1. Academy Consultation November 2016
“The Brickfields trust”
Created by
Great wakering primary school

2. Welcome - Aims of the Event
Outline what it means to be an academy
Present the model we are proposing
Introduce you to our Trust Board
Discuss the rationale behind our decision to convert
Outline some concerns received
Give you the opportunity to ask questions and seek your views
Explain that this aims to be a short presentation and the main focus of the session is to hear their views and questions.
Reminder that the consultation period closes on 11th November for stakeholders but that the TUPE consultation will still be running to 18th November

3. Our Board of Trustees Founding Members Trustees Judith Puddick
Daniel Smith
Denise Rossiter
Paula Fisher
Graham Wells
Trustees
Judith Puddick
Daniel Smith
Hayley O’Dea
Anna Stokes
Jo Dabbs
Adam Judge
Maz Norman
Explain the rigour of the DfE in approving boards that only have adequate skills – move away from large companies
Explain the professional backgrounds of our board and introduce anyone who is at the session.
The current school governing body have delegated responsibility to this board to establish the MAT and will take over responsibility if the academy proposal goes ahead 3 board members also Governors. Academy conversion has been on the FGB agenda for the last 3 years
Parental involvement at a local level in a similar way to current Governing Bodies but without the statutory financial responsibility – these focus on learning and review if policies are being put in to practice.
Local Advisory Boards will be established and will include elected parent representatives and will feedback to the trust about local school based issues.

4. What does it mean to be an academy?
Academies are independent, state-funded schools, which receive their funding directly from central government, rather than through a local authority.
The day-to-day running of the school is with the head teacher or principal, but they are overseen by individual charitable bodies called academy trusts and may be part of an academy chain.
These trusts and chains provide advice, support, expertise and a strategic overview.
They control their own admissions process and have more freedom than other schools to innovate
Our proposed model
Sponsor academy
Primary chain
Opportunities for future growth
A stronger Governance model
Additional information
Currently, 2,075 out of 3,381 (61%) secondary schools are academies, while 2,440 of 16,766 (15%) primary schools have academy status.
The number grew dramatically under the coalition government, from 203 in May 2010, and has continued under the present Conservative government.
Weren't academies all about improving failing schools?
They were once. The policy, which originated under Labour, aimed to improve struggling schools, primarily in deprived areas and mainly secondary.
And this continues under the sponsored-academy model, where failing schools are taken over and run by an academy trust.
But it has changed radically to embrace all types of schools - successful or otherwise.
All schools - primary as well as secondary - have been invited to convert to academy status, with priority being given to the best performers.
Great rigour in approval process as there have been some well publicised concerns from chains who grew too quickly or where there was not enough accountability in ensuring financial probity.
Our proposed model
Reiterate importance of starting as a Primary model and being led by our school rather than us being consumed by a larger chain or a secondary led chain later.
Explain that we are planning to grow as we need to do this to be financially sustainable longer term and to provide adequate services to our member schools however by our school leading we retain full control of who joins, who we decide to sponsor, whether we have the capacity to take them on , full due diligence undertaken etc.

5. Why become an academy? Rationale
Increased opportunities for staff development and the ability to be more creative about recruitment and retention of teachers
Increased control and autonomy for our school
Establishing a formal legal structure for working with other schools
Increased funding opportunities and control over how we spend money
One of the main reasons for our decision to convert is recruitment and retention of the best teachers. Most recent workforce census =
Nearly one in ten teachers left the profession last year – the highest proportion for a decade –  and almost a quarter of teachers now leave within three years.
Outline opportunities for staff training, development, career progression, growing our own, young teachers, student places etc.
We are the lead school so we are forming the vision for our trust and member schools. Outline current partnership working that we are part of that parents are probably unaware of – Partnership project in Rochford, LA reviews, KS2-3 writing project, Extended Services team, Rochford Maths project.
Academy gives us full autonomy over any school that we sponsor.
We can review resourcing across all schools as whole and make economies of scale.
Broadband example – we currently support all primary schools across Essex and pay more per pupil than secondaries. Essex use same broadband for corporate as for schools and are happy with their corporate service so no drive to change provider despite concerns raised by schools.
The DfE provide funding for us to provide support to sponsored schools so that we can ensure we have the capacity to do so.

6. Why now? DfE’s preferred model Cross political party policy
Geographical location of our school
Control and leadership of this agenda
Current position and capacity of our school
Recruitment and retention concerns
Despite the removal of enforced academisation from the recent Education Bill, in a written Parliamentary statement  in Oct 16 Ms Greening said: "Our ambition remains that all schools should benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings. Our focus, however, is on building capacity in the system and encouraging schools to convert voluntarily.”
Introduced by labour continued under coalition and current govt. A change in govt is unlikely to reverse this policy.
Essex school – closer geographically to Southend – number of schools in Rochford already in MATs or forming MATs i.e. faith schools. Many secondaries taking the lead.
We are a solidly good school aiming for outstanding. Working with others is one of the best methods of professional development and training.
We have some outstanding teachers and leaders who are looking for career progression and development. If we can’t offer that here we will lose them.

7. How will this affect our school and children?
Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) have the freedom to…
change term dates and the length of school days
set their own pay and conditions for staff
employ unqualified teachers to provide specialist teaching
control their own admissions process
open new schools in areas of need
However we have no plans to make changes for changes sake.
Reassurance message here. We already continually assess and review what we are doing as a school to improve education and standards. We have recently amended term dates to try to reduce time lost from school due to unauthorised holidays. However we do this in a measured way and make sure that we don’t do too much at once. We also evaluate any changes according to the impact they have. Therefore we are not planning any significant changes at this stage and any future changes would be completed under consultation as they are now. If there was strong majority opposition then they would not happen.
Unqualified teachers = subject specialists i.e. art, music, languages etc.
In reality our children would not notice any difference on a day to day basis. We are still accountable for our standards, we would still be required do the same tests, we would still be inspected under Ofsted and the trust would be accountable for the performance of all schools in the MAT.

8. Concerns raised
Our best staff will leave to go into the sponsored school and our children will miss out
Charges will increase
Our school will change and lose it’s character
It will all become about making and saving money
The new housing developments are the reason this is happening
I have received some really thoughtful and relevant questions and concerns which we have summarised and published to our website. These are some of the common themes.
At the moment we have to charge to cover all of our catering costs and would continue in the same way. Academies are not allowed to make a profit and Trustees are unpaid. We have no plans to raise prices but we do review charges every year when we set our school budget. Academies also receive the same funding as LA maintained schools to provide Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM).
The new houses have not influenced this decision. The developers will have to provide money for primary school places for their next phase of development if there aren’t enough places available locally; if we stay as we are the money will come via the Local Authority, if we convert then the money will come directly to the Academy Trust, but either way it will still come to the school.
We may need to employ more staff over time as there will be larger numbers of pupils in our catchment area. We already have had classes of up to 32 children and would not ever want to exceed that number. Academy conversion would have no impact in terms of making changes as a result of increased pupil numbers locally.

9. Over to you….
Questions? or comments