Comments on: House of Commons analysis confirms no evidence of better academies performance

By: Academisation and the Demolition of our Education System | Think Left

Academisation and the Demolition of our Education System | Think Left — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:07:18 +0000

[...] differ from the Academies of New Labour. Despite any lack of evidence, Anti-Academy Alliance (7), Local Schools Network (17) ( and indeed some to the contrary) that Academy Schools improved children’s attainment, [...]

By: Academisation and the Rape of our Education System | Think Left

Academisation and the Rape of our Education System | Think Left — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:20:45 +0000

[...] from the Academies of New Labour. Despite any lack of evidence, Anti-Academy Alliance (7), Local Schools Network (17) ( and indeed some to the contrary) that Academy Schools improved children’s attainment, [...]

By: A guest

A guest — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:18:20 +0000

Henry have you seen this.
Gove warns against sitting GCSEs early. (BBC -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-1729890)

In the report of the research it shows that pupils in academies/CTCs were much more likely to be early entrants in both English and Maths. Gove did not highlight this fact

(https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/Early-entries-GCSEs.pdf)

By: Janet Downs

Janet Downs — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:33:15 +0000

It appears that the electorate has been deceived about academies since they first began. I discuss it at length in a new post below:

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/03/deception-about-academies-has-been-going-on-since-they-first-opened/

By: Henry Stewart

Henry Stewart — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:14:57 +0000

Charlie, sorry for delay. have now done analysis for those with prior low achievement the % getting 5 A-Cs including english and maths:

FSM 0%-10%: Academies 7%, Non-academies 6%
FSM 10%-20%: Academies 7%, Non-academies 6%
FSM 20%-30%: Academies 6%, Non-academies 8%
FSM 30%-40%: Academies 8%, Non-academies 9%
FSM 40%+: Academies 13%, Non-academies 13%

I’d say thats about even. Though the most interesting pt is that the best place to be if you have 3s at KS2 is a school with a very disadvantaged intake.

By: Allan Beavis

Allan Beavis — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:03:48 +0000

PISA also said:

“If children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds cannot attend high-performing schools because of financial constraints, then school systems that offer parents more choice of schools for their children will necessarily be less effective in improving the performance of all students”.

This was back in 2009 before Academy expansion took hold and the notion of “choice” was inflated by the Coalition and pro-Academy supporters to mask the fact that new education policies would inevitably favour the already advantaged. The question has always been – and always will be – how you ensure equal access to excellent education for everyone regardless of background or ability.

The emphasis that we should learn and implement from the the good practices of a handful of successul academies is rather meaningless, given that long before Academies were imposed on the educational landscape, there were plenty of successful and high performing community and maintained schools which were – and still are! – examples of how schools could improve and stay improved. Under LA stewardship, these best practices could be shared easily and with a sense of collective good.

The challenge actually is how to scale up and implement successful models – whether individual or chain – when schools serve different student intakes, different challenges and with different levels of financial and operational resources. Focusing on “what we can learn” from KIPP or ARK appears to reveal that these well endowed chains have questionable attrition or exclusion levels but, more importantly, their “success” may well prove impossible to replicate in schools starved of cash, resources and a diversity of student intake. KIPP has massive reserves of cash – thanks to philanthropy – so its unique advantages have not scaled up across the US

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/8/46624007.pdf

By: Charlie Ben-Nathan

Charlie Ben-Nathan — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:02:45 +0000

Henry, the analysis you link to doesn’t seem to compare the progress of those with previous low attainment who attend schools with different levels of FSM which is what we were previously discussing.

By: Henry Stewart

Henry Stewart — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:29:57 +0000

Charlie, I’m glad you found my analysis useful. But, no, academies with less than 40% FSM don’t do better either. This analysis showed, when compared to schools on similar FSM, academies had lower figures than non-academies in each FSM category on both GCSEs and numbers making expected progress:

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/01/academies-the-evidence-of-underperformance/

By: Janet Downs

Janet Downs — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:03:15 +0000

The PwC 2008 report found that where academies made improvements they were using the same methods, including extended days, which could be found in improving LA schools. Improvement does not depend on academy conversion.

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/02/minister-cites-report-which-didn%e2%80%99t-unconditionally-endorse-academies-%e2%80%93-has-he-actually-read-it/

By: Charlie Ben-Nathan

Charlie Ben-Nathan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:05:52 +0000

Of course, any school would be mad not to and I imagine successful academies have done. No school is inventing education from scratch. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.