Academies agenda gathering momentum again?

[elsiegee40]

I have 2 concerns about taking education away from the LAs :

 

1. Who is responsible for Inclusion ?

As a governor (at an academy, but that's not relevant) I end up on Permanent Exclusion Panels and a very nice person from the LA who will have been working closely with the family always attends. Assuming the PEX is upheld, that person is then responsible for sorting out what happens next. Will this stay with the LA? If not, who will act for the children?

 

2. Who becomes responsible for commissioning education places?

The LA currently does this, although the government's Free Schools Programme seems to ride roughshod over it. Will the RSC be expected to have the detailed knowledge of all areas that the LAs currently have?

 

I can see a number of young people being very poorly served by the proposed changes.

[localzuk]

We're already seeing those things becoming issues @elsiegee40. Some academies have changed their catchment areas to "miss out" poor estates, and/or have tweaked their admissions criteria to make it more difficult for those with special needs to gain a place, under the guise of "improving standards".

 

Councils are already struggling to provide new places, as they're being prevented building new schools, so commissioning places appears to consist of extending current schools, and/or asking trusts to take on new places. Neither of which are sustainable.

[Andrew_C]

1) Who cares? The Academy has got rid of an expensive trouble maker.

2) The chains running local schools will build new schools where there is an identified need, but only if there is a profit in the short term.

[elsiegee40]

1) Who cares? The Academy has got rid of an expensive trouble maker.

2) The chains running local schools will build new schools where there is an identified need, but only if there is a profit in the short term.

 

1) Permanent exclusions happen in LA schools and academies. Academies don't take the blame here - some little darlings do things that make a continuing relationship with their current education provider impossible.

 

The school or academy doing the permanent exclusion doesn't care what happens next, but somebody has to take responsibility for ensuring an excluded child remains in education. That is currently the LA's education dept.

 

2. Who decides where there's need? The LAs may be fairly toothless already, but at least they have the knowledge of where places are (or aren't) needed

[Andrew_C]

1) Being cynical

2) Being cynical

[sparkeh]

We're already seeing those things becoming issues @elsiegee40. Some academies have changed their catchment areas to "miss out" poor estates, and/or have tweaked their admissions criteria to make it more difficult for those with special needs to gain a place, under the guise of "improving standards".

 

Councils are already struggling to provide new places, as they're being prevented building new schools, so commissioning places appears to consist of extending current schools, and/or asking trusts to take on new places. Neither of which are sustainable.

Yes we've seen this too. An academy near us changed its catchment to avoid a less desirable area. The LA had to take up the slack, putting more pressure on us (an already overcrowded school) and send children miles away (sometimes in LA funded taxis) just to get them in school. I can only see this getting worse

[mikeprice]

The more I look at this the more it looks like a complete dog's dinner

 

I should have become a lawyer - they are the only ones who it always works for!

[sparkeh]

Well it seems the LA MAT idea didn't go down very well with MPs

The suggestion of allowing councils to become multi-academy trusts has been described by a leading Conservative backbencher as the "worst of both worlds" - as it would leave councils in control, but without any democratic accountability.

Source: Academy 'compulsion is sticking point' for Tory MPs - BBC News

 

MPs are still want the compulsion element removed.

[Andrew_C]

Well it seems the LA MAT idea didn't go down very well with MPs

Except the other worst world, where schools get sold to Party donors, and there is no democratic control.

[mikeprice]

Well it seems the LA MAT idea didn't go down very well with MPs

 

 

MPs are still want the compulsion element removed.

 

Still leaves the Academies free do do what they want and leaves the LA to pick up the pieces - the whole thing needs a rethink - the problems mentioned above will just happen more slowly unless there is overall control for an area's education - with a stick to force a school to fall into line when necessary - e.g. taking on difficult pupile and not changing catchment areas etc etc

[localzuk]

What exactly do the Tories have against local authorities controlling schools?

[sparkeh]

What exactly do the Tories have against local authorities controlling schools?

Their friends can't make money out of them? /cynic

[Andrew_C]

They'd be happy if more of the authorities were right-wing.

[korifugi]

What exactly do the Tories have against local authorities controlling schools?

 

Their friends can't make money out of them? /cynic

 

They'd be happy if more of the authorities were right-wing.

 

The cynic in me says that not only would they like more control over them, to potentially extract the most profit - but they also want to gradually replace public services with ones that are more sympathetic with their policies.

 

Public services for a long time have been seen as the territory of Labour (or at least more Labour-centric than Conservative) - and a change in the way that they're run/managed may dissolve that particular 'power block'.

[bobsmith]

What exactly do the Tories have against local authorities controlling schools?

 

It's not specific to controlling schools, it's politics and their unswerving belief that the private sector are better at everything than the public sector.

 

and in response to an earlier post by eilsegee40

 

"1) Permanent exclusions happen in LA schools and academies. Academies don't take the blame here - some little darlings do things that make a continuing relationship with their current education provider impossible.

 

The school or academy doing the permanent exclusion doesn't care what happens next, but somebody has to take responsibility for ensuring an excluded child remains in education. That is currently the LA's education dept."

 

When the LA doesn't have any schools because they are all academies, and none of them want the student, what then? It's not that anyone is blaming one specific individual academy here, it's the entire program that has the problem.

[elsiegee40]

and in response to an earlier post by eilsegee40

 

"1) Permanent exclusions happen in LA schools and academies. Academies don't take the blame here - some little darlings do things that make a continuing relationship with their current education provider impossible.

 

The school or academy doing the permanent exclusion doesn't care what happens next, but somebody has to take responsibility for ensuring an excluded child remains in education. That is currently the LA's education dept."

 

When the LA doesn't have any schools because they are all academies, and none of them want the student, what then? It's not that anyone is blaming one specific individual academy here, it's the entire program that has the problem.

And that was precisely my point.

[PotNoodleTech]

The suggestion of allowing councils to become multi-academy trusts has been described by a leading Conservative backbencher as the "worst of both worlds" - as it would leave councils in control, but without any democratic accountability.

Source: Academy 'compulsion is sticking point' for Tory MPs - BBC News .

 

So hang on - they've just admitted that MATs in general have no democratic accountability, and insinuated that this is a bad thing?

[Andrew_C]

Welcome to "New Think".

[Geoff]

Well you could still FoI request them to death.

[bobsmith]

So hang on - they've just admitted that MATs in general have no democratic accountability, and insinuated that this is a bad thing?

 

The backbenchers aren't the same as the cabinet. Some of them have a few scruples left.

[mthomas08]

So hang on - they've just admitted that MATs in general have no democratic accountability, and insinuated that this is a bad thing?

 

The way this Country is going the word Democratic will be a Legend, a Myth, something we tell our grandchildren that existed a long time ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

 

The more you privatise, the more you rely on highly paid Fat Cats who make the decisions. Some Schools even remove the governors and replace them with directors/insert terms and not necessarily from local areas but instead people who play ball with those Fat Cats.

 

Still it's all screwed, just like the NHS and Public Transport. Which is why I am glad of our Schools current situation, we are safe and secure for the moment anyway.

[sparkeh]

So hang on - they've just admitted that MATs in general have no democratic accountability, and insinuated that this is a bad thing?

Ah but you are not understanding the Conservative way of thinking. Its bad for LA run MATs to have no democratic accountability but its fine for privately run MATs. Also if you oppose any aspect of the plan then you don't want to give children a good education.

[sparkeh]

Oh and look, LA schools perform better then academies and are more likely to improve from an 'inadequate' rating with LA support.

Local authority schools outperform academies, research suggests | Education | The Guardian

[Ephelyon]

The Conservative problem with public authorities in very broad terms is that, to their mind, "they're just not good at innovating". I will say for the record that I know exactly what they mean.

 

Where I diverge from their approach - significantly - is that the answer to that problem is to fix it. Stimulate the public sector; streamline it to an extent, yes, but also put pay and progression structures in place that don't encourage everyone to stay where they are and don't encourage recruiting managers to match people to roles instead of matching roles to people. Do give people incentives to be excellent at what they do and find ways to ensure all staff are in some way "in contact" with the direct results of their work (which doesn't have to mean performance pay). Aside from pay compression, these issues have been the biggest problems with Single Status, and I do feel it's representative of a good deal of other thinking within the public sector over the past couple of decades.

 

And the fact of the matter is, all of this is fixable. What it also is, however, is expensive - and that means the current lot won't touch it with a ten-foot barge pole.

 

(Then again, I take the exact opposite position on Europe, so I guess it's my view that different solutions are best for different problems - but let's not derail this thread with that... )

Edited April 26, 2016 by Ephelyon

[DCUK6]

The way this Country is going the word Democratic will be a Legend, a Myth, something we tell our grandchildren that existed a long time ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

 

The more you privatise, the more you rely on highly paid Fat Cats who make the decisions. Some Schools even remove the governors and replace them with directors/insert terms and not necessarily from local areas but instead people who play ball with those Fat Cats.

 

Still it's all screwed, just like the NHS and Public Transport. Which is why I am glad of our Schools current situation, we are safe and secure for the moment anyway.

 

 

Just happened here, governors replaced with a ieb who made their academy recomendations, LA didnt like that, forced that academy to pull out and not the IEb have resigned.

 

We now have a IEB made up of people the academy members just happen to meet and decide to have a cuppa with.