Schools Crisis.

[Strokes]

But if they reduce classroom sizes, there might not be enough room for all the kids.

Thats why we make kids so small.

[Darkon84]

But if they reduce classroom sizes, there might not be enough room for all the kids. 

 

 

Thats why we make kids so small.

 

[Jon the Hat]

The tories are destroying our public services - academisation is the same as privatisation. These schools will be taken over by their rich friends - with little or no accountability. Similar to what the tories are doing to the NHS.

 

What on earth are you talking about?  There is no accountability now, that is the problem.

[Sharpe's Fox]

What on earth are you talking about?  There is no accountability now, that is the problem.

If you think the abolition of local council control of schools and parent governors in favour of academy trusts will make the education system more accountable you are deluded.

[Webbo]

If you think the abolition of local council control of schools and parent governors in favour of academy trusts will make the education system more accountable you are deluded.

People will vote with their feet. If it's a private business and nobody sends their kids there they'll go out of business.

 

 

Parent governors, from the one's I've spoken to, are there to sell raffle tickets and man the cake stall during the school fete .If they try to influence policy they're largely patronised and ignored.

[leicsmac]

People will vote with their feet. If it's a private business and nobody sends their kids there they'll go out of business.

Parent governors, from the one's I've spoken to, are there to sell raffle tickets and man the cake stall during the school fete .If they try to influence policy they're largely patronised and ignored.

A system where schools are directly financially accountable to parents is not good for teachers or students. Curricula and teaching styles can change after a phone call from a single parent, which then ends up affecting all the other kids, so it has to be changed again and so on and so on...all for the sake of desperately trying to appease every parent so they'll drop their money at your place.

I work in such a system. That part of it is not pleasant.

[Webbo]

I'm pretty sure schools won't change their policy based on one parent.

[leicsmac]

I'm pretty sure schools won't change their policy based on one parent.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But in a situation where the school is pretty much entirely dependent on fees from parents, it can happen. I've seen it happen, more than once in more than one place over here, where there is close to 100 students in any one cram academy.

Of course, I'm betting there will be at least a little more framework regarding academies so it's not really the same situation...I'm just pointing out what can and does result when a school is entirely reliant on contributions from parents to stay open.

[Rincewind]

Surely the parents who contribute more will be more favoured if it is a case of keeping the school open?

[Buce]

Tory back-bench rebellion over academies plans:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/02/backbench-pressure-on-osborne-academy-scheme

[Rincewind]

1) Leader power struggle

or

2) Concern over children's' future.

or

3) Concern about their future as MP's

 

A three sided coin flip.

[Dodgy Bob]

Don't all academy chains have to be non-profit and aren't all academies funded by the government? It might be my lack of understanding but it seems that talk of profit motives and parents running the school because they've made a donation seem a bit premature.

I'm also not sure why having community stakeholders inputting into discussions around curriculum is such a bad idea? I know my vocational degree would have benefited immeasurably from greater input from people who actually knew the industry, rather than the whole thing being ran by academics, who were intelligent, but very lacking in practical industry knowledge. Wouldn't a good discussion around curriculum include input from professional specialists in the fields of art, design, science, business etc?

That said this idea has clearly been rushed through by the tories and that raises all sorts of alarm bells.

[Jon the Hat]

Don't all academy chains have to be non-profit and aren't all academies funded by the government? It might be my lack of understanding but it seems that talk of profit motives and parents running the school because they've made a donation seem a bit premature.

I'm also not sure why having community stakeholders inputting into discussions around curriculum is such a bad idea? I know my vocational degree would have benefited immeasurably from greater input from people who actually knew the industry, rather than the whole thing being ran by academics, who were intelligent, but very lacking in practical industry knowledge. Wouldn't a good discussion around curriculum include input from professional specialists in the fields of art, design, science, business etc?

That said this idea has clearly been rushed through by the tories and that raises all sorts of alarm bells.

 

On the rushing point, Academies are not new, they have been running for what 7-8 years?

[Alf Bentley]

On the rushing point, Academies are not new, they have been running for what 7-8 years?

 

 

I suppose the difference is that, until now, they have not been compulsory and there has been no time-limit. Schools choosing to become academies have been able to devise their own plans and schedule - and have wanted to do so.

 

Now, as well as performing the demanding task of running a school as planned, heads will have to devote a massive amount of energy to planning to become an academy. They'll have to decide what sort of academy: independent? part of a chain? what sort of ethos? etc. They'll presumably have to work out how they can achieve their educational goals via a completely new organisational structure - one that many of them will be opposed to, or that will be opposed by many of their teachers and/or parents. There'll presumably be all sorts of issues relating to the transition from one structure to the other. And, I repeat, all this will have to be done (by 2020, according to the legislation?) alongside the existing workload of running the school.

 

I think the mirror-image would be for a Labour government to place a legal obligation on all private companies in a particular sector to acquire nationalised status by 2020, even if the board, key staff and customers of those companies oppose the idea. They'd then be obliged to identify a suitable public sector management and to arrange their own nationalisation against their will and while continuing to make a profit. I wouldn't fancy that if I was running a private firm.

[Sharpe's Fox]

On the rushing point, Academies are not new, they have been running for what 7-8 years?

 

Academies are in reality a 30 year old  policy created by Thatcher but then known as Grant Maintained Schools. Blair got rid of the GMS's then reintroduced the policy rebranded as academies.

[leicsmac]

Don't all academy chains have to be non-profit and aren't all academies funded by the government? It might be my lack of understanding but it seems that talk of profit motives and parents running the school because they've made a donation seem a bit premature.

I'm also not sure why having community stakeholders inputting into discussions around curriculum is such a bad idea? I know my vocational degree would have benefited immeasurably from greater input from people who actually knew the industry, rather than the whole thing being ran by academics, who were intelligent, but very lacking in practical industry knowledge. Wouldn't a good discussion around curriculum include input from professional specialists in the fields of art, design, science, business etc?

That said this idea has clearly been rushed through by the tories and that raises all sorts of alarm bells.

 

Most academy cram schools over here are nonprofit too, beyond making sure that everyone gets paid at the end of the month. The managers don't cream anything more off the top than to keep a roof over their own heads. Doesn't stop the fact that as the sole contributors to the academies are the parents, they have considerable political sway over educational decisions as I described above.

 

If there is government funding and some kind of oversight either from them or some other independent organisation, then fine. Having people that actually know what they're doing contributing to school policy - also fine. But giving most parents who know little about the educational process massive amounts of power over it is a recipe for disaster, both here and potentially in the UK.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

Been watching the Schools White Paper debate... Here's the paper if you're interested (it's very hard / dry reading);

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere

Also some further reading;

https://fullfact.org/education/academies-and-maintained-schools-what-do-we-know/

Seems to me, this paper has been poorly put together and has reached a conclusion without doing enough research. It is too early in the life time of academies to know whether they are better than LEA controlled schools - and I expect the truth is, there will be examples where academies are better and examples where LEA's are better and that a mixed approach is the best way forward rather than enforcing all to go down one route.

Nicky Morgan's performance in the debate was less than impressive. At one point, she seemed to be deliberately only taking interventions from her own side, but amusingly, it was from Tory MP's that had concerns over the policy themselves.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeduc/258/258.pdf#page66

Opposition motion defeated by 98 votes - looks like the key themes of the White Paper will live on for a while longer yet, despite the findings of the commons select committee above.

[Jon the Hat]

Academies are in reality a 30 year old  policy created by Thatcher but then known as Grant Maintained Schools. Blair got rid of the GMS's then reintroduced the policy rebranded as academies.

 

Funnily enough I went to a very good Grant maintained school, and my old headmaster is now a consultant setting up free schools after a number of years working at the DoE.

[Alf Bentley]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/25/academy-plan-u-turn-by-nicky-morgan-as-she-seeks-to-calm-tory-re/

"Councils will be allowed to run their own academy chains in a dramatic U-turn by Nicky Morgan on controversial plans to force all schools to become academies. The significant departure from the plan announced by George Osborne in his budget speech last month will seek to appease up to 40 Tory rebels who risked defeating the Government's bid to make the change. Ms Morgan, the Education Secretary, will consider permitting the best-performing local authorities to manage their own academy chains, reports The Times. Some councils may also be allowed to retain their powers to force academies to take vulnerable pupils or those with special needs and encourage them to increase the number of places to meet rising demand".

 

The devil will be in the detail / the implementation, if this goes ahead, but I hope this partial U-turn avoids most of the completely unnecessary chaos that Morgan was about to cause in schools. I often disagree with govt policies, but have to recognise that I'm in a minority and they have an electoral mandate for them. This is different. Very few of those involved wanted compulsory academies - likewise many Tory MPs, it seems. This is sheer incompetence and bad politics. Morgan should resign.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

Alf - I don't think that's new, having watched the last Parliment debate on this, I'm pretty sure Morgan had been suggesting this during questioning - that LEA's could convert themselves into Academy bodies.

In fairness to the government, there is a tipping point with this academisation where it becomes inefficient to run LEA's if they have a much smaller number of schools to run... but I don't think we've got to that point yet and I'm not yet convinced you can fully judge the effectiveness of academies.

[Alf Bentley]

Alf - I don't think that's new, having watched the last Parliment debate on this, I'm pretty sure Morgan had been suggesting this during questioning - that LEA's could convert themselves into Academy bodies.

In fairness to the government, there is a tipping point with this academisation where it becomes inefficient to run LEA's if they have a much smaller number of schools to run... but I don't think we've got to that point yet and I'm not yet convinced you can fully judge the effectiveness of academies.

 

 

Fair enough. Again, the devil will be in the detail - and in the degree of compulsion.

 

Presumably it wouldn't just be a case of LEAs changing their name to "academy chains", though, so I wonder exactly what they'd be required to do to earn the status of "academy chains".

 

I have no problem with more decision-making powers being devolved to heads, subject to certain limits and a degree of accountability. I do have a major problem with it being compulsory, though. There are presumably quite a number of heads out there who are brilliant at ensuring their schools provide a good education under the oversight of their LEA, but who might not be any good at dealing with commercial academy chains - or who might not want to do that. Forcing them down that road seems utterly bonkers if their schools are already performing well under LEA supervision and teachers/parents are happy with existing operations.

 

The head at my daughter's school (a highly-rated LEA-supervised school) has just appointed an extra new deputy to take over supervision of much of the school's everyday management, while she (the head) concentrates on preparing to meet this new compulsory requirement to plan to become an academy. That might work out OK - but it might reduce the effectiveness of a high-performing school for no purpose whatsoever.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Government have made yet another u-turn and decided all schools aren't going to be academies after all.

[Guest MattP]

Absolutely shambolic, has a government ever had this many u-turns in such a short space of time?

Complete farce.

[Sharpe's Fox]

We've had u-turns from the Treasury, Departments of Works and Pensions and Education thus far. All we need now is junior doctors contracts for Health and snoopers charter for the Home Office and it'll be Yahtzee.