School governors and academies

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/20/michael-rosen-on-academy-schools-local-democracy-bites-the-dust

Excellent article to cheer you up.

"Through this labyrinth, dance interesting folk. Example: one academy headteacher notched up a salary of £390,000 in one year; he was the sole director of a dating website, a health club and accommodation business on the school site; the National Audit Office found that the head’s own firm was paid £508,000 in management fees over three years, though investigators were unable to determine the extent to which the head benefited from the arrangement. (That’s the labyrinth again.) This was one-time government favourite Sir Greg Martin and the Durand academy."

This is where the money goes.

This is also from the same article.

"This is how it works: your school is a local authority school. When it becomes an academy, the local authority is compelled to give (for a peppercorn rent) a 125-year lease to whichever “sponsor” comes in to take over the school. Leaseholders have rights over the properties they have leases on, including, perhaps, permission to run a “dating agency” on school premises. Where Sir Greg trod, others are sure to step, too. In the case of “foundation” schools – schools whose ownership is in the hands of a trust – switching to academy status entails a direct transfer of freehold from the trust to the new sponsors. There is room for some serious cash to be made here."

So is a bit about how he imagined when Gove was in the DfE, he had a map which lit up whenever little people peed on the floor, or did something else they shouldn't, as Gove was in charge of all the schools.

School Boards, eh, Penstemmon?
Weren't the 1870 schools Board Schools? Certainly the primary one I went to had that above the door.
I think the one at Beamish is called a Board School as well.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-to-force-every-english-state-school-to-leave-council-control-and-become-an-academy-a6933391.html

Osborne says it will cost £1.5 billion to do it. That's a lot of wasted money which could be spent on the education of our grandchildren instead of changing the system.

durhamjen schools are to be given £75k to support the academisation process..basically this will pay the lawyers to sort out the property leases and maybe to 'pay off' some office staff as they decide on a shared financial /business manager to work across the schools in the the Multi Academy Trust (MAT) That, in my view would not be enough to pay off heads but I suspect the Board of the MAT will decide not to replace a head when they move on.

As a Chair of Govs of a small school I am very aware of how vulnerable we are to being subsumed into a large MAT. Whilst wholeheartedly preferring to stay a maintained LA school we are pragmatic enough to know we are better to try to choose partner schools to join with in a MAT rather than waiting for Nick Gibbs to choose who will run us. Rock and a hard place.

Glad our democracy is in such a healthy state

That happened at my son's school, Penstemmon, a catholic secondary. They were told that if they became an academy, they would get more money and staff would not have to be made redundant.
The governors lied to them. It became an academy, then more staff were made redundant than was mentioned beforehand.

Democracy, whitewave?
I have been teaching my grandson about different forms of government, from a book by Andrew Marr. I find it difficult to use that word with this government.

I mentioned Michael Young earlier. He wrote a book about the rise of the meritocracy in 1958. It was a satire, about life in the future but it actually doesn't look like it now.
It talks about the civil service and how the education service is not run on the right lines. People who have connections but not the intelligence get to run the government, even though really they are only suitable to be postmen.

I think I ought to read it again.

I have thought from day one that GO and DC looked like they were playing at being in government.

DC seems to have grown more into his role, but Osborne never has and continues to look uncomfortably like an overgrown schoolboy.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/21/nicky-morgan-under-fire-over-mumsnet-post-on-academisation

Mumsnet got into the Guardian over this.

Good and accurate blog about academies disidealist.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/the-mysterious-case-of-the-disappearing-schools-how-state-schools-will-be-privatised-without-anyone-noticing/comment-page-1/#comment-6811

That's it in a nutshell.

It cheers me to see how many of you know what is going on in our education system. I taught for donkey's years before I became a novelist, read 'The Rise of the Meritocracy in 58, Durhamjen, and it makes me so angry to see what lies are told to convince people to accept these money making academies. And even angrier to watch the new owners selling off great chunks of the playing fields, sacking staff with impunity and replacing them with untrained staff, imposing new expensive uniforms - that's a money-making scheme if ever I saw one - and now aiming to have a governing body composed entirely of their friends and colleagues. Spread the word. People need to know what's going on.

School governors should have first hand knowledge of how a school is run in my experience some haven't and are busy bodies from the local community who want to be important I agree parent governors are vital in the operating of a school and it gives them a voice and also lets them see the other side of education.

It's all in the plan for a top-down Government led Education service where schools become businesses run by unaccountable bodies whose main aim is to make money. You are right to be concerned about the democratic process. The loss of governing bodies which, in their way are great levellers, will remove any hope of local influence and lead to a "one size fits all" approach. Schools will be cherry-picked leaving the disabled and the challenging in a worse place than they are already. We need to fight this. The best way is through the ballot box!

I was a Primary VA School Governor for over 15 years, starting as an elected Parent Governor and progressing to a Foundation Governor. We were always told that a Parent Governor is representative of the parents but doesn't represent them. We found that too many joined the Governing Body to try to further their own child's interests rather than what was best for the whole School community. One had a darling child who the parent only wanted to wear natural fibres rather than synthetic so joined the GB to try to change the whole uniform policy to suit their personal taste. Others tried to use GB meetings to get 'closer' to teachers in an attempt to ingratiate their child.

It's a plot do bring a halt to spending on school building IMO. (which may be the explanation as to why it was in the budget)
Remember what the buildings were like at the end of the last period of Tory rule? Many were leaky, cold, and disintegrating and the Blair government worked hard and spent a lot of money to replace and refurbish.
A big secondary with generous funding can manage fairly large refurbishment projects out of their budgets. But new building costs beyond their means.
A primary school does not have that kind of budget and they have always been supported by the pot of education money in the LAs.
Underhand austerity, that's what it is.

I used to the a teacher governor in a large secondary school. Of all our governors the parent governors were the most prized. Several of them were very successful in their own sphere and unafraid to take on the local politicos who often voted on party lines. It's true that they wanted the best for their children, but I always found that to be a positive thing. They wanted the school to run smoothly and efficiently.

I well remember one of them causing a stir when he actually visited the Department of Education to try to get some money out of them. He ended up berating them for the luxury of their premises when the floors our portacabins were caving in.

I think parent governors will be sadly missed.

Remove councils and parent governors and who will know what is going on in the schools

I think that sometimes parent governors are not clear what they are taking on - indeed all of us governors get a bit of a shock!

I can understand the need to fill the governor boards with people with valuable skills - i.e. the best person for the job, regardless of whether they are a parent or not - but I do also think that at last one place should be earmarked for a parent where possible. Parent governors should not have a majority on the board - and the idea of individual parent governors with an axe to grind (e.g. the uniform example above) should be counter-balanced by a more objective view from the other governors. Having said that the parent governors on our board are objective, thoughtful, skilled and sensible people and enhance the decision-making.

The school where I have been a Governor for a great many years opted to become an Academy two years ago. The HT plus his closest allies determined who would form The Board. Those left are now referred to as the Associates who actually have no powers at all, merely a talking shop though regularly in school to support school life. Staff and pupils largely do not understand how things have changed and we are of course a convenient peg to hang unpopular decisions such as redundancies on. It concerns me greatly the amount of power 5 self selected people wield including dispensing with a governor who had served the school faithfully for many years simply because he asked the right and sometimes uncomfortable questions.

I hope someone can tell me how to recruit all these highly qualified people to sit on the GB of which I am chair. Sadly they are not rushing forward to support our small primary school.

I'm not connected with the education sector but have two DiLs who are teachers.

So I have been trying to learn more about the benefits/disbenefits of academisation. It seems to me that this government is simply following its traditional agenda of 'smash the unions' on the one hand whilst giving free rein to business at the same time.

Does not the present drive to make all schools academies do both in one fell swoop?

By the way I am most appreciative of the informative posts on this thread by people who are more in the know than I. Great stuff, everyone.

Any Conservative voting gran who disagrees with this latest plan should really make their feelings felt just like other Tories have, as it may well help to stop this latest plan and the government to u-turn.

There is a petition to sign on www.change.org - search for "Stop all schools being turned into academies."

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124747

This is the petition on the government website.
Nearly 140,000 signatures now.

Bear, I mentioned that book of Michael Young's, The rise of the Meritocracy, on a different thread.

When schools were owned and supported by their county councils we knew where we were. In my county we had good grammar schools and I worked in my last one for 13 years. Then we became an "academy" despite the fact that the staff opposed this and our head teacher assured us that it would not happen. Within weeks I had been sacked as they chose to replace me (BSc, MSc, Dip LIS) with an unqualified person willing to do my job - badly - for peanuts!

I've since done some private tuition and am now on full-time granny duty since being widowed last autumn but still miss the job I enjoyed in various local schools for over 30 years and regret that the pupils in my last school are not getting from my replacement the education which they got while I was in post...