Academies

Yes free standing academies will get more money - the idea being that the money will be taken away from the LA and given directly to the school.So a successful school has nothing to lose.
If you are an academy with a sponsor the extra money is passed on to the sponsor who in turn is supposed to help the "failing" school to improve.

I read in our local paper that what is arguably the best comprehensive in our city (and in whose sixth form my daughter was lucky enough to get a place) is considering becoming an academy. The main reasons appear to be financial - the changes in sixth form funding mean that they are likely to lose around £350,000 a year once the changes are fully implemented. I have looked at their website and it appears that nothing much will change except that they believe they will be able to get better value for the money they get once they are freed from local authority control. It seems that another city comprehensive - also rated as outstanding by Ofsted - is also considering academy status.

Totally agree re grammar schools greatnan. Easy to get good results if you handpick the intake.
There are many excellent comprehensives and even the worst are incomparably better than the worst of the secondary moderns.
lilygran the economies of scale argument is a good one for primaries. Unreasonable range of tasks lands on the heads.
The sponsor to which I will hand over the school at the end of this term looks promising to me. It is run by people from education. They have really good IT systems set up for monitoring progress and quality (something the LA never had). They have recruited some very good "advisory staff" - and don't tell me all the advisors that the LA used to employ were value for money. They will, effectively, be a LA sized organisation but will have an incentive to keep their costs down. I am not saying that all sponsors will be good - this is the one we picked when told we had to find one.
The issue of the amount of data that is demanded centrally is another issue. There is an eternal conflict between government saying they are going to devolve power and then hanging on to it.
The national curriculum is yet another, separate issue. I am no fan - there is an argument maybe that it makes it easier for kids to move schools. But once into exam board syllabi that goes down the pan in many subjects.
Are you a fan of Gove's craziest idea then - free schools?

I noticed when listening to 'Any Answers' yesterday that all the people calling in to praise grammar schools had either attended one themselves or their children had. In fact, grammar schools were not universally successful, in spite of their selective basis.

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6028593

Less than one fifth of pupils in the 1950's went to grammar schools - I don't believe that the other four fifths were less entitled to the resources devoted to them.

I went to a grammar school, my sister didn't. There was a good state secondary modern in the area, but my mother was afraid of the priest and my sister stayed at our p*ss poor catholic elementary school until she was 15. She never learned fractions or decimals, but she can still recite the entire catechism. She hasn't found it a lot of use.

Six of my grandchildren attended Driffield School in East Yorkshire. They loved it, even though it is a 'bog standard' comprehensive serving a mixed area with considerable unemployment. It received excellent Ofsted reports and had a friendly, warm atmosphere. The teachers were hard working and approachable.

England does not need more ways of picking off the lucky children and giving them a better education, but better schools for all children. I know the system is different in Scotland and, I believe, better.

Mamie, you're absolutely right! And JessM - the bureaucratic function has to be carried out somehow and there is evidence that it actually increased, for example, because of the huge amounts of information demanded centrally. Which is more expensive, a large office in the Town Hall or 100 small offices all duplicating the same work? What does freedom mean when schools are told what to teach and how to teach and when to teach it? To say nothing of having to tick all the boxes to prove it's been done!

yes, well we have incredibly low staff turnover. Too low in my opinion.
Don't get me started on surveys of how fed up people are.

This is an interesting article this morning.
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/12/schools-face-talent-drain
I think someone on here was making the point recently that people often complain about schools nationally, at the same time as being perfectly happy with their own children's schools.
I am not involved professionally any more, but I think my grandaughters' schools are excellent.

Well said, Lilygran. A lot of this is to do with a very long running power struggle between central and local government which central government has won hands down, IMHO.

There is the alternative view lilygran that schools should be able to set their own priorities and that having a very large central administration function in every borough is a waste of money.
I have mixed feelings. I think secondary schools are better off running their own budgets, but it is quite a burden on primary schools as not financially viable to run their own business and admin function.
My personal experience is that support from the LA was not, in recent years, for our smallish secondary, good value for money (in terms of the money they got from government to do so.) And they did not get to grips with problematic primaries that were sending us children who had not even started to learn to read at 11.
It is also worth saying that, for all their faults, new labour did give schools a LOT more money than they were getting under Major. My main gripe is that they changed secretary of state, on average, about every 18 months and Balls must have spent a fortune on that silly rainbow logo for his department. Oh and their school building money was probably not spent as carefully as it could have been - leaving some schools still desperate for a new building.
Gove talks a bizarre combination of sense and silliness I'm afraid. ANd I think he is there for the duration.
It is hard to comment generally on academies are there have been so many variations on this theme in a short time.
They will not be divisive - as I said, blink and you will find that ALL the state secondaries in your borough will be academies, either by choice, or because they are forced. If not this year, then next.

Hear, hear, Lilygran

Lilygran high five!

Well said Lilygran

There used to be a very effective way of ensuring public funds allocated to education were used honestly. They were called local education authorities. Then the Tories decided to liberate schools from local bureaucracy and started directing funds straight to schools. Labour carried it on. Before then it was hardly worth any scam merchant's time or effort to go into education management as all you could fiddle was a few pencils - at the most, the PTA fund or the lunch money. Now it's really worthwhile. And, guess what - it's getting harder and harder to recruit governors and head teachers because the kind of people who used to work endless overtime (head teachers) or volunteer hours unpaid (governors) were interested in the kids and education, not in running a business enterprise. When local education authorities administered the funds they were answerable to local people through locally elected councillors. The administration for a hundred schools could be run by an office of half a dozen people. Now every school has to have a bursar and a school manager and a marketing specialist and pay for legal advice and personnel advice......All of which comes out of their devolved budget which also pays for teachers, books, repairs, equipment, exams and everything else.

pogs there are loads of brilliant state schools and some not so good ones! Same for academies. Same myth re faith schools...they are a mixed bunch too!

The teachers and children are the same whatever you call a school. It is true that early academies could pay teachers higher salaries than LA schools, could 'pay off' the teachers that they did not want and worst of all they did exclude pupils that they did not want. Those kids still had to go to school somewhere!

Now that the 'carrot' money has run out and there is less cash available more academies are facing similar challenges to LA schools and many more are not doing better than LA 'state' schools.

Gove says it is good for academies not to be restricted by a central curriculum. Why not extend this to all schools as it is such a benefit??

PS New Labour turned out not to be left wing!

OMG it's even worse than I thought. I didnt realise it had been changed to no financial input.

We need good schools FOR ALL - academies are indeed a big expensive con, and make it much worse for the other local schools, as monies are diverted to them- as well as creaming off kids etc. You don't have to be 'left' wing to see right through them- how sad.

POGS - you seem to be under the impression that 'left leaning' people support Labour! That ended in 1997 as far as I am concerned.
Of course there will be good and bad academies - it is the principle that bothers me. Somebody should have been controlling the way this headmaster used public money. That has nothing to do with party politics.

Understandable, but well done for the time you've done it!

Just to update you vampirequeen academy "sponsors" do not put in any money these days. When they started under labour there was money put in towards new buildings, but no more. The reverse happens - schools give money to sponsors. Most secondaries will be academies before you can blink folks.
This is a way of slashing the numbers working in LEAs.
I agree there will be good and bad, depending on the quality of the senior team and the teaching.
"My school" is just about to become an academy (no choice as we are just below "floor targets".) We seem to have found a good sponsor that will perform the role that the LA were supposed to, but have not really done for the last few years (cuts going on). If we were above "floor targets" we could become a stand alone academy (we would get all the money and none paid back to sponsor).
I have decided that after lots of years as a Chair of governors this is a suitable moment to step down. Bit but I have run out of enthusiasm.

That sounded like the meals I was given in hospital when I had my last hip done!

There are bad apples in every barrel Greatnan. As for food this has been and sadly will continue to be a thorn in the side. Only last week a 9 year old girl took a picture of her school dinners and they were disgraceful.Dry beefburger with cheese, two potato croquettes and a tablespoon of sweet corn. Pudding was an ice lolly for goodness sake, it was a state school!.

There have been some very good reports in favour of academies, especially in deprived areas. There is no reasoning that just because a school is not an academy it is better,surely they should be viewed on their respective merits. Good state schools good academies.

I would have thought given it was Labour who introduced them those gransnetters who lean to the left of politics would think they were a good thing, am I wrong, I'm sure I will find out. If you watch M.P's debating in Parliament there is usually is a consensus they are a good thing, time will tell but there is sound evidence to look at so far.

The education system I'm sorry to say has been failing for many years. We as a nation have dropped down the world league to an embarrassing level, is it something like 64th from 10th?. When teachers allow spelling mistakes, business leaders repeatedly tell us our children are unable to read and write when applying for jobs then I am sorry there is only so long people can carry on defending the indefensible.

I think one element of the con is that there is a lot of talk about "freeing the schools from Local Authority control" over appointments of staff, curriculum, budgets etc. Local authorities haven't had those powers for years - the government should know this as it was a previous Conservative government that took them away.
It is central government that has had control over the curriculum since the late eighties.

It is the bit about not being bound by the rules that bothers me! It seems sometimes that any rich crackpot can open a school and parents will send their children as long as the academic results are good.

Our village primary is linked to an academy trust - we buy in executive headship from them. This is the only way to stay alive,as there are insufficient pupils to allow for a head onsite.

I hate the window dressing element of academies - but there does seem to be the advantage that they can spend their budgets where they will and target the areas in their own school that they think need support, rather than being bound by central rules.

Academies are a con. They are sold as a brave new world often with new buildings, uniform etc. What most people don't know is that the company/charity/religious organisation that sponsors an academy only puts in around £2million. The government puts in around £28million. This is £28million that could be used to improve existing schools. Academies are also given extra per capita funding.

You're quite right Greatnan about not having to abide by the food guidelines. In fact they don't have to abide by many of the rules and 'guidelines' that ordinary schools do.The first thing academies tend to do is exclude the most challenging children. They can do this much easier than normal schools. Then they change the the curriculum, school hours and staff contracts.

Free schools are another con. They will take funding away from existing schools and also set their own selection procedures and charges. One that fortunately failed to get permission in this area wanted to make the learning of a musical instrument a non negotiable for all children. Of course the child's parents would have had to provide the instrument and pay for the lessons. This was not going to be the only 'extra'. If Free schools are allowed to do this then it will lead to them creaming off the most academic, middle class children in the area and become elitist...hmmm the grammar school strikes again.