Academisation is not the route for Catholic schools

The Diocese of Brentwood has been seeking to move a number of its schools over to academy status, despite the growing resistance of parents and teachers.

The Diocese claim to have consulted with stakeholders but in a number of cases across the east London boroughs of Redbridge and Barking and Dagenham this has been questioned.

The whole approach seems to be wrong headed. Back in 2010 the Catholic Education Service warned schools to consider very carefully before going down the academisation route.

The attitude of some seemed to change when academisation appeared inevitable, with the Conservative Government seeking in 2015 to force all schools into becoming academies.

The legislation, though, to make this happen was rejected, partly due to a revolt by Tory MPs

Most recently, there seems to have been a real cooling on academisation, with the present Secretary of State for Education Damian Hinds announcing a review of accountability measures. He has also stated that the government will not be forcibly turning schools into academies” unless Ofsted has “judged them to be inadequate.”

The precarious position of the Conservative Government with the not unlikely possibility of a Labour Government coming to power in the not too distant future should also give pause for thought. Labour Party policy is to end the academisation programme, seeking to return failing academies to local authority control with a new regulatory scheme.

Some diocese claim that academisation will provide protection should there be a hostile climate toward faith schools. The logic of this position is difficult to fathom, given that academisation creates a direct funding link between central government and the school.

If a government hostile to faith schools came to power, it would be far easier to cut academies funding than say a school operating under a local education authority – especially if the latter were from a party on the opposite side of the political divide.

There are good and bad academies, just as there are good and bad state schools. However, there should be concerns on grounds of accountability .

A number of the academy trusts have had financial problems.

Academies employ their own teaching staff so they can increase or reduce teachers pay accordingly. They control their own finances and curriculum. Term times can also be set independently.

 

Ownership of the school property passes into the trust, a contentious move for many Catholic parishes, where the parishioners often provided the funding for the building of the school in the first place.

 

In the case of the Brentwood Diocese, most of the schools concerned have very good reputations with parents clamouring to get their children into them. The simply question for the diocese must be if it aint broke why fix it?

published in the Catholic Universe - 20/1/2019