Academy chain to scrap governing bodies

Shane Rae's picture
 3

I suppose we knew it wouldn't be long.  All those promises from academy groups that there would be no change to governing bodies and that schools could be assured that they would still have the same representation on the governing body post-conversion.

Until now.

The dubious E-act chain is the first to go public with its intention to sack ALL of its schools' local governing bodies in favour of new bodies which will "play a central role in celebrating the academy's achievments (read 'get invited to sharing assemblies').  Governing bodies with parental representatives will no longer hold their local schools to account.

 

Article from the Beeb here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35347602

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Comments

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 21/01/2016 - 08:44

Warnings about schools losing freedom if they joined multi-academy trusts were ignored - those opposing academy conversion were dismissed as 'enemies of promise'.

This raises the question about who were the real enemies.  Who are those pushing for all schools to become academies?  Why are they so eager for this to happen?

Perhaps the answer lies in a speech made by Michael Gove in March 2010.  He was at the launch of a Policy Exchange document called 'Blocking the Best'.  It reminded readers that schools in England could be run for profit if they were made 'independent' and could then outsource their running to for-profit organisations.  Gove told the audience he would let groups like Serco run schools.

Academies are technically 'independent'.  How much easier will it be for groups like Serco to run schools when all are academies and when academy chains get rid of inconvenient local governing bodies. 


David Barry's picture
Fri, 22/01/2016 - 22:29

http://schoolsweek.co.uk/e-act-academy-chain-abolishes-local-governing-b...

 

And the story has an interesting quote from the NGA:


"Emma Knights, chief executive of the National Governors’ Association, told Schools Week that multi-academy trusts (MATs) where one board governs more than one school “can be effective” without a governing body for each.

She said she is aware of other academy trusts that have “scaled down the role of their local governing bodies (LGB), but have not been explicit in doing so”.

“It is far better to be honest about what is being delegated down to academy level than to pretend that LGBs have more decision making power than they actually do.”


Janet Downs's picture
Sat, 23/01/2016 - 09:16

It's a pity such 'honesty' wasn't apparent when Gove et al pushed academy status as a way of finding 'freedom'.   


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