BRIEFING ON ACADEMIES - SEPTEMBER 2008
Forty seven new Academies have been opened in September 2008, giving a total of 130 Academies in England.
The NUT’s campaigning document, “Academies: Looking Beyond the Spin; Why the NUT Calls for a Different Approach” (2007), sets out the key reasons why the Union has consistently opposed the establishment of Academies. The NUT has used evidence gathered from research, press reports, the experiences of NUT members involved with Academies and other campaigning groups, including the Anti Academies Alliance, which bears out the flaws in the concept driving the Academies programme, that of competition and private sector involvement in education.
Sponsors
The NUT opposes the transfer of publicly funded assets in the form of school buildings and land into the hands of unaccountable sponsoring bodies. Sponsors are not required to have educational expertise or experience and some sponsors have been involved in the “cash/loans for honours” investigation, pursue specific religious agendas or have used Academies to further their business interests.
The governance structure of Academies allows sponsors to dominate the governing body to the detriment of a fair balance of other “stakeholder” governors. This breaks the principle of local democratic accountability which is so important to the education service and to the whole public sector.
Different sponsors are now being encouraged to become involved with Academies, particularly universities, independent schools, choir schools, successful schools and colleges, and local authorities. While many of these might well have a significant education contribution to make in assisting schools in challenging circumstances, they should not be in the position of being able to take over these schools as Academy sponsors. The fundamental flaws in the Academies programme remain, however benign the sponsors might be.
A recent example of a totally unsuitable sponsor has been the disgraced Tory, Lord Laidlaw who was to sponsor the Excelsior City Academy, Newcastle. The city council called on the DCSF to end the relationship with Lord Laidlaw after he admitted “incurable sex addiction”.
Admissions
Academies threaten fair admissions policies and have a de-stabilising effect on the pupil intakes of other neighbouring schools, not just because of their glossy and expensive new buildings and high media profile. A survey reported in The Times Educational Supplement of 18 May 2007 showed that due to preferential funding, Academies received almost £1,600 per pupil more than neighbouring comprehensives.
It is not surprising that some Academies have proved to be popular with parents and many of them are vastly oversubscribed. They can set their own admissions procedures (consistent with the Admissions Code of Practice), which can be a complex mix of entrance tests, various forms of banding, sibling places, random selection such as lotteries and distance from school.
The most recent PricewaterhouseCoopers’ evaluation of Academies for the DCSF (July 2007) said that some Academies were proactively broadening their intake to include a more diverse pupil profile through the use of fair banding.
For 8 of the 12 Academies opened in 2002 and 03, the free school meals proportion declined faster than the overall national decline. In one Academy, the figure dropped from 51 per cent to 12 per cent over time.
PWC recommends that the DCSF “should undertake a closer review of admissions and the impact of NFER testing in those Academies that are using fair banding. This is necessary to ensure that there are no overt or covert barriers preventing the most disadvantaged pupils from accessing Academies. As part of such a review, it may be necessary to consider offering the tests during school time in neighbouring feeder primary schools in order to ensure equality of opportunity”. This is surely an indication that all is not well with the use of so called “fair banding” and Academies.
There is a lack of transparency for parents in understanding how these arrangements work and some evidence that the pupil intakes of Academies do not match their neighbourhood profile.
The 2006 NFER report, “Admissions: who goes where? Messages from the Statistics”, has figures on the numbers of postcode districts per category of schools. Academies have 21 post code districts per school, compared with 14 for community schools; 18 for foundation schools, 25 for VA schools and 14 for VC schools. Academies therefore take pupils from a much wider postcode area (a third wider) than community schools and are therefore extending their catchment areas away from their immediate localities.
This is confirmed by an article in the Observer (2 March 2008) on Institute of Education, University of London research which shows that religious schools in England (which include many Academies) admit 10 per cent of poorer children than local authority schools which take in 30 per cent more.
Exclusions
Similarly the exclusion rates for Academies are significantly higher than for neighbouring schools. These factors leave other local schools with more pupils with learning and behaviour problems.
Ministers and the DCSF seem to accept that Academies will exclude large numbers of pupils in their early stages. Recent figures obtained by the Evening Standard (14 February 2008) under the Freedom of Information Act confirm that some Academies have high exclusions rates compared to the national average of 10.4 per cent for temporary exclusions.
The figures for 2005-6 for 18 London Academies show that the Harris Academy at Peckham, Southwark temporarily excluded 319 pupils (28.36 per cent) and permanently excluded 13 pupils (1.16 per cent). Other high excluding Academies are: Harefield, Hillingdon (25.65 per cent), Stockley, Hillingdon (20.78 per cent), Haberdashers’ Aske’s Knight’s Academy, Lewisham (20.14 per cent); Capital City, Brent (16.62 per cent). (It should be noted, however, that others were lower in numerical and/or percentage terms.)
A DCSF spokesperson said, “Academies tend to have higher exclusion rates than average when they open. This is because they often have very challenging intakes and are taking over from weak schools in disadvantaged areas where standards of behaviour were unacceptable. We support heads in using fixed-period and even permanent exclusions as a tool to regain discipline.”
Test and examination results
The Government has emphasised the statistics on test and examination results for Academies and their apparent faster rate of improvement. This is, of course, positive for pupils and their teachers but these statistics need to be treated with caution.
The latest full statistics show that Academies still lag behind the national average at 5 A-C GCSE grades (41.5 per cent compared with 59.2 per cent) with an even greater differential when English and maths were included (21.8 per cent compared with the national average of 45.8 per cent). These figures also showed that Academies trailed other categories of schools with high level of deprivation such as Excellence in Cities schools and those in the 10 per cent most deprived areas.
Media coverage of GCSE results on 10 January 2008 highlighted that while results for Academies were generally improving, 17 of the 40 Academies reporting GCSE results were in the league table of the worse 200 state schools in England.
The Summer 2008 GCSE results for Academies should give pause for reflection about using the Academies programme as a certain way of raising pupil achievement. Lord Adonis, as usual, has focused on the overall figures for the 36 Academies which had two years’ data available and which showed that the proportion of pupils gaining 4 A-C grades had risen by 4.9 per cent (compared with the national figures of a rise of 2.4 per cent to 65.6 per cent).
However, The Guardian’s analysis (30 August 2008) confirmed what the Union has pointed out over several years, that there were considerable variations between individual Academies and that using averages is a means of glossing over those variations. Polly Curtis’ article points out that in 9 of the 36, the GCSE scores actually went down this year, and that 16 (at least, as she could not get exam results from 5 Academies) remain below the 30 per cent floor target. She says that this “raises new questions about the long-term impacts of the programme ….”
The NUT celebrates the success of every school, particularly those working with pupils in very challenging circumstances, but continues to maintain that there is no simple correlation between Academy status and raising pupil achievement.
The National Challenge and Academies
The NUT has condemned the Government’s disgraceful identification of the 638 schools which fell below the so-called “floor target” of fewer than 30 per cent GCSE A*-C grades including English and maths and threatens them with closure or Academy status.
The NUT’s analysis of the 638 schools’ OFSTED inspection reports and contextual value added scores showed that only 11 per cent fell into the OFSTED special measures and notice to improve categories; more than a quarter were rated outstanding or good, with just under 60 per cent rated as satisfactory. The NUT has challenged the Government on this unfair, damaging and demoralising categorisation which can only make it more difficult for these challenging schools to maintain pupil numbers and to recruit and retain staff.
Of the 638 National Challenge schools, 26 were already Academies, including several which had been Academies for some years, proving that Academy status in itself is not the answer to addressing the issues faced by schools in the most challenging of circumstances.
As Professor Peter Mortimore wrote on the National Challenge strategy in Education Guardian (2 September 2008):
‘The result of such a threat is to make its outcome more likely. Once the curse of failure has been put on a school, many parents will try and transfer their children elsewhere and few parents will make the school their first preference. Only the most dedicated of teachers will stay, and many pupils will interpret the situation as reflecting their own shortcomings.
‘So why did Ed Balls make such a stupid threat? Perhaps he wants to bring about the closure of these schools in order to increase the number of academies – though quite how academies, if they keep the same pupils, will make such a difference remains to be seen. Alternatively, perhaps he still does not comprehend how the system works in practice – in which case he needs some new advisers.’
Provisional DCSF figures suggest that a total of 260 schools, including 16 Academies have reached the 30 per cent threshold after the Summer 2008 GCSE results. There also could be as many as 100 dropping below the threshold, giving an estimated 475 schools below the 30 per cent floor target. (The Guardian, 8 September 2008)
Changes to the Curriculum
The latest PWC report identifies changes to the curriculum, “particularly the introduction of vocational subjects and GNVQs, which, the evidence suggests often better suit the specific needs of Academy pupils and the wider community. The greater focus on pupil interests and the needs of these qualifications is likely to explain, at least in part, the rapid improvement in results in some Academies.”
This statement skates over the wide-spread use of GNVQs in Academies to boost examination results. Educational researcher, Roger Titcombe, has used the Freedom of Information Act to show that improvements have been the result of the substitution of mainstream curriculum subjects by much easier vocational alternatives. This means that many pupils are denied the right to a broad and balanced education, with serious consequences for progression to higher education. The subjects particularly affected were science, modern foreign languages, history and geography.
Changes in the relationship between local authorities and Academies
The NUT is aware that the prospect of much needed capital resources for schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme has been used to promote the Academies programme. Many local authorities have been put under pressure to include Academies within their BSF proposals to ensure approval, and gain earlier access to funding. Examples are Wolverhampton, Newcastle, Barnsley, Sandwell, Liverpool, Lambeth, Darlington. Some areas, however, have stood out against this pressure and still obtained funding: Barking and Dagenham, Tower Hamlets and Burnley within Lancashire.
Local authorities are in a difficult position regarding Academies. The requirement on schools to promote community cohesion is in conflict with the requirement on local authorities to promote diversity of school provision. How can local authorities develop strategic frameworks for extended schools when Academies are outside the maintained school system?
The NUT believes that the requirement on local authorities to secure diversity in the provision of schools is not synonymous with the establishment of trusts and Academies. If a local authority can demonstrate that its range of schools, whether or not they have specialist status, can offer a diverse range of provision within each school, then the legal requirement within the Education and Inspections Act 2006 is met.
This is clearly the view of the Schools Adjudicator which decided in favour of Haringey’s bid for a new community school in the spring of 2007 under the new schools competitions legislation.
This legislation is undoubtedly influencing the attitude of local authorities to Academies. Authorities are aware that proposals for an Academy, rather than a new community school, exempt the authority from having to undertake a lengthy and costly competition for new provision. It also means that authorities have a choice of sponsor, rather than having to accept whichever sponsor enters the competition, as has happened with the two new Oasis Academies in Southampton.
The ability to chose their Academy partners – Academies on their terms – is a powerful argument for local authority officers and politicians. But however much an authority is involved, it can only be the junior partner in terms of governance and control of the Academy, with no more than 19.9 per cent of governing body places. The external sponsor continues to hold the majority.
Local authorities are attempting to plan school provision against a background of significant population shifts; many have falling school rolls while others have rising numbers. This is coupled with proposals for the BSF funding, the need to demonstrate choice and diversity, the uncertain territory of the new schools competition legislation and co-ordinating a coherent 14-19 education programme to present unique challenges to authorities.
Other evidence on Academies
There are a number of other recent research reports and evidence on Academies.
The evidence from the Anti Academies Alliance Committee of Enquiry in the House of Commons on 12 June 2007 revealed a damning indictment of the Academies initiative – unsuitable sites, undesirable sponsors, the closure of good and improving schools, local consultations ignored, local authorities bullied through Building Schools for the Future funding, the manipulation of pupil intakes and admissions policies, scant regard for pupils with special educational needs and concerns about the curriculum being offered to pupils in Academies. Overwhelmingly, the message was that the Academies initiative was damaging local schools and was being foisted on reluctant local authorities, parents, governors and teachers.
The report commissioned by the TUC from the Children’s Services Network, “A New Direction: A Review of the School Academies Programme” published in July 2007, for instance, showed how Academies had largely failed to achieve the six objectives established by the Government in the early stages of the programme as well as setting out key recommendations for addressing the most obvious flaws in the programme.
But possibly the most revealing of the recent evaluations of Academies came from the powerful House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, published on 18 October 2007 in the light of the report of the National Audit Office earlier in the year.
The report displayed a great deal of scepticism about the “value for money” basis of Academies, best summed up in point 9 of the conclusions – “Academies are a relatively costly means of tackling low attainment” and by Austin Mitchell MP’s description of “the impetuous enthusiasm behind this programme.”
The Department for Children, Schools and Families was criticised for its failure to monitor costs and disseminate lessons learnt, not just on building management and sustainability costs but on sharing of best practice, on the need to have robust monitoring systems in place on pupil achievement, OFSTED inspections, exclusions, admissions, the impact on surplus places and on other schools.
The report acknowledged the early improvements in pupil achievement which reflect the renewed energy and enthusiasm of staff and pupils, high levels of expenditure on buildings and start up costs but questioned the sustainability of these improvements. But the low levels of literacy and numeracy in Academies in terms of GCSE grades was noted, as well as the poor record of Academy sixth forms.