Key Resources
- Local Schools Network
- A Can of Worms – David Wolfe’s blog for anyone concerned about ‘academies’ or ‘free schools’ and the law
- DfE Governance Handbook
- Schools Portal – a guide to some of the companies, lobbyists and think tanks invovled in the privatisation of schools.
Impartial Sources
- School Performance in MATs and LAs – Education Policy Institue (July 2016)
- Education Select Committee Academies Report Jan 2015
- Fullfact.org – How good are academies?
- Academies and maintained schools: Oversight and intervention (NAO Report Oct 2014
Government Policy
- Primary Education – Written Ministerial Statement (October 2016)
- DfE Consultation – Schools that work for everyone (12.9.16-12.12.16)
- Queen’s Speech briefing paper
- Hansard transcript of the Education White Paper debate
- Education & Adoption Draft Bill (2015)
- Unleashing greatness: Getting the best from an academised system
- Academies Act (2010)
Campaign Sites & Petitions
- Stop SATS in 2017 Petition
- CASE – Campaign for State Education
- NASUWT FAQs Staff & Parents
- NUT Academies toolkit
- NUT Oppose Academies – Important Information for Parents About Academies
- The Reclaiming Education Alliance – 7 Principles
- Let the Kids be Kids
- Anti Academies Alliance
- Birmingham CASE
- Deptford Anti Academies – Parents FAQ
- Hands off Hove Park
- Paws off Parrs Wood
- Stop Academies In Lewisham
- We’re Backing Hewett (Norwich)
Articles
Academies
- Taxpayers fund large wages and lavish perks of academy chiefs (Guardian, 24 July 2016)
- House of Commons debate on parental involvement in academies (4 July 2016)
- Warwick Mansell – Academies: Statisticians need to raise their game (July 2016)
- Warwick Mansell – ACADEMIES: AUTONOMY, ACCOUNTABILITY, QUALITY AND EVIDENCE (Research report for Cambridge Primary Review Trust, May 2016)
- Everyone is born creative, but it is educated out of us at school (Oct 2016)
- The future of arts education in England – SSAT (January 2016)
Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health
- Dr Pam Jarvis – Buried by Brexit, but what about the children? (October 2016)
- Dr Pam Jarvis – Developmentally informed educational excellence everywhere (Apr 2016)
- Dr Pam Jarvis – Why young children don’t think like adults (May 2016)
- The Value of Inclusive Education – Open Society Foundations (Oct 2015)
- Dr Pam Jarvis – It’s against human nature to send two-year-olds to school (Feb 2015)
- Young Minds – the problem with mental health statistics
- Sally Weale – Child Mental Health Crisis – “Worse than Suspected”
- I am 16, and the education system is destroying my health
- Children ‘in complete meltdown’ over exams
- Lorenza Bacino – Shock figures show extent of self harm in English teenagers
Governance
- Pam Jarvis – Time to account for education (Huffington Post, July 2016)
- Nigel Gann (about the author) – Educating Ethics – the probity of school governance (Forum Vol 58. No 3. 2014)
Grammar Schools & Secondary Moderns
- Grammar Schools are Unfair – Louise Tickle, The Guardian (October 2016)
- Grammar Schools & Social Mobility – Education Policy Institute Report (Sep 2016)
- Mrs Roberts writes – Re-introducing secondary modern schools (Sep 2016)
Parental Involvement
Older Articles
- ARK Schools: an example of philanthrocapitalism (Matthew Bennet, 24.6.16 Local Schools Network)
- We’ve never had it so good, nor felt so fearful (the Observer 15.5.16)
- D. Campbell & J. Doward – Care for children with mental health problems is woeful (the Guardian, 14.5.2016)
- J. Dickens – Do council maintained schools outperform academies (Schoolsweek 25.4.16)
- John Davies – The 2016 White Paper – where are we now (Key Insights 20.4.16)
- Vic Goddard – Academies guilty of the worst gaming of all (The Guardian 29.3.16)
- Primary Assessments – Unions should propose a radical alternative (Schoolsweek 25.2.16)
- Daily Mirror – Conservative MPs batter government’s plans
- Camden New Journal – ROS campaign launch
- Anya Kamenetz – Pearson’s quest to cover the planet in company run schools
- Tamasine Cave – Fun ways to stop corporations taking over schools
- Liam Young – Academies are Excluding “Poor Quality Students”
- Simon Jenkins – The Tories’ absurd regime can’t even set a spelling test
- Senior executives leave struggling academy chain – and take big payoff with them
- England’s schools make us the extremists of Europe
- School admissions – the dodgy practices need to stop
- Candidate required to run £130m academy chain – no education experience necessary
- Exclusive: Senior figure quits academy chain after failing to declare interest in linked company
- Does ‘academies only’ sponsorship policy waste educational expertise?
- Lords in revolt over Tory plan to turn all failing schools into academies
- Nicky Morgan says Government will take swift action to deal with failing academies
- Failing academies face rapid action
- March of the teachers taking home salaries of more than £100k: Record number of earn six-figure salaries as the rise of academy schools brings bumper pay packages
- Trust’s ‘dysfunctional’ relations with DfE & Commissioners in double trouble
- Ask us before turning a school into an academy, say 97% of parents
- UK education secretary appeals to businesses to set up more academies
- Claims of ‘irregularities’ at free schools and academies
- How GERM is infecting schools around the world (Washington Post 29.6.12)
Comment / Blogs
- Emma Bishton – What price progress?
- Louise Dillon – Dear Nicky Morgan, about those listening ears …
- Let Our Kids Be Kids – Open letter to the government
- Tishnaught – The Farce of Parental Choice
- Shirly Blanch – An Open Letter to Nicky Morgan
- Lord Nash admits academies have been ‘untouchable’ due to funding agreement issues
- Academies to be brought under ‘coasting schools’ legislation
- Fears over impact of £600m cut to Education Services Grant
- There is a misconception that the schools’ budget being ringfenced includes all the money that schools currently receive. It doesn’t
- The Tory future for our schools – an unhealthy mix of ineffective regulation and quality assurance and more privatisation
- Why Mr Osborne’s ‘good settlement’ for education will mean extra cuts for thousands of schools
- Nicky Morgan accuses academy ‘enemies’ of underhand tactics and intimidation
- More than 30 academies ask permission to employ unqualified teachers
- The Education and Adoption Bill is a naive and simplistic measure. Morgan is the real ideologue not her opponents.
- Regional breakdown of coasting schools: Will RSCs be able to cope?
- Why do educational standards fall following marketisation?
- If academies are the answer…?
- How to privatise the education system, without people noticing – a step by step guide.
- Schools should join academy chains of 30 or more, research claims
- Policy Exchange’s ‘Rising Tide’ creates a splash but leaves only a damp patch
- So do academies perform better or not?
- Gender salaries gap ‘widens’ in academies
- An academy trust’s views on the management of head teachers
- Some lessons learned about converting Academies
- George Monbiot – Capitalist Command Economy
- Nicky Morgan Vs The Bell Curve
- Are our schools in safe hands?
- Primary schools: maintained schools improve faster than sponsored academies
- Who runs our schools report
- What is required when governors consult on converting their maintained school into an academy?
- Beware: once the governors of a maintained school have applied for an academy order, they may be powerless to stop its conversion into an academy
- Someone wants my school to become an academy – what happens?
- Academy schools: Policy evolution, Controversy and General Election 2015
- Growth of academies and free schools reinforces student segregation
- No convincing evidence that academies are pushing up school standards
- The new school rules
- Does academy conversion actually lead to slower improvement in schools?
- Academies are not magic bullets: The Education and Adoption Bills
Other Background Information
Other DfE Publications (& Govt. related content)
- NFER / LGA Analysis of academy school performance in GCSEs 2014
- Convert to an academy: guide for schools
- Academy conversion and pre-opening funding
- Academy Funding Information
- Education Funding Agency
- Primary academy chain development grant
- MAT Capital funding
- School capital funding allocations: 2015 to 2018
- Regional Schools Comissioner
- Making changes to Academies
- Creating a self-improving school system
- Academies and free schools – Education
- Academies and free schools programmes : Framework for assessing value for money
- Academies – Research priorities and questions
- Conflicts of interest in academy sponsorship arrangements – A report for the Education Select Committee
- House of Commons Library – Converter Academies: Statistics
Funding/Financial Information
- Academy schools update (Spring 2015): Hacker Young Chartered Accountants
- UHY’s 2015 academies benchmarking report
- Emergency Hand Outs to Academies
- FOI Request pupil funding
- Academy Funding Information (NUT)
Research / Academic Sites / Think Tanks
- The Impact of Autonomy on School Improvement
- National Foundation for Educational Reseach – Academies
- Co-Operative Trust Schools
- The growth of academy chains: implications for leaders and leadership
- The Sutton Trust – Academies
- New Schools Network: Governance Models & Challenges for Free School Chains
- Schools should join academy chains of 30 or more, research claims
- School Structure, School Autonomy and the Tail
- Education in chains
- NFER: Analysis of academy school performance in GCSEs 2014
- Blocking the Best: Obstacles to new, independent state schools (Policy Exchange)
- More than 700 academies set to lose over £100,000 each – the Chancellor’s strange definition of ‘protection’ for schools
- Fears over impact of £600m cut to Education Services Grant
Other Background Information
Film / Video
Archive
- Academy trusts accused of failing disadvantaged pupils
- Most academy chains coasting
- Department for Education rapped over use of Sats data
- John Cridland – Speech to the Sunday Times Festival of Education
- Ofsted inspectors rate two more free schools as inadequate
- Ofsted report lambasts ‘limited leadership’ in Oasis academy chain
- State school honours uneven, as academies notch up another knighthood
- Highly trained, respected and free: why Finland’s teachers are different
- Academy over-expansion was the real Trojan horse scandal
- The academies agenda is just a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes
- Department for Education lines up praise for the academies solution
- Tristram Hunt: how Labour lost the plot on education – and the election
- Half of schools in UK’s biggest academy chain are failing pupils
- Nicky Morgan is wrong – the evidence for academies doesn’t add up
- ‘The government is privatising our school system – and disregarding parents, teachers and communities’
- Education bill to close ‘loopholes’ blocking academies expansion
- Who are the Regional Schools Commissioners and why do they matter?
- Regional schools commissioner snubs parents during Redditch decision talks
- Worried about education? Get stuck in and change it
- When is a consultation not a consultation?
- Headteachers unhappy with all parties’ education policies
- Alternative manifestos aim to influence politicians’ school plans
- Headteachers’ salaries are soaring in academies and free schools, say teachers
- Tristram Hunt tells headteachers he will reject ‘alpha-male compulsion’ of a ‘reforming legacy’
- Naughty pupils could be more at risk under academies,’ report warns
- ‘Fewer than half’ academy chains producing above average GCSE results
- How to design a primary school where learning has no limits
- Academies make easier targets for Islamist plotters, warn MPs
- Should academies and free schools be allowed to hire unqualified teachers?
- Labour vows to boost school funding by targeting academies’ cash reserves
- E-Act academy chain abandons plans for world domination
- Academies are an expensive red herring. Here’s how you really improve school standards
- Massive expansion of academy programme to be announced by Prime Minister
- Schools need to be part of a community, not stand alone
- MPs call for more transparency on state-funded academies
- Spending watchdog issues rare criticism of DfE finances
- Academy schools stockpile £2.5bn of education funding
- The big election idea should be: trust teachers
- Have we got advice for you: DfE ‘learns lessons’ from Mark Steel campaign
- Ofsted chief says struggling schools ‘no better off’ under academy control
- Councils pay £22m converting schools to academies, research finds
- Nearly half of academy trusts paid millions to ‘dubious’ contacts
- Slowdown in number of schools converting to academies
- Are academies actually any good?
- The Observer view on academies and education
- ‘Hove vs Gove’ campaign victory: Parents derail ‘academies bandwagon’
- Academy chains ‘worse for disadvantaged children’ than local authority schools
- The academies model of education is damaging, costly and unsustainable
- Unqualified teachers hired to take lessons ‘on the cheap’
- Revealed: taxpayer-funded academies paying millions to private firms
- The academies model: fragmentation, favouritism and failure
- Gove’s academies programme epitomises his incompetence and failure
- School academies overspent by £1bn, public accounts committee says
- The future of schooling: we need a radical new education manifesto
- Ten things they don’t tell you about academies
- Academies accused of expelling pupils to boost results
- Primary School KS2 Results 2015: The Key Points
- Education Bill – academies – “real dangers & no clear benefits” – experts comment
- The Coalition’s Record on Schools: Policy, Spending and Outcomes 2010-2015
February 27, 2020
Fifteen-year-old Aimee Collins, a state school student from Somerset, wrote this brilliant speech for the…