to see all schools to become academies in the next 6 years, that it is not necessary to bring legislation to bring about blanket conversion of all schools to achieve this goal. 

The government will continue to require underperforming schools to convert to academy status where they can benefit from the support of a strong sponsor. One hundred and four directive academy orders have already been issued to underperforming schools in the last month since the new legislation came into force.

We will also continue to support ‘good’ schools to convert and to take the lead in supporting other schools as part of multi-academy trusts. In the last monthly figures 227 schools put in applications to convert, the highest monthly figure since the programme began, and we expect this rate to increase.

In addition, the government will bring forward legislation which will trigger conversion of all schools within a local authority in 2 specific circumstances: 

firstly, where it is clear that the local authority can no longer viably support its remaining schools because a critical mass of schools in that area has converted. Under this mechanism a local authority will also be able to request the Department for Education converts all of its remaining schools

secondly, where the local authority consistently fails to meet a minimum performance threshold across its schools, demonstrating an inability to bring about meaningful school improvement 

These measures will target those schools where the need to move to academy status is most pressing. For other high-performing schools in strong local authorities the choice of whether to convert will remain the decision of the individual schools and governing bodies in question.  
 

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said:

Making every school an academy is the best way to ensure every child, regardless of birth or background, has access to a world-class education.

I am today reaffirming our determination to see all schools to become academies. However, having listened to the feedback from Parliamentary colleagues and the education sector we will now change the path to reaching that goal.

By focusing our efforts on those schools most at risk of failing young people, and encouraging ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools to seize the opportunities of conversion, we will ensure the continued growth of the academy programme, empowering frontline heads and school leads, and transforming even more children’s education.

The government is also announcing a package of measures to guarantee the continued success of small rural schools. 

Hundreds of small rural schools that currently receive no top-up funding to address the unique pressures they face will benefit from landmark changes made to school ‘sparsity funding’. This means over 1,200 small rural schools will receive specific targeted support. For more than 700 of those schools, their local authority currently chooses not to provide the top up, but the new national funding formula will provide sparsity funding for every single one.

Alongside the existing statutory presumption against closure of rural schools, the government will go further, introducing a new ‘double lock’ so that when small rural schools convert to academy status both local and national government have to agree to a school closing before a decision can be made. 

No small successful schools will be forced to join a national academy chain - most small schools will choose to join multi-academy trusts made up of other local schools, though small sustainable schools will be able to convert alone if they wish. To support them there will be dedicated support from experts in the Department for Education to help primary schools through the process of conversion and a £10 million fund for small schools to secure expert support and advice.

The government has allocated £300 million that will be available to support schools to convert and, in particular, support sponsors to turn around failing schools. A further £300 million will support strong and effective multi-academy trusts to grow and improve. And, in recognition of the costs that local authorities and church dioceses face, funding will also be provided to them.

This funding comes on top of the government’s protection to the core schools budget which will be over £40 billion next year, including the pupil premium - funding worth £2.5 billion a year targeted at the most disadvantaged pupils. This is the highest-ever level of funding for schools of any government.

Parents, staff and pupils unite against forced academisation as teachers strike again

Press release from Brent ATL and NUT

Today teachers and support staff again reluctantly too strike action at St Andrew and St Francis CofE Primary in Belton Rd, Willesden, Brent against the school being forced to become an academy. They were joined on the picket line by parents and children. Two ‘Fat Cats’ informed the crowd that they were hoping to makes ‘loadsa money’ from schools like this when education was privatised. They were resoundingly booed. Union speakers made the point that if as the Interim Executive Board was saying that nothing was going to change what other reason could there be for converting. Messages of support were read out from around the country.

Irene Scorer, parent, thanked staff and parents for supporting the action. She announced that parents had organised another open meeting for next Thursday 30^th at 7.00 pm at St Andrew’s Church and urged them to spread the word among other parents. .  

The parents are demanding an independently overseen ballot with full information of the arguments for and against an academy.  Hank Roberts on behalf of the unions said that action planned for next week could still be called off if the IEB only agreed to this ballot.

After the picket the crowd marched along Willesden High Rd to Dawn Butler’s campaign headquarters. She is the prospective Labour candidate in the general election. Though the office was closed a group of parents were aiming to show Dawn Butler their petition against the academy and urge her to publicly support the independent ballot.

Another Brent battle against forced academisation of a primary school

The impact of Coalition policies on education continues to be a major issue and I hope it will become more prominent as the General Election approaches. Fragmentation, incoherence and a lack of democratic accountability are major concerns.

The opportunistic  forced academisation of schools that get poor Ofsted reports continues depsite a lack of evidence that such a move actually helps schools improve.

In Brent this is now happening at St Andrew and St Francis Primary School.  The Teachers Panel of Brent, comprising the three main teacher unions, has issued this statement:

Teachers Panel Response to the consultation on whether St Andrew and St Francis Primary school should become an academy 

The teacher unions are against any school becoming an academy. We say it is part of the Government's plan to privatise state education just like they want to privatise the NHS. There is no evidence that turning a school into an academy improves the education of the children. The Education Parliamentary Select Committee has just published the findings of their year-long enquiry. Its Chairman, Conservative MP Graham Stuart, said, "Current evidence does not prove that academies raise standards overall or for disadvantaged children". He added that there are, “huge disparities within the academy sector and compared to other mainstream schools". This is a damning report on academies. There are also lots of issues over the financial management of academies and free schools as they are not overseen by the Local Authority. 

St Andrew and St Francis school is being forced to become an academy when there is no evidence that it will benefit the children's education. The school is already making very good progress with its action plan when it is not an academy, both the IEB and Brent Council sources have told us. The staff were given a promise that if they worked hard and improved the situation at the school then the school would not become an academy. For a Christian school to go directly against such a promise to the staff and unions find shocking. 

At the official meeting with staff and unions it became clear that the London Diocesan Board of Schools (LDBS) Academies Trust who is the proposed sponsor would continue to offer all the support they do now if the school was not an academy. Nothing basically would change if they became the sponsor except they would have financial control. So there is no benefit to the school becoming an academy. Though the staff and unions asked what the benefits were no answers could be given. It became clear that it is purely to follow what the DfE is dictating rather than for the good of the school. Even one of the members of the Interim Executive Board (IEB)  made it clear that her school had looked at whether they should become an academy and decided that they would not gain by doing so – it wasn't right for them. It is only the Government and DfE saying it is right for the school. 

Also at this meeting the IEB were informed of the increasing number of Headteachers and Governing bodies who are not allowing the DfE to dictate to their school and have managed to prevent their school becoming an academy even when they have been put in special measures. Turning a school into an academy should be decided democratically by a vote of parents as it was when schools went grant maintained not through force. The staff and unions believe that a new head should be appointed and then given a time-scale to show continued improvement before the question of whether to become an academy or not is considered. 

It became quite clear that the parents are also strongly against the school becoming an academy when Hank Roberts attended the parents meeting. The unions and staff had been banned from this meeting but the parents had asked him to come in. We would again ask why, but it is now clear that it is because there are no proper answers to the arguments being made against an academy. 

The IEB say they support parental choice so they should take account of the views of the parents at that meeting. Staff are totally against this move. Parents and staff should have a secret independently overseen ballot to properly seek their views, after they have heard arguments for and against. The unions have offered to pay for this. In this way the IEB would have the clear views of the staff and parents. If the IEB believe in democracy then they would act on this result.

A public meeting about the forced academisation will be held at St Andrew's Church, Willesden High Road on March 4th at 6.30pm
 

Emergency meeting on forced academy conversion

Click to enlarge

 Michael Gove is trying to steamroller primary schools into applying to become academies but is encountering opposition from teachers, parents and governors. At the same time he is considering proposals to make it easier for the Church of England to take control of state-funded schools.

Haringey primary schools have been first in line but I suspect there will be moves over at least one Brent school soon.

There will be an emergency public meeting on Monday 9th January at 7pm at Downhills Primary School, Philip Lane, N.17, to discuss Michael Gove's proposal to enforce academy status on several of
Haringey's primary schools. Downhills is one of several Haringey Schools under threat of mandatory conversion to academy status, even though it has been judged an improving school in September 2011 by the last OFSTED inspectors. Normally schools have between 12 and 18 months to show carry out the expected improvement.

Not only is there no evidence that conversion to academy status ensuressuccess,  but the parents and teachers at Downhills are completely against Gove's attempt to impose his will.

Gove can do this because of the new powers which he took on through the the new education act which passed into law in November last year. Only collective public action is likely to sway him, since neither the individual schools nor the Local Authority has any power to resist.

Further details can be found HERE