More than a thousand schools apply for academy status

Chuck Unsworth

Excellent news that the GTC has been abolished. It is/was a complete waste of space. Still, like so many Quangos, it all makes makes work for the working man to do. Seems to have been the abiding principle of the past decade.

I look forward to the elimination of various other useless bodies associated with 'education' and the fringes. There are far too many.

Swissy J

Congratulations to Michael Gove for having zapped that ridiculous GTC nonsense.

It was supposed to be paid for by us - the teachers, but so many people complained, that it just got paid out of local funds.

And what did it do ? We got very glossy stuff sent round by that film-maker (great expert in educational science!)that nobody read. It was all such drivel.

As a teacher with many years experience, I actually had trouble getting vetted. I had been a founder member of the Scottish version, in the late 60's, which had a real purpose - to ensure the Scottish profession had an all-graduate intake. Up till then, anybody could have been. Serious shortage etc.

When I told the cute new English version that I was a founder member of same, they were very sulky. Couldn't find my qualifications. Well - the Jordanhill team had long since been taken over. But I had real trouble getting Lord Whatsit to recognise that I was a genuinely qualified teacher and had plenty years experience - I was a promoted senior teacher on the upper pay spine, FGS!

I feel strongly that just about every other Labour-inspired Quango has about the same credibility, and even less purpose.

Scrap the lot, and zapp their super-pensions. They were all political appointments, and total rubbish in practice.

Woody

I don't think I have heard this news on the BBC but then they have spent so much time 'trashing' Michael Gove's schools policy it will probably have to be dragged out of them.

Blackboard

And while Gove is at it, why not make the PGCE qualification totally school centred, and get rid of every common-purpose supporting university education department in the land.

stephen

Let's hope Dave and Nick turn their reforming zeal on the BBC next! IMHO the last bastion of restrictive practice with an agenda to protect itself from change ie very very anti Tory!

Victor Southern

That's settled then. We will stop calling them schools and call them all academies. The scholars will become academicians. It is educational Utopia.

I really like Michael Gove and desperately wish for the standard of education to be improved about 100% but I simply cannot forget the Labour propensity for renaming things in the assumption that they would automatically improve.

Successful schools need successful parents - the kids of deadbeats have 3 strikes against them the day they are born. That is a human tragedy and only a small percentage of those unfortunate children escape from their birth circumstances.

Nature or Nurture? Both, I suspect.

Richard of York

Now watch the chaos as he tries to accomodate them. Judging by his performance in the house today his plans will prove to be half baked.
Someone needs to tell him his arrogance and cocky style will not win him many friends.

SUSAN HILL

The BBC will only refer to it when every school in the country is an academy and then they'll still be trashing the idea. This is fantastic news, and full marks to Michael Gove.. talk about hitting the ground running. Interesting when Teaching Unions all said none of their members would have anything to do with his new policies - so presumably all the staff of this first 1,000 are non-members then.
There is now a serious chance of halting the appalling decline in academic standards and then starting to raise them again.

Ian Walker

Richard of York: The process is as follows...

1) Take cheque
2) Cross out "LEA"
3) Write name of school
4) Post it to head

About 1 minute per school, so about 3 days work I make it.

Aberdeen Angus

These plans are all very well but as long as you have state schools and centrally imposed standards of education you still have the same problems. The answer must be the abolition of state schools and the ending of compulsory schooling.

I'm not of the opinion that there should be no government help for education. Something like school vouchers should be available to help people afford to educate their children but that doesn't mean that the government should say how that education is carried out. The government pays child benefit and child tax credit to people to help cover the cost of raising a child but no one would accept the government then turning round to tell people how they must feed and clothe their children. People are free to make their own clothes if they wish or shop in any store they chose. People can grow their own food or buy fish fingers or fillet steak from any shop they wish. Beyond basic health and safety measures people are not restricted.

Can you imagine what it would be like if people were required by law to go governments shops to pick up fixed uniforms to wear and a fixed menu to eat. Imagine that the only other shops were only accessible by the wealthy. What would be the result? Bad food and bad clothes. It would be like the old Soviet Union only worse. People only accept this in education because they are used to it.

These links here explore these ideas in more depth

http://mises.org/daily/2226

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/educn/educn036.htm

Theodore Dalrymple also tentatively makes the case here for the abolition of state schools.

http://www.salisburyreview.com/articles/20100226_3

Gussie

Blackboard. You are not right about PGCE courses. It's a bit like saying 'ban football' because all the teams in your area are rubbish (which is true if you live in Yorkshire). Some schools are excellent training institutions but most sadly are simply not up to it, nor that bothered about doing another job. Simply pushing graduates many of whom want another year in university into schools would lose about 25% of them, as the difference between turning up for a year at a council estate school in Doncaster, or splitting their time between several schools and a continuation of the student lifestyle would mean fewer would opt for a school-only route - just look at how many now choose that approach? We would be down-grading a graduate (soon perhaps to be Masters-level) profesion to the status of an apprenticeship. The problem with teaching is its lack of connection with the research underpining the profession (unlike some other more robbust professions), not its reliance on academia.

PuppetMaster

Still no news on what is to prevent Labour taking them back into the state sector in future?
Enjoy them for a few years, but then the experiment will be over. This initiative is just show business, a temporary idea which might work well, but which will be ended. Until power is delegated down we will keep on swinging from one experiment to another.

CS

An interesting argument, PuppetMaster. Nothing will ever change until power is delegated down so it's pointless to begin delegating power down because it won't change anything?

Michael Booth

And Gove is to abolish the General Teaching Council. About time too.

Kennybhoy

Victor Southern wrote:

"Successful schools need successful parents - the kids of deadbeats have 3 strikes against them the day they are born."

Even accepting your council of despair re such children, which I most certainly do not, your argument presupposes that they are the only children being failed by state education. This is most certainly not the case. Children from varied family backgrounds and of different academic ability are all being short-changed.

Naomi Muse

Excellent news! It just shows that common sense does prevail. BBC sour grapes will shoot it in the foot, for it sees itself as involved with education and having some expertise.

A great response in such a short time. Momentum will gather and should help restore academic standards.

Chuck Unsworth

So RoY thinks it's about making friends with/of everyone.

Yep, that's been the problem. I don't want Gove to be friends, I want him to get a major grip on the shambles of an education system left behind by NuLab. If it hurts a few people then so be it.

Victor Southern

Kennybhoy

You are, of course, right. I was not trying to make a point that only the poor are poorly educated. The general standard of state education is poor and often ill-directed.

I do not wish to harp on grammar schools as it is a topic that bores many and inflames others but I was a very poor boy who received a grammar school education.

The difference lies in the ethos of the school - the hinterland may be the same but the selected pupils work harder and are less frightened of their daily trips to school and back. They may sometimes have parents who are indifferent but seldom ones who are anti-social themselves.

Alan Douglas

Richard says "Someone needs to tell him his arrogance and cocky style will not win him many friends."

Was he looking in a mirror while saying that ? He should have been.

Alan Douglas

Tim Carpenter LPUK

As you can see, the centralising nature of Gove's plans.

With a central grip on curriculum (as Aberdeen Angus also rightly points out)) and other factors, such as who can build and operate schools and the need to "ask permission", these reforms are at great risk of backfiring or being very patchy at best.

Gove talks about raising standards by freeing schools, but it is a bit odd to want to do so by freeing schools that are already doing very well!

What you need is true open competition and alternatives to those schools that are not doing well so that they either reform or die. I suspect most if not all bar a few across England reform and reform well when faced with the prospect of empty classrooms and no money while having the freedom to set curriculum (not the phoney freedom offered by Gove), pedagogy and operational issues such as discipline and staff pay. I do think once you stop harassing teachers, the vast majority will rise to the challenge, with a dramatic increase in their reputations within the community.

Alas, this is not what is happening. Bad schools are likely to remain with the LEA. New schools will have to ask permission and who knows if there will be sufficient "bandwidth" centrally or a desire to be forced to use a Project Management company or operator that has somehow gained favour centrally*.

We will see distortion, Corporatism and if we are unlucky, much worse.

I know the idea of School freedom is a good thing, but this approach has been so badly designed because those designing it cannot, will not relinquish control and have skewed it intentionally or otherwise, towards their party's natural constituency.

* that dimension of Gove's plan to me does not pass the sniff test.

alexsandr

Gove needs to look at the national curriculum. Its tenticles have crept into stuff like leisure evening classes. So a lady doing a flower arranging class currently has to do lesson plans to prove she is including literacy, numeracy and IT skills in her classes. And loads of beaurocrats to monitor she is doing it.

PSpoons

I'm still not sure I get how this initiative is going to make the Standards Garden any rosier across the board. It sounds great if you're an already outstanding school because, if nothing else, it delivers more cash to the coffers. But those schools have become outstanding working within the contraints of the national curriculum and 'interference' from the local authority (confession - I work for an LA), and I'm not sure I quite see how they're going to become even better with a relatively small addition to their budget.

LA 'interference' in outstanding schools is already fairly light touch, as it should be.
Any funding retained centrally by the LA - which will be significantly reduced if a large proportion of schools become academies - is generally targeted where it's most needed, including providing support for schools and young people struggling to achieve. Presumably, with less money to provide that support, it'll be those already disadvantaged young people that suffer as a result. So isn't it just possible that whilst some might benefit greatly from the academies initiative, others won't?

There seems to be an argument that in the longer term 'the market' will sort all of this out, and we'll only be left with outstanding schools. (I'm not sure what we say to those young people who are being educated in the interim - "sorry"?) Arguably, we've had a version of that market since the Thatcher government (I think - 1980 Education Act?) introduced parental preference and, subsequently, GM schools. Yet we've still arrived at where we are now, so how will this new market improve things? Isn't there at least a danger that 'good' schools will get better whilst 'poor' schools will get worse?

Finally, I'm not averse to change for the better, and I appreciate that the existing national curriculum's far from ideal. But I do think it's possible that the academies initiative will result in a two-tier system, with a potentially significant reduction in support for those who need it most (albeit that the pupil premium may redress that to an extent - we'll see).

Leon Cych

I am reliably informed by a headteacher that it was 1000 schools clicking on a weblink to get information. This is lazy reporting - get your fact right before launching this series of Chinese Whispers that passes for journalism these days.

meandmine

Could someone explain what will happen to catchment areas and the co-ordination of catchment areas that is currently done by the LA? I've heard academies will set their own admission criteria and they will essentially not have to answer to the LA, but is it proposed that there will some overall view to ensure that the provision in an area is balanced geographically or in terms of say gender/religion? So for example, who would stop 3 the local academies saying they wanted to be CofE girls schools? Obviously that's an extreme example, but you get my point? Would that be blocked at Dept of Education level, or would the LA still be able to prevent that?

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