Academy schools interview

An L&S member interviews a school teacher about the government's "City Academies" scheme.

Could you tell me a bit about where you work?

I am currently training to be a primary school teacher in Birmingham. I have been working in a school in the South West area of the city. It is a state school that performs well, with dedicated teachers and support staff. I have found the school very inclusive. They have installed facilities to allow wheelchair users to attend and provide lots of valuable support to struggling pupils and children with special educational needs. The school reaches government targets for achievement in SAT tests.

For those who don’t know, what exactly are academy schools? Where did they come from?

Academy schools are run very similarly to state schools; they are still maintained by the state. However, private sponsors are involved in the management. The scheme was launched in 2000 as an initiative to boost “failing” secondary schools. Failing schools are determined by the grades pupils achieve with their GCSEs.

Forming an academy school effectively means re-launching an existing school. Schools have to raise about £2 million to get this status, which is where sponsors come in. The school is likely to get a facelift for their buildings and an injection of cash to be spent on improving other resources. For all this though, the school has to allow the sponsors the majority of the seats on the board of governors. This allows them to appoint a head and staff of their choosing and also set the curriculum for the school.

Are there any academy schools in your area?

Birmingham has 7 proposed academy schools. Shenley Court is very close to my school and is scheduled to open in 2009 with Edutrust the sponsor. Edutrust includes amongst its backers the businessman James Caan and former Archbishop of Cantebury Lord Carey. They recently ran into problems in Bradford after backing out of sponsoring a school at the 11th hour. I read an interview with a Bradford Councillor David Ward who commented he was very unimpressed with the talk he had heard from the group. They seemed to be saying they would do a lot but offered very little in terms of concrete plans. I’d also add that Edutrust are being investigated for financial irregularities as we speak. There still has not been a verdict here so we will have to see.

What problems do academy schools pose to you and your school?

Several strands of the theory that underpins the idea of academy schools are sound-providing resources to the schools that need them and new buildings to replace existing rundown ones. These are all positive things for our schools. However, they take all control away from the school community. It is that which is crucial. An academy school is run by a business or a group of people who have their own agendas, which are not the welfare of the pupils. That is the bottom line.

The academy system is as yet completely untested, so we have no way of knowing whether the system is going to work out. For teachers it invites the obvious problem regarding the terms and conditions of our employment. Trade unions are forced to gain recognition from sponsors. We are effectively in the hands of a private employer and with that we are subject to all the problems that come with the private sector. It is a big risk to job security.

For children it poses a risk. The curriculum can be set by the sponsors with no consultation required with staff. This has allowed for church to groups to begin looking at academy schools as a way of using the backdoor to teach ideas that state schools reject, such as creationism over theory of evolution. Academy schools also have nothing making them be inclusive. They can pick and choose the pupils they want to teach. If they don’t want to take on children with additional needs, they do not have to. Its easy to turn a failing school into a successful one by preventing children with special educational needs from attending. You also have a situation where the pupils rejected by academies, be it for behaviour or SEN, are then put into state secondary schools. Their state schools results come down and the government will consider them failing. They could therefore be put up for academy status. It’s a bit of a cycle.

Academy schools will take control even further away from the school community. There is no accountability whatsoever. They can be run like a private school, but with £25 million of taxpayer’s money chucked in as well. The government is keen to keep the academy ball rolling. A recent “Thinktank” suggested the scheme should be moved into primary schools as well. I am concerned this will lead to full scale privatisation of education.

Are there any attempts/campaigns to resist academy schools? Could you tell me a bit about them? Do you see any problems with them? How could they be more effective/better?

There have been attempts to resist academy schools up and down the country. Two examples that come to mind include Wembley and Sheffield. Wembley Academy was launched on top of an existing sports ground in the area. This was resisted in a combined action of parents, teachers and campaigners. The struggle included an occupation of the area which lasted for nearly 6 months. People slept in tents in the area until they were eventually evicted by the police. The campaign also included more efforts. In Sheffield, there is currently a ballot being held of parents at Parkwood High School. This is a first; usually the decision to become an academy is made behind closed doors. The decision to hold a ballot has been helped by pressure from the school community.

If we want to make the problem of academies an issue for all of the school community we will need to build something that can successfully make a connection with the public. This can only happen through educating people to the dangers of academies and supporting efforts to resist them. We will also need to push the teacher’s unions into industrial action. This is a big fight all in all.

What are your hopes for the future developments in education?

I hope we can realise how much education has been improved over the past 10 years in state schools. Schools really reflect the world we live in a fantastic way. We have policies and procedures regarding inclusion that do a lot to make children with physical and emotional disabilities feel apart of our community. The variety of subjects taught us also fantastic. What I hope for above all else is that we can stop heaping more pressure onto our teachers and see what a great job they do and want to do for our kids. Teachers need support and this requires more training so we can do our job even better. The pressures of a business dictating what is cost effective and filling us with management nonsense is not going to help this. It is the staff working in even closer partnership with the community it serves that makes a successful school that can support its pupils.