Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Say no to academy status at Hornsey School for Girls
At a training day on Saturday 16 November, Governors at HSG will be considering academy status for the school (protest starts at 9.00am - see What's On).
Why would Governors at Hornsey School for Girls want academy status?
To raise attainment and close the attainment gap... Whilst some academies have done well, others have not. There is no academy ‘magic bullet’. Nor is there any evidence that Academies either raise attainment or close the attainment gap. Attainment is improved by improving teaching and learning.
To have more autonomy over the curriculum... Although Academies are free “to depart from aspects of the National Curriculum where they consider it appropriate” (White Paper, p42), this freedom is greatly exaggerated.The ‘freedoms’ academies have over the curriculum have often been used to narrow it, excluding students from a range of subjects.
To have freedom to control admissions... The charity Barnardo’s says handing schools control of admissions disadvantages poor children (TES, 27 August 2010). A report by Professor Anne West, London School of Economics (October 2010), concluded: “Studies have shown that schools that are their own admission authority are more likely to have admissions criteria that enable schools to be unfairly selective in their intakes.”
To have freedom from national agreements on pay and conditions... Why would heads and governors want to break from national agreements? Will they improve pay and conditions, or make them worse? Staff will be told that their pay and conditions are protected by TUPE arrangements if their school converts to an Academy. This is a worthless promise. The new academy can change them as it sees fit. New staff start on new contracts and a ‘two tier’ pay and conditions structure emerges. Freedom from national pay and conditions is likely to be used to cut pay and conditions.
To get more money... Schools converting to academy status get a share of the money the local authority holds back for central support services. But how much would a school benefit? It is difficult to find out the exact figure. There are ‘known unknowns’. For example it is not always clear what price services will command in this new market. One local authority is already charging academies a different rate for services. There are uncertain liabilities such as support staff pensions, maternity leave, etc. There is no new money so other schools will lose out.
Tell your family and friends. Come along to show your opposition to academy status on Saturday 16 November.
Send emails of protest to: Keith Embleton, Chair of Governors; Jon Marks, Vice Chair of Governors; Carol Jones, Head Teacher admin@hornseyschool.com
Send emails of support to Julie Davies, Haringey NUT juliedavies@me.com
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by David on
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The training day for Hornsey Governors, due to take place on Saturday 16 November, was postponed. Five people, including local residents, came along to speak to governors about their concerns about academy status for the school. They had the opportunity to talk to two governors and Headteacher, Carol Jones, who were at the school. Governors insisted that the training day had been arranged to discuss the many different options open to schools. They tried to reassure us that any decision regarding academy status would not happen for at least a year and only after consultation and serious consideration by governors. Our concern is that academy status is being considered at all, because of what it will mean for Hornsey and what it will mean for the other schools which remain under local authority control.
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The Academies Commission released a report in January this year: "The introduction of academies has provided much-needed vitality to the school system. At the same time, the evidence considered by the Commission does not suggest that improvement across all academies has been strong enough to transform the life chances of children from the poorest families. There have been some stunning successes among individual sponsored academies and academy chains, and these have raised expectations of what can be achieved even in the most deprived areas. But it is increasingly clear that academy status alone is not a panacea for improvement (my emphasis). While inspiring cases abound, and there are signs of a trend of longer term improvement among sponsored academies, the recent report from the National Audit Office (2012) highlights that Ofsted has judged almost half of all sponsored academies as inadequate or satisfactory (the latter is now defined as ‘requiring improvement’). International evidence of the impact of similar systems continues to present a mixed picture." (Unleashing Greatness, Getting the best from an academised system) A focus on teacher training and development, improving teaching and learning, raises standards. Not a switch to academy status.
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Creating academies involves the transfer of publicly funded assets to academy trusts or sponsors with far less accountability. When a school becomes an academy its land, buildings and their contents are removed from the elected local authority (or foundation trust) and handed over to the academy trust or sponsor on a long lease, usually of 125 years. With the value of each secondary school and the land it stands on worth on average £25 million and each primary and its land valued at an average of £10 million this could mean the loss of billions of pounds worth of land and buildings paid for by the public through their taxes. Keep schools under local authority control. If your school governors are carrying out a consultation on academy status, just say no.
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"The country's largest taxpayer-funded academy chain, which was recently criticised for its poor performance in managing schools, has paid nearly £500,000 into the private business interests of its trustees and executives.
"An investigation by the Observer has uncovered a series of payments over the past three years to companies in which those running theAcademy Enterprise Trust (AET), a registered charity, have a beneficial interest. The payments were for services ranging from "project management" to "HR consultancy", according to the academy chain's company accounts. AET, which is based in Essex, has not provided further details. In all the cases the services had not been put out to competitive tender...
"The chain, which was formed in 2008, also encourages its academies to use recruitment firm Synarbor when hiring teachers. David Triggs, who was paid £214,535 in 2012 to be chief executive of AET, was also a director of Synarbor until April this year. A spokesman said that Triggs was paid a fee for his work at Synarbor but that it was used "to support children and young people in our academies". The spokesman did not respond to inquiries about whether Triggs had any current or past shareholdings in the firm, but denied that Triggs had made any personal gain."
Guardian website, Saturday 20 July 2013
Not all academy chains are like this. My concern is that they may all follow this example, with converter academies being 'bought up' under future legislation.
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