#AcadamiesInBrum

Everything you need to know about academies. 
A round-up for our #AcadamiesInBrum series

Over the past week, Birmingham Eastside alongside UK By Numbers and Boldmere Mums have been looking at the situation of academies in Birmingham, UK through a series of in-depth articles. 

We've mapped every Academy out, found the 10 most important things you need to know about them, taken a more in-depth look at just what an academy is, sat down for a coffee and had a chat with Boldmere Mums founder, Kath Scott and even opened the data and created a database that you can use. 


Today, we're wrapping up our week of articles with a look across the board from everything including just what an academy is before we talk to four different people, a community group advocating change in education, a teacher at a school who has recently joined a MAT, a parent of two children, one who goes to an academy and one who doesn’t and the government's plan for the future of academies, all to get their views on the academy situation across Britain.

But before we start, why not take our quiz and see how much you know about acadamies, so far only 3 people have got 100%.

Just what is going on?

An academy (See here for the official government description) is a type of school in England that instead of getting funding from a local authority instead receives it directly from the Department of Education (DoE), meaning that they are still state-funded schools. Whilst control (day-to-day) is still overseen by a head teacher, they themselves are overseen by academy trusts and not, for example, Birmingham City Council. 

They have much more freedom in running the school and for instance, can have their own admissions process, curriculum (core subjects such as maths, science, English and relationship education are still mandatory) and have different legal requirements when employing staff, for instance you don't need to be a qualified teacher to teach at an academy. 

A recent report, The impact of academies on educational outcomes report, dated July 2017 which looked at academies across the United Kingdom found that whilst academies did, when they started improve schools, in 2017 they don't automatically improve schools. 

"In the early days of the programme, potentially due to additional resources and improved leadership and governance, sponsored academies recorded a discernible positive impact on pupils' attainment. Our principal finding through this extensive study is that academies do not provide an automatic solution to school improvement."

The summary of the report, which you can read in full here talks about how measuring an academies success, especially in its early years is difficult:

"Our evidence points to an initial (and significant) improvement in GCSE scores in the year prior to and after becoming a sponsored academy. However, we cannot attribute this trend to anything that may have been implemented by the Academy sponsor – as it, in part, occurred before academisation. It may, however, be a result of the incentives generated by the academisation policy, which the government may well argue is a success in itself. Alternatively, it could be that these schools were improving in any case(perhaps as a result of competitive pressures or other interventions targeting schools likely to be subject to'forced' sponsored Academy conversion), and so the fact that they became academies is not relevant."

The history of academies goes back to the first Blair government (1997). Labour Lord, Lord Adonis, who was pivotal in the creation of academies, spoke about the benefits in the early 2000's saying that they, 'injecting the best of the DNA of private schools into state-funded schools.'

 Much like the 1997 Labour slogan, 'New Life for Britain', the original plan, to put new life in deprived areas by injecting the might of the private sector into them and raising education standards. 

Following the Blair government, Brown didn't achieve much in this area, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in 2010 and introduced two policies. 

The first was the Academies Act 2010. It allowed any school, no matter its location, size or Ofsted grading to apply to become an academy, though ‘outstanding’ schools were given priority in the process. The second was the Education and Adoption Act, this introduced the world to the ‘academy order’ which is a Department of Education order issued to schools deemed as ‘inadequate’ forcing them to become an academy. 

The result? In March 2016, there were 5,459 academies and by June 2017 there were 6,398 an increase of 17% in just over a year.

But what does the data in the report show? 

As of 2016, the latest time data is available, support for academies stood at 25% whilst disapproval stayed at 39%. This marks a sharp fall in approval from the first time data is available in 2011 when support stood at 40% and disapproval was at 32%. 

The same report also showed that almost 5 in 10 teachers (48%) believe academies are making things worse for education in the United Kingdom.

Boldmere Mums

Kath Scott is the founder of Boldmere Mums a community group based in Boldmere, Birmingham with the express purpose of, "providing more local school places for local children to attend." 

The group calls academies everything from, "An ugly reckless experiment" to “Academies are an expensive experiment that has failed.”

To Kath, the very reasoning behind her group's existence was summarised by a recent document from Birmingham City Council titled, Birmingham Education Sufficiency Requirements, in which the Council describes the rapid growth of the cities classrooms. 

“The levels of cohort growth across the city are unprecedented and continue to increase beyond expected levels. It is now reasonable to expect a cohort growth by anything between 750-1900 additional places over the 7 years between Reception and the end of Year 6."

The community itself overwhelmingly feels that academies are negative. 68% of those asked said that they're not a 'good thing’, with several respondents specifically highlighting them being run as businesses and not for education as major concerns for them.

When we asked members of Boldmere Mums if they think Local Authorities, such as Birmingham City Council, should have more control 95% agreed that they should be given more control and influence in the running of academies in their area. 

What the power should be though divided the group. Some believed that they should have limited input, restricted only to the syllabus and not to financial matters. 

Whereas, others believed their role should be rigorously set to only control aspects such as governance and finance. To the parents, they are a "business and are answerable to no-one" whilst to another they “lack of accountability and transparency.” 

The lack of local authority control seems to be the main issue member of Boldmere Mums have, “There's a lack of local authority control. For example over pay and conditions for staff and governing body can be abolished.” When asked what impact this has on schools, parents said, “Privatisation, corruption, removal of protective legislation, SEND children being pushed out, loss of terms and conditions for staff, money being spent on management and consultancy rather than children, lack of breadth in the curriculum.”

Though some parents in the group did see benefits for schools have academy status. The lack of rules and regulations, attributed to state-run schools offers benefits, at least to them. 

One parent believed that academies would, as they are able to set their own pay level, be able to attract the best and the brightest staff and that would translate into children's education. "The ability to set their own salaries to attract the best teachers. Able to set their own holidays. Not obliged to stick to LEA policies such as healthy lunches." 

You can read the full in-depth interview with Kath Scott here, where we go more in-depth about the impact academies can have on education not just in Birmingham, but across the country.

The government

Before June 2016, the government under former Prime Minister David Cameron planned to turn all schools into academies. But when Cameron fell and May rose, the policy was abruptly stopped. This plan would have required all schools to convert to academies or have plans to do so by 2022 but now. 

When asked about the change in policy, newly appointed Education Secretary Justine Greening MP said;

"Our ambition remains that all schools should benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings. Our focus, however, is on building capacity in the system and encouraging schools to convert voluntarily. No changes to legislation are required for these purposes and therefore we do not require wider education legislation in this session to make progress on our ambitious education agenda."

That may be the reason given by the government, but is that the real reason? The truth may be that in a country of austerity, the government simply can't afford for all schools to turn into academies. A recent investigation by Schoolsweek.com found that the total income for academies during 2015/16 was £18.94 billion, yet the total spending for the year came to £19.21 billion, leaving the government in the red with an overspend of £280 million.

If every school was an academy that figure could quickly become even bigger and even more uncontrollable given that the same report also found that the above figures only account for 49% of single academy trusts (1,014 academies) and 61% of MAT's (61) which overspent in the 2015/16 academic year.

Speaking earlier this year, Paul Whiteman, general secretary designate of the NAHT union said the statistics are "damning" and that, “Although much of this could have come from reserves, it does show that school funding levels are unsustainable.

We reached out to the Department of Education to ask what the current government policy is under the second Theresa May administration and whilst they acknowledged our request, they failed to give us a statement on the position of the government.

In response, Kath Scott of Boldmere Mums said that;

"It feels to me, that, given Theresa May's stance on academies, that the Department for Education have a diminished role within education, fast becoming a mere conduit for parliamentary policy whilst the education funding agency and Regional Schools Commission take on ever increased responsibility nationally. So it is no surprise to me that the Department of Education has no comment; their responsibility towards our children's' education is rapidly going the same route as local authorities; that being, very little power or control over how an ever-increasing number of MAT schools are run."

Internally, the government is also facing fresh calls to give more power back to local authorities. With the House of Commons Education Committee report wanted councils' to be allowed to use their 'expertise’ to help boost the performance of academies that are deemed as failing. 

"There remains a high degree of uncertainty about the effectiveness of MAT’s, and there is not yet the evidence to prove that large-scale expansion would significantly improve the school landscape. Only time will tell whether multi-academy trusts are more successful than local authorities at creating and supporting high-performing schools and tackling underperformance." 

Neil Carmichael a former Conservative MP for Stroud (until the 2017 General Election) was the chair of the Education Select Committee and he chaired the paper. In his own personal comments he called academies, "a valuable contribution to our education system." 

But he stopped short of fully praising them instead, acknowledging the issues that many are facing and equally acknowledging the same calls from groups such as Boldmere Mums to increase the influence of local authorities, such as Birmingham City Council, to have more responsibilities in the running of academies in their governance area. 

"A considerable number (academies) are failing to improve and are consistently at the bottom of league tables. If the government is to pursue the goal of further academisation, it will need to work with local authorities and allow those councils with a track record of strong educational performance to use their expertise within their education department to create MAT." 

In other words, it seems that at least according to the government, the process of academies is in limbo. We're in an uncertain period of an anything but strong and stable leadership from the government where not only are parents, schools and students waiting for a resolution but also backbench MP’s, all of whom are waiting and waiting for a central decision on the path forward to be made by central government, something that is not yet there.

You can read more about the situation nationally in our in-depth look at academies across the country, here.

The teacher

Mr Smith (Not his real name) has worked at The Academy (Not his real school) for several years seeing the school transform from a local authority one-to-one which is now part of a MAT academy. When I asked him his views on academies, his response? "Well, there's a complex question."

 To Mr Smith, the biggest issue is that he’s confused at what they’re meant to actually achieve. 

"I’m confused as to what they’re supposed to achieve. Academies can set their own curriculum, but realistically they’re still constrained by requirements to teach English/Maths/Science and using the equipment and staff they have for other subjects (granted, that can change over a longer period of time)." 

Issues, such as grading, which is still set at a national level is driving the modern curriculum, not a school's status by either an academy or state-maintained. “The measurement of Ebacc means that schools are keen to keep or make humanities and languages popular. This basically leaves the practical subjects like ICT, tech and art as the ones that are potentially vulnerable to facing the boot. So really, not much change there.” 

For him, the trust issues with academics, or those that sponsor them are the real issue. Along with the other staff were told about all the benefits that would come through joining a MAT, including access to new equipment and the best materials to support students developments. 

“When we converted all those years ago, we (as staff) were promised we’d have access to all sorts of stuff thanks to being part of a trust. Yeah…no.” 

Yet one of the major concerns for Mr Smith and the one detail he wanted to leave our discussion on was that lack of rules given to academies. In particular, he raised concerns about teachers in academies not needing a qualified teacher status to teach (Mr Smith has is a qualified teacher) unless specified in their funding agreement with the DoE. Effectively, academies are allowed to employ anyone as a teacher and to him, this could in the long term have a negative effect on the education of the countries children. 

The issue? Without set rules applied to every academy you could see a dip in the fall of teaching standards and that at the end of the day, “Some of them (teachers) are terrible in the classroom, even if they do know their stuff.” Though he was keen to point out that a majority of teachers and recruits are still qualified. 

"Colour me utterly ambivalent. Governments of both colours touted academies as a solution to education’s woes, and while there have been improvements, has it been as wonderful as they have wanted? Of course not."

THE PARENT

Jen Lavesley, a married mother of two from Birmingham has two girls in education and you begin to paint a picture of what academies do to the parents who send their children to one. 

Her eldest is in year 8 and goes to an Arthur Terry Academy and the youngest goes to a state primary (year 3) school, which is refusing to go to an academy, for which Jen says,"Good on them for it." 

What is unique about Jens' position is that not only is she a governor at an Oasis academy but that both her children receive SEND (special educational needs and disability support). I started out by asking Jen what an academy was, it may sound like a mute-point, but one thing I found throughout the interviews was the actual definition of an academy was mixed. 

To Jen, it's a business, which has been designed to, "undermine local authority control and erode standards." For Jen, the biggest issue she’s come across is how as a result of privatisation they, the schools, have seen (according to her) a fall in standards. “Any time things are allowed to be privatised as they have been, standards are eroded and accountability goes through the floor.” 

To her, governors, for which she is one, are now a symbolic post one that has no real power, influence or control on the running of the school. Governors like herself have lost all power: 

“There’s no one to pursue beyond the governors – and I know that governors are just people basically volunteering for posts.”

The lack of direct influence by Governors can be seen across the UK, take Greengate Lane Academy in Sheffield where the Governors wanted to hold a vote on leaving their MAT, Astrea. When the school decided to join the MAT in the previous year, they were told they could leave the chain if they were unhappy. A year later and the school was unhappy with their partnership and wanted to leave. Yet, before the vote to could take place Astrea, the schools' sponsorship, dissolved the school's local governing body and replaced it with what it called a transition-management board. 

One of the former governors of the school said: "There’s no way they should be able to remove a governing board from a successful school in the way they have." It’s important to remember there is no legal way out of an academy once a school has joined. 

Like most things in 2017, money speaks more than anything else and to Jen, the future of academies and conversion will remain whilst the money talks like it does. "I think as long as money is an issue, they will keep converting to academies because there is funding involved in it – and MAT's swallow low achieving schools." But what does the future hold for Academies? Is there a way to get some form of control back?

Jen, who is a member of Boldmere Mums, agrees that you need to return schools to local authority control. "We need to go back to total local authority control. At least things were consistent, the 'local offer' was consistent from one school to the next, and the local authority was ultimately responsible. That’s what we need to go back to asap.” I asked her why returning control to Birmingham City Council would benefit parents and students across the city and she responded citing consistency.

"Acadamy sponsors can’t be sure that from Plantsbrook school in B72 to the Arthur Terry School in B74 to John Wilmott School in B75 that there is any kind of consistency whatsoever with regard to what is offered, SEN support, the education that children will receive, etc – each of those schools is within 1 mile of each other, only a local authority can ensure that.” 

So then, is the answer simply giving more power, but not full control, back to local authorities? Let's say, allowing the local authority to set the curriculum, give places out and manage the SEND process? 

As a parent with two children with SEND, she painted me this situation. "Local authorities can't even really force an admission to the school for SEN purposes, only negotiate with a school, whereas a local authority can “direct” a maintained school to take a SEN child – so again, it’s a further erosion of rights for families, rights to a consistent, lawful education, and rights to know what is going on and who is accountable for it.” 

She ended by saying that, “Academies further erode that accountability, weakening the control the local authority has over what each school offers, leaving it up to the school how they enforce behaviour policies, how they address SEND and how they regulate admissions and how complaints are handled.”

The end?

Generally speaking, there seems to be an agreed consensus between parents, groups and even entities such as teachers and backbench government ministers that academies aren't working or at least, they're not working in their current scope. 

There we have the biggest issue. It doesn't seem to be that people are against academies, but they’re against them in their current form and yet, despite all agreeing on several positive steps forward that could be taken, such as giving more control to the local authority, it’s all quiet from Number 10 with one parent even saying all they care about is 'Brexit, everything else has taken a back step.’ 

Perhaps then, Theresa May needs to get out of the naughty corner for running in a field of wheat and instead get back to setting a clear direction for the future of academies, because that’s what we don’t have right now.