UPDATE FROM PRIVATISATION IN EDUCATION UNIT FOR THE
EDUCATION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMITTEE (18 July
2007)
ACADEMIES
The New Government
1. As incoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown gave support for
Academies in his Mansion House speech and talked of making it easier
for organisations, including universities and colleges, to sponsor
Academies by reducing the required cash contributions.
He gave
emphasis to the links between business and schools and announced
the creation of a National Council for Educational Excellence, chaired
by himself, to including business leaders. In the Government reshuffle, Lord Adonis, champion of Academies, retained his ministerial
post.
2. On 10 July, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and
Families, in the House of Commons within a major speech on
education policy also gave support to Academies and spoke of
“accelerating the pace of the Academies programme”. He confirmed
the role of local authorities in endorsing Academies at the feasibility
stage and during consultations at the funding agreement stage. He
said that whether an organisation could be a potential sponsor should
not depend on its bank balance but whether it could demonstrate
leadership, innovation, and commitment to act in the public interest.
He announced the abolition of the requirement for universities, high
performing schools and colleges to provide £2 million sponsorship and
wanted every university engaged with Academies, giving a list of nine
which had already expressed an interest.
3. The Secretary of State referred to flexibility being at the heart of
innovation in the curriculum of Academies, which would be maintained
for all new Academies, but built on the platform of the core National
Curriculum which all new Academies would follow in English, maths,
science and ICT.
4. He referred to Academies making the greatest impact on standards
when they were a central part of the local community and that they had
a duty to collaborate with all other schools in area and were inspected
on that basis.
5. The names of five new Academies, whose funding agreements had
been signed were announced: Brunel Academy, Bristol; John Cabot
Academy, Gloucestershire; Shireland Collegiate Academy and George
Salter Collegiate Academy, Sandwell, St Michael and All Angels
Church of England Academy, Southwark.
6. The text of the Secretary of State’s speech is on the main agenda.
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Anti-Academies Alliance Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry – 12 June
2007
7. The Privatisation in Education Unit has completed its draft report of the
above Committee of Enquiry based on notes and tapes of the evidence
presented, which has been passed to the Alliance for checking against
attendance lists, and the written evidence presented. The draft report
has been circulated with the main agenda. The final report of the
Committee of Enquiry will be very valuable documentary evidence on
the scale of the opposition to Academies at a crucial political stage, as
well as providing information on campaigns on individual Academies
for use in the Union’s campaigning material.
Launch of TUC Report on Academies by the Children’s Services Network
– 16 July 2007
8. The above launch was well attended, including by members of the Anti
Academies Alliance. The Committee Secretary spoke on behalf of the
Union, together with representatives of ATL, NASUWT and Unison and
Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC.
Every speaker
mentioned the positive nature and unanimity of approach on
Academies between the unions involved in monitoring the progress of
the report.
9. The report, which has been circulated to Executive members,
examines the shifts in Government policy on Academies, particularly
the greater involvement of local authorities, evaluates the evidence on
Academies and identifies ways in which the divisive elements of the
programme should be neutralised and Academies be brought back
within local authority families of schools.
Church of England and Academies
10. The Times Educational Supplement of 1 June 2007, in an article on the
apparent support for the teaching of creationism by the Church of
England head of education, also indicated that the CoE was in talks
with the Government about opening a network of 100 Academies. The
Church of England Academies Services Ltd would oversee proposals
from individual dioceses for Academies. These proposals were
criticised by the National Secular Society.
11. The Daily Telegraph of 13 July 2007 reported that 23 cathedral choir
schools have expressed an interest in becoming Academies or become
sponsors of new Academies. Nine are already involved in talks with
local authorities. The article says that the schools, where fees for
boarders can exceed £20, 00 per year, would become free with the
ability to admit a proportion of pupils on the basis of musical aptitude.
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Examination results in Academies
12. Educational researcher, Roger Titcombe, wrote a letter to the
Independent on 4 July claiming that Academies were failing to enter
pupils for “difficult” subjects such as science, modern languages and
history to boost their GCSE pass rate, but to the detriment of pupils’
future options. He made the point that finding out such information was
very difficult because Academies were exempt from the Freedom of
Information Act and the DfES claimed not to know.
13. These findings complement those of Terry Wrigley of Edinburgh
University, who claimed that the first wave of 14 Academies are doing
12 times the number of GNVQs compared with predecessor schools.
Sir Mike Tomlinson
14. Sir Mike Tomlinson, former HMCI, has commented on Academies’ lack
of innovation (Financial Times, 22 June 2007): “They are still using
pretty much the same timetable as was used in the Sixties. And very
few have used their freedom from the national curriculum to introduce
anything radically new, or their freedoms to change teachers’ pay and
conditions.” He indicated that the biggest problem was England’s
“fairly tightly controlled accountability system”, saying that schools were
reluctant to break with orthodox practices that might not meet the
approval of the DfES and Ofsted.
15. Sir Mike was commissioned by the Government to come up with a
strategy for local authorities to co-sponsor Academies to accommodate
external sponsors not able to meet the financial commitment necessary
or not willing to take sole responsibility for running schools. Examples
of this approach in a Financial Times article of 20 June 2007 were
given as Sunderland, Manchester, Kensington and Chelsea and Kent.
Salaries of Academy Principals
16. The Times Educational Supplement of 25 May 2007 carried a feature
on the pay of Academy heads compared with secondary school heads
which revealed that they were paid 1.5 times as much, averaging
£105,000 compared with £68,000. The top three earners were the
principals of Dixon’s Academy, Bradford (£140,000); Haberdashers’
Aske’s Hatcham College Trust (2 Academies) and Capital City
Academy, Brent (between £120,000 - £130,000). Commenting for
ASCL, John Dunford drew attention to the challenging nature of
Academies, and also the turn-over of heads in challenging schools.
Individual Developments
17. No Academy in Haringey: at the end of May, in the competition for a
new school in Haringey, the schools adjudicator rejected proposals for
an Academy from ULT and from Haberdashers’ Aske’s and for a trust
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school from CfBT, in favour of a new local authority community school.
The adjudicators said, “The proposal capitalises on the promoter’s
knowledge of the borough, draws on what has been learned in recent
years in improving education in the borough and emphasises the
potential collaboration with other local schools.” This decision followed
a long campaign by the division with local parents, teachers and
governors.
18. Oasis Academies in Southampton:
as previously reported,
competitions for two new schools in Southampton resulted in bids for
Academies and Trust schools. The Division campaigned against these
options and tried to encourage the authority to reject the bids and
submit proposals for community schools. The Committee Secretary
spoke at a public meeting on the proposals on 24 May. Early in July
the authority announced its decision to accept the proposals from the
Oasis Trust for two Academies. Local MP, John Denham, who is the
Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, has condemned the
decision to reject the bid for a Trust school from the Southampton
Education Trust consortium, against the advice of education officers
and the public consultation.
19. Islington Green School: NUT school representative, Ken Muller, is
working with the Regional Office using the Freedom of Information Act
to obtain information on the anonymous donor of £1million to the City
University’s sponsoring of an Academy to replace Islington Green
School. The donor is a “well-established” “education/religious/charity
trust” who has been “once in the frame as a sponsor” and subject to
“due diligence” checks by the DfES.
20. A letter to the incoming Prime Minister, asking him to save Islington
Green from closure, against the wishes of staff and parents, was
presented on the first day of Gordon Brown’s premiership.
21. The Ridings School, Calderdale: following the placing of the school
in special measures, the local authority has launched a consultation on
the closure of the Ridings School to end in mid-August. The Cabinet,
which will make a decision based on the consultation at the end of
August, also approved proposals to open an Academy to serve North
Halifax. The Division, which is campaigning against the proposals,
also reported that another community school could be under threat of
closure because the Leeds diocese wants to open a new Catholic
school in the area.
22. Birmingham Academies: as part of its BSF proposals, Birmingham is
due to get seven Academies to replace existing secondary schools.
Sponsors include the Black Country Richardson property company,
ARK and Edutrust
23. Colston’s Girls’ School, Bristol: this all-girls independent school has
put forward proposals to become an Academy. The school’s owners,
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the Merchant Venturers, are already sponsoring an Academy in Bristol,
and would contribute £1 to the new school. This would be the third
independent school to become an Academy following William Hulme
grammar school, Manchester, and Belvedere school, Liverpool.
24. North West Regional Council: an open meeting on Academies was
organised by the NW Regional Office on 16 June. The Principal Officer
from the Privatisation Unit spoke, together with the NUT representative
from the Salford (ULT) Academy (where a second Academy is
proposed with the Oasis Trust) and the Oldham Division Secretary,
who reported on the active anti- Academies campaign. There was a
great deal of opposition to proposals from several NW authorities to
incorporate a significant number of Academies into their proposals for
secondary education. Manchester, for example, is proposing to act as
co-sponsor for six Academies with a range of other sponsors
associated with the specialisms of the Academies plus further and
higher education institutions.
25. Hammersmith and Fulham: the Principal Officer, Francis Beckett and
Ken Muller of Islington spoke at a meeting on Academies on 26 June
organised by the division and chaired by the Deputy General
Secretary.
26. Tower Hamlets: there was media coverage (eg TES 29.6.07) of the
authority’s rejection of Goldman Sachs’ offer of £2m sponsorship of an
Academy. The authority’s excellent links with business partners, as
well as its impressive academic results for one of the most deprived
boroughs (56 percent 5 A-C grades) were pointed out in the TES,
although not in other newspapers.
27. Wiltshire Academy: Wellington College is to sponsor an Academy
with £2 million donated on behalf of a former director of Goldman
Sachs, who is a Wellington “old boy”.
28. Lancashire Academies: the Deputy General Secretary spoke at a
meeting against Academies in Preston on 4 July. The authority’s
proposals involve the close of 7 secondary schools to be replaced by 4
Academies, with the authority seeking to reach agreement with
sponsors. The Division is campaigning against these proposals.
29. Brent: the active publicity campaign to prevent the Wembley Sports
Ground being used for an Academy continues. The General Secretary
has written to the Mayor or London regarding the sale of the site,
owned by Transport for London, and also to division secretaries in
inner and outer London asking for support for the campaign. There are
reports of new plans to turn the John Kelly school into an Academy.
30. Northumberland Academies: an article in the Education Guardian on
3 July examined the complexities of the situation surrounding the two
proposed Academies in Northumberland to replace Blyth Valley school
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(sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools (Vardy) Foundation) with an allthrough Academy and Hirst School (sponsored by the Church of
England and Duke of Northumberland) with a 11-18 academy.
Northumberland has two rival bids to form unitary authorities, the
outcome of which could decide the fate of the Academy bids. The
article also revealed that neighbouring schools are seeking Trust status
as a way of counteracting Academies.
HEALTH AND COMMERCIALISATION
Union’s Charter on Commercialisation: Growing up in a material world
31. As previously reported, a questionnaire for pupils in relation to the
above Charter was placed on the Union’s website and on the website
of Schools Councils UK and ESSA. Several hundred responses have
been received on- line and through the post which are being analysed
currently with the aim of producing a report to accompany the Charter
for a launch early in the autumn term.
Ban on alcohol branding on children’s sports kit
32. The drinks industry has agreed to end alcohol branding in sponsorship
contracts from 1 January 2008 under a voluntary code which will affect
children’s replica kit from football, rugby and cricket clubs.
A
spokesperson for the industry said: “There is no evidence to link this
marketing with under-age drinking. Even so, drinks companies are
concerned about the negative perception caused by their logos
appearing on children’s shirts. Despite producers having only ever
been interested in marketing their drinks to adults, some critics see
children in replica kit as walking billboards for alcohol.”
33. The decision was welcomed by Alcohol Concern and is seen as a step
towards the withdrawal of the alcohol industry from sports events. The
market in replica shirts is estimated to be worth more than £250 million
annually, with the majority sold to teenage boys.
The Curriculum
34. The Union, with other members of the Children’s Food Campaign, has
called for cookery to be mandatory for all secondary pupils as an
essential life skill and an important mechanism for helping pupils to
make healthy choices about their diet. Despite a broad consensus in
the consultation on the secondary curriculum that cookery should be
compulsory, in the secondary curriculum proposals published on 12
July, schools can opt to teach textiles instead.
35. The Prime Minister has announced the aim that pupils should be
undertaking five hours of physical exercise per week by 2010 with a
£100 million package with a greater emphasis on competition within
and between schools
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Research on link between physical exercise and pupil attainment
36. Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Sport and Physical
Activity have been tracking the progress of over 3,500 pupils at Wright
Robinson sports college in Manchester. The school, where more than
50 per cent of pupils receive free school meals, has introduced rock
climbing, canoeing, street dance and trampolining among other sports.
It has also set up intervention teams to help pupils who take no
exercise with exercise and nutrition advice.
37. As reported in the Times Educational Supplement of 15 June 2007, the
early findings of a ten year study revealed that pupils who take regular
exercise (defined as those who attended at least three extra curricular
sports clubs a week) were up to eight times more likely to achieve good
GCSE grades in some subjects with large variations in most subjects.
38. Lead researcher, Dr Gillian Burgess, said, “There are some massive
differences in exam results. I am not saying it is solely down to those
pupils being physically active, but it’s a contributing factor. Higher
physical self-worth and self-esteem leads to higher confidence. This
makes pupils more likely to succeed physically and academically.” The
study found that the focus on team and competitive sports turned off
large numbers. When pupils, particularly girls, were given a chance to
do exercise, such as aerobics, trampolining and dance, they were more
likely to participate.
Privatisation in Education Unit/jttn- 18.7.07
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