North Westminster Community School was a large 3-site secondary with a very diverse intake. Despite have both sides of every dispute in the world represented, it was remarkably peaceful (in relative terms!) It was described as "failing" by Westminster City Council, was closed and become 2 academies. Suddenly the intake was "challenging" and a fight which ended up with a student being stabbed in the playground of one academy was hushed up.
So much of the "popularity" of academies is as the result of considerable public relations expenditure. Where community schools have improved their results, there is silence. Where academies have improved results, this is front page. For example in 2008, Ministers praised Bristol Brunel Academy for its improvement - in fact, a community school made much greater progress - but kept silent when in 2009 the results went down.
For this reason, I applaud this site. Let us celebrate all the success stories in local authority schools.
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