How will you vote in the EU referendum? (Thread 2)

That's fair enough, Gracesgran.
I think I said earlier that it was an election pledge; it was immediately broken because they wanted to get the referendum through as quickly as possible.

Was it you who used to work for Leigh Day?

Not me Jen. I can see I am not keeping up with all this . As you say it was an election pledge they seem to see no reason to keep - mmm.

Like most of the other pledges, Gracesgran.
The only one they seem to have kept is the EU referendum. I wonder why that is.

infacts.org/100-days-kill-eu-myths/

This is an interesting website I have just been directed towards.
Loads of myths on this thread can be looked at and corrected. I live in hope.

If you do look at the infacts website, do look at the sinbin.
The Tory out brigade are obviously on message, as they all give the same wrong figures.

I think most of us will end up making up our minds in spite of the so called "information" Jen. Happy days. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Thanks for the link will go and have a look.

Tomorrow interesting?
All schools to be made academies!
What the heck has that to do with the budget?
Why do they have to destroy everything?
So much for decentralisation. Taking all schools away from local authority control.

Sometimes I just despair for the ' normal' section of the population - everything which has been good for the vast majority of people these twits in Govt. seem set on destroying in any way they can. I just wonder and worry what the education, healthcare, housing and opportunities etc. will be like when our grandchildren are adults.

I know Jen and that wasn't in the manifesto Idiology destroying the education chances of so many children - it seems we not only have the most political Chancellor but one who is only political with no real idea of economics that will help the whole country.

Despair seems to be the right word Welshwife.

Why does attending an Academy destroy a child's educational opportunities?!! Both my granddaughters attend such a school, with both of them doing extremely well as are most of their peers. The school has excellent facilities, both academically, vocationally and sporting.. My eldest GD is in the V1th form with a good clutch of GCSE's under her belt. Her aim is university, and her sister is following hard on her feels. What on earth is wrong with wanting these opportunities for every dhild?!

My eldest GD is also at an excellent academy, but the evidence shows that overall they are not performing as well as Local Authority schools.
This is some evidence from the local schools network.
"The overall figures have long been clear, for the key measure of % achieving 5 A-Cs at GCSE including English and Maths:
Academies: 47%
Non-academies: 60%. "
Sir Michael Wilshaw has recently raised concerns about under-performing academy chains.
The schools are not accountable in the same way as LA schools.
The Chief Exec of one academy chain is apparently paid £400,000pa.
I could go on, but this probably needs a separate thread.

There is absolutely no evidence that academies are doing any better than Local Authority schools.
I know of an example where becoming academy was an utter disaster, leading to results plummeting by 50% and staying there, after a long period of steady improvement.
Several major "academy sponsors" which take a similar role to LAs (apart from the fact they are private) have been criticised for poor performance.
Andrew Adonis dreamed up the idea (under Blair). I think the start-eyed aim was to get private sponsors to build new schools - at a time when Labour were struggling to upgrade the horribly dilapidated schools across the land. The millionaire sponsors ran out rather rapidly. Gove came into the Department and forced a lot of schools into becoming academies. He wanted central control (rather than scrutiny by locally elected authorities) and he wanted to take down local authorities.
They are now realising that you can't manage all those schools from the Department, so they are setting up local oversight bodies. They are also going to have to take some control of admissions. Local authorities have always had an obligation to provide school places for all. They have always done a lot of long term planning to ensure that new schools are built in line with birth rate etc . Since Gove they have not been allowed to build or plan any new schools. Only "free schools" allowed. The government is going to have to set up some kind of local admissions boards - otherwise there will be families who can't find school places for their children.

More data about the scale of underachievement here
www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2016/03/forcing-schools-to-become-academies-will-mean-more-inadequate-schools-and-worse-results

Since it tends to be only failing schools which become accademies it stands to reason that the figures for them will be worse.

Our children's school became one of the first accademies as it was worse than failing and it's now outstanding. Give them time.

This is no longer true NfkDumpling
The first academies were created from failing schools under the last Labour government. When Gove became SofS many more secondary schools who were not failing converted to academy status.

What happened to parental choice - something that was extolled as gold standard at the start of the government. The parents at my daughters village want to keep the secondary school as is, will they be forced to convert?

Looks like it whitewave.
There is a lot of anger over on Mumsnet and huge concern about children with SEN.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124702

To stop schools being forced to become academies.

I have not kept up completely with UK schools - getting on for 10 years since I last was in one teaching - at the moment I assume they do still cater for children who need extra help in some way - such as the SEN depts - does this facility continue to be provided by the 'Free Schools' or Acadamies or is that very important side of life for many families being left for the Local Authorities to continue providing? What about 'in service training' and all the various courses which were available to serving teachers - are they or will they still be available?

Academies do have special needs departments but I gather that there are concerns around admissions policies as they are obviously not obliged to take pupils in the same way that LA schools. They still have in-service training which may be provided across the academy chain, often by former LA advisers.
The issue is about coherence and the fact that LAs retain (at the moment) responsibility for admissions, SEN and safeguarding issues.
There will be major implications for legal issues related to the transfer of assets, property and land from councils to academy chains.
It is hard to see how LAs could run a coherent service when they have no control over schools or school places.
It will be hugely expensive and an enormous structural upheaval when the curriculum is also undergoing a massive change.
And teachers are, by all accounts, leaving the profession at a huge rate.

LAs have nothing to do with academies.

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

Schools will still have SEN departments, although I know of one school which proudly advertises that it doesn't and advises parents to go elsewhere if their child has SEN.

The issue is with LA funding of children who can't attend mainstream schools. Even with academies, LAs have been allowed to keep back a small sum to fund administration of admissions, SEN, transport and safeguarding. LAs are expected to step in if a school is in serious difficulties, even if it is an academy.

It's not directly linked to academies, but the amount LAs have been receiving for SEN has been shrinking, so funding for special schools has been increasingly hard to find. Many special schools have closed, so children have often have to travel miles to attend a specialist school, even if the parents can find a place.

Mainstream schools often fund their special needs departments out of general funding. Academies, which are in control of their own admissions policies, have no incentive to provide support for SEN pupils and they will almost inevitably drift to 'sink' schools.

Local authority funding for and provision of in-service training has been almost non-existent for years. Academy chains provide it on a 'do it our way or else' basis, which is what the worst LAs did years ago. Grant maintained schools have always been able to buy their in-service training from outside, but could choose their providers to support their own needs.

One of the worst thing about academies is that the National Terms and Conditions will no longer apply, which is, of course, why the government want to go ahead. Schools will also be able to appoint unqualified teachers when finances are tight.

Academy chains are not allowed to make a profit, so what they do is set themselves up as charities and then establish a profit-making company to provide administrative services, such as payroll, HR, general management and advisory services. These companies are not subject to Freedom of Information requests and it has been estimated that approximately £3billion has been siphoned off to these companies from just three counties (Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire). This is money which could have paid for teachers and classroom resources.

nigglynellie, How does forcibly turning a school into an academy make it better? I would be interested in your answer.

If there is a "market" with schools competing for pupils and using their results as their main differentiator then why would you want any SEN pupils. They are just going to drag down you average results.
I suspect the anxiety on Mumsnet is justified.
The Department have set up some regional oversight bodies to sit between themselves and academies (on the basis they can't directly manage all those academies from Westminster
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/schools-commissioners-group/about/our-governance
It is clear from their remit that there are many things they don't do.
The government is going to have to set out admissions bodies to take control of the admissions chaos that inevitably results when all schools have complete control of their own admissions policies.

There is currently a big management/admin burden on head teachers. In secondaries they can afford to employ a business manager and a team of administrators/ accounts clerks etc.The head will also have one or two deputies who can share the management load. In primaries the budgets are so small in comparison that the burden falls more heavily on the head. Take away the LA backup and many of the will struggle. AN academic chain is not necessarily going to be the same at all. I foresee more stress and more early retirement amongst their ranks.

Absolutely spot on, JessM. I've been in secondary schools where there are more clerical and support staff than teachers. These people have their own hierarchy within schools, which often causes tensions.

You're absolutely right. Small primary schools can't possibly fund all the services LAs provide. One botched employment tribunal could cost the whole school's budget for a year! Such schools will have to come together in some sort of group to share resources, effectively reinventing LAs. They will have to have a sponsor, which could be a local secondary school, an academy chain or they might form their own company.

Whatever they decide to do, there's going to be upheaval and extra layers of bureaucracy, which will cost more. There's no evidence that they will be any better, so it's change for change's sake. There are plenty of very small schools in this country which are doing just fine and parents like the ethos of small schools, so why change them?

Given that we - the poorer members of society who pay proportionally the most tax - are so strapped, where is the money coming from to achieve this?

How much more money is going to be wasted on chaotic reforms that don't work like the late not much missed Work and Pensions secretary and his universal benefit massive failure, or the chaos that was the reform to the NHS.