School Academies

[Miss_Lumiere]

Hi all,
I work in a school and we are currently going through a consultation process to decide whether we will be turned into an Academy. (Although I'm 99% sure it's a full gone conclusion!) A glossy brochure has gone out to parents and people living in the area saying how wonderful it will be which I would like to believe but I have my doubts. I just wondered whether anyone has any experiences of Academies? Good or bad.

Any information would be greatly received!

Thanks in advance,

Miss Lumiere

 

[Goofyish]

I think they should stop giving schools these fancy, meaningless titles and just concentrate on teaching!

Our local college was awarded technology college status a few years ago, last year it had to go into special measures!

At the end of the day it's the quality of the teaching and leadership that makes a good school - not some fancy title.

 

[wideeyes]

Our local college was awarded technology college status a few years ago, last year it had to go into special measures!

The thing about awarding schools special status is that they have to do well at that subject to keep the status and if they do well they get extra money..shouldn't schools be encouraged to do well in all subjects?

 

[cheryl.UK]

I only know of one school who managed to stop this going through and this was a school in Doncaster. I think it was Northcliffe school.

Basically they will bulldozer the thing through unless the school can get the parents on side. In Doncaster they did this via the parent governors and the support staff who were all locals.

At the teacher/academy meeting the staff knew in advance that they would not be able to ask supplementary questions so got themselves organised so that they had a full set of q's and likely supplementaries and knew which order to put up their hand. They really didn't like the answers they got. The parents had a pre meeting in the local pub and did something similar with the help of a member of staff who also happened to be a parent, the parent governors and the support staff.

Once the company got a flavour of the negative feelings they had second thoughts. I believe there was an article about it in either the Guardian or the TES about 18 months ago.

If you intend to fight this, I really do wish you luck. At one of my local schools, the head, who was in favour of it and sold it to his staff and parents, was subsequently not appointed as head of the accademy by the new 'governors'. The whole school feel let down and out manoevered.