UPDATE FROM PRIVATISATION IN EDUCATION UNIT FOR THE EDUCATION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMITTEE (18 July 2007)

ACADEMIES

The New Government

1. As incoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown gave support for Academies in his Mansion House speech and talked of making it easier for organisations, including universities and colleges, to sponsor Academies by reducing the required cash contributions. He gave emphasis to the links between business and schools and announced the creation of a National Council for Educational Excellence, chaired by himself, to including business leaders. In the Government re- shuffle, Lord Adonis, champion of Academies, retained his ministerial post.

2. On 10 July, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, in the House of Commons within a major speech on education policy also gave support to Academies and spoke of “accelerating the pace of the Academies programme”. He confirmed the role of local authorities in endorsing Academies at the feasibility stage and during consultations at the funding agreement stage. He said that whether an organisation could be a potential sponsor should not depend on its bank balance but whether it could demonstrate leadership, innovation, and commitment to act in the public interest. He announced the abolition of the requirement for universities, high performing schools and colleges to provide £2 million sponsorship and wanted every university engaged with Academies, giving a list of nine which had already expressed an interest.

3. The Secretary of State referred to flexibility being at the heart of innovation in the curriculum of Academies, which would be maintained for all new Academies, but built on the platform of the core National Curriculum which all new Academies would follow in English, maths, science and ICT.

4. He referred to Academies making the greatest impact on standards when they were a central part of the local community and that they had a duty to collaborate with all other schools in area and were inspected on that basis.

5. The names of five new Academies, whose funding agreements had been signed were announced: Brunel Academy, Bristol; John Cabot Academy, Gloucestershire; Shireland Collegiate Academy and George Salter Collegiate Academy, Sandwell, St Michael and All Angels Church of England Academy, Southwark.

6. The text of the Secretary of State’s speech is on the main agenda.

1 Anti-Academies Alliance Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry – 12 June 2007

7. The Privatisation in Education Unit has completed its draft report of the above Committee of Enquiry based on notes and tapes of the evidence presented, which has been passed to the Alliance for checking against attendance lists, and the written evidence presented. The draft report has been circulated with the main agenda. The final report of the Committee of Enquiry will be very valuable documentary evidence on the scale of the opposition to Academies at a crucial political stage, as well as providing information on campaigns on individual Academies for use in the Union’s campaigning material.

Launch of TUC Report on Academies by the Children’s Services Network – 16 July 2007

8. The above launch was well attended, including by members of the Anti Academies Alliance. The Committee Secretary spoke on behalf of the Union, together with representatives of ATL, NASUWT and Unison and Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC. Every speaker mentioned the positive nature and unanimity of approach on Academies between the unions involved in monitoring the progress of the report.

9. The report, which has been circulated to Executive members, examines the shifts in Government policy on Academies, particularly the greater involvement of local authorities, evaluates the evidence on Academies and identifies ways in which the divisive elements of the programme should be neutralised and Academies be brought back within local authority families of schools.

Church of England and Academies

10.The Times Educational Supplement of 1 June 2007, in an article on the apparent support for the teaching of creationism by the Church of England head of education, also indicated that the CoE was in talks with the Government about opening a network of 100 Academies. The Church of England Academies Services Ltd would oversee proposals from individual dioceses for Academies. These proposals were criticised by the National Secular Society.

11.The Daily Telegraph of 13 July 2007 reported that 23 cathedral choir schools have expressed an interest in becoming Academies or become sponsors of new Academies. Nine are already involved in talks with local authorities. The article says that the schools, where fees for boarders can exceed £20, 00 per year, would become free with the ability to admit a proportion of pupils on the basis of musical aptitude.

2 Examination results in Academies

12.Educational researcher, Roger Titcombe, wrote a letter to the Independent on 4 July claiming that Academies were failing to enter pupils for “difficult” subjects such as science, modern languages and history to boost their GCSE pass rate, but to the detriment of pupils’ future options. He made the point that finding out such information was very difficult because Academies were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the DfES claimed not to know.

13.These findings complement those of Terry Wrigley of Edinburgh University, who claimed that the first wave of 14 Academies are doing 12 times the number of GNVQs compared with predecessor schools.

Sir Mike Tomlinson

14.Sir Mike Tomlinson, former HMCI, has commented on Academies’ lack of innovation (Financial Times, 22 June 2007): “They are still using pretty much the same timetable as was used in the Sixties. And very few have used their freedom from the national curriculum to introduce anything radically new, or their freedoms to change teachers’ pay and conditions.” He indicated that the biggest problem was England’s “fairly tightly controlled accountability system”, saying that schools were reluctant to break with orthodox practices that might not meet the approval of the DfES and Ofsted.

15.Sir Mike was commissioned by the Government to come up with a strategy for local authorities to co-sponsor Academies to accommodate external sponsors not able to meet the financial commitment necessary or not willing to take sole responsibility for running schools. Examples of this approach in a Financial Times article of 20 June 2007 were given as Sunderland, Manchester, Kensington and Chelsea and Kent.

Salaries of Academy Principals

16.The Times Educational Supplement of 25 May 2007 carried a feature on the pay of Academy heads compared with secondary school heads which revealed that they were paid 1.5 times as much, averaging £105,000 compared with £68,000. The top three earners were the principals of Dixon’s Academy, Bradford (£140,000); Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College Trust (2 Academies) and Capital City Academy, Brent (between £120,000 - £130,000). Commenting for ASCL, John Dunford drew attention to the challenging nature of Academies, and also the turn-over of heads in challenging schools.

Individual Developments

17.No Academy in Haringey: at the end of May, in the competition for a new school in Haringey, the schools adjudicator rejected proposals for an Academy from ULT and from Haberdashers’ Aske’s and for a trust

3 school from CfBT, in favour of a new local authority community school. The adjudicators said, “The proposal capitalises on the promoter’s knowledge of the borough, draws on what has been learned in recent years in improving education in the borough and emphasises the potential collaboration with other local schools.” This decision followed a long campaign by the division with local parents, teachers and governors.

18.Oasis Academies in Southampton: as previously reported, competitions for two new schools in Southampton resulted in bids for Academies and Trust schools. The Division campaigned against these options and tried to encourage the authority to reject the bids and submit proposals for community schools. The Committee Secretary spoke at a public meeting on the proposals on 24 May. Early in July the authority announced its decision to accept the proposals from the Oasis Trust for two Academies. Local MP, John Denham, who is the Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, has condemned the decision to reject the bid for a Trust school from the Southampton Education Trust consortium, against the advice of education officers and the public consultation.

19.Islington Green School: NUT school representative, Ken Muller, is working with the Regional Office using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information on the anonymous donor of £1million to the City University’s sponsoring of an Academy to replace Islington Green School. The donor is a “well-established” “education/religious/charity trust” who has been “once in the frame as a sponsor” and subject to “due diligence” checks by the DfES.

20.A letter to the incoming Prime Minister, asking him to save Islington Green from closure, against the wishes of staff and parents, was presented on the first day of Gordon Brown’s premiership.

21.The Ridings School, Calderdale: following the placing of the school in special measures, the local authority has launched a consultation on the closure of the Ridings School to end in mid-August. The Cabinet, which will make a decision based on the consultation at the end of August, also approved proposals to open an Academy to serve North Halifax. The Division, which is campaigning against the proposals, also reported that another community school could be under threat of closure because the Leeds diocese wants to open a new Catholic school in the area.

22.Birmingham Academies: as part of its BSF proposals, Birmingham is due to get seven Academies to replace existing secondary schools. Sponsors include the Black Country Richardson property company, ARK and Edutrust

23.Colston’s Girls’ School, Bristol: this all-girls independent school has put forward proposals to become an Academy. The school’s owners,

4 the Merchant Venturers, are already sponsoring an Academy in Bristol, and would contribute £1 to the new school. This would be the third independent school to become an Academy following William Hulme grammar school, Manchester, and Belvedere school, Liverpool.

24.North West Regional Council: an open meeting on Academies was organised by the NW Regional Office on 16 June. The Principal Officer from the Privatisation Unit spoke, together with the NUT representative from the Salford (ULT) Academy (where a second Academy is proposed with the Oasis Trust) and the Oldham Division Secretary, who reported on the active anti- Academies campaign. There was a great deal of opposition to proposals from several NW authorities to incorporate a significant number of Academies into their proposals for secondary education. Manchester, for example, is proposing to act as co-sponsor for six Academies with a range of other sponsors associated with the specialisms of the Academies plus further and higher education institutions.

25.Hammersmith and Fulham: the Principal Officer, Francis Beckett and Ken Muller of Islington spoke at a meeting on Academies on 26 June organised by the division and chaired by the Deputy General Secretary.

26.Tower Hamlets: there was media coverage (eg TES 29.6.07) of the authority’s rejection of Goldman Sachs’ offer of £2m sponsorship of an Academy. The authority’s excellent links with business partners, as well as its impressive academic results for one of the most deprived boroughs (56 percent 5 A-C grades) were pointed out in the TES, although not in other newspapers.

27.Wiltshire Academy: Wellington College is to sponsor an Academy with £2 million donated on behalf of a former director of Goldman Sachs, who is a Wellington “old boy”.

28.Lancashire Academies: the Deputy General Secretary spoke at a meeting against Academies in Preston on 4 July. The authority’s proposals involve the close of 7 secondary schools to be replaced by 4 Academies, with the authority seeking to reach agreement with sponsors. The Division is campaigning against these proposals.

29.Brent: the active publicity campaign to prevent the Wembley Sports Ground being used for an Academy continues. The General Secretary has written to the Mayor or London regarding the sale of the site, owned by Transport for London, and also to division secretaries in inner and outer London asking for support for the campaign. There are reports of new plans to turn the John Kelly school into an Academy.

30.Northumberland Academies: an article in the Education Guardian on 3 July examined the complexities of the situation surrounding the two proposed Academies in Northumberland to replace Blyth Valley school

5 (sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools (Vardy) Foundation) with an all- through Academy and Hirst School (sponsored by the Church of England and Duke of Northumberland) with a 11-18 academy. Northumberland has two rival bids to form unitary authorities, the outcome of which could decide the fate of the Academy bids. The article also revealed that neighbouring schools are seeking Trust status as a way of counteracting Academies.

HEALTH AND COMMERCIALISATION

Union’s Charter on Commercialisation: Growing up in a material world

31.As previously reported, a questionnaire for pupils in relation to the above Charter was placed on the Union’s website and on the website of Schools Councils UK and ESSA. Several hundred responses have been received on- line and through the post which are being analysed currently with the aim of producing a report to accompany the Charter for a launch early in the autumn term.

Ban on alcohol branding on children’s sports kit

32.The drinks industry has agreed to end alcohol branding in sponsorship contracts from 1 January 2008 under a voluntary code which will affect children’s replica kit from football, rugby and cricket clubs. A spokesperson for the industry said: “There is no evidence to link this marketing with under-age drinking. Even so, drinks companies are concerned about the negative perception caused by their logos appearing on children’s shirts. Despite producers having only ever been interested in marketing their drinks to adults, some critics see children in replica kit as walking billboards for alcohol.”

33.The decision was welcomed by Alcohol Concern and is seen as a step towards the withdrawal of the alcohol industry from sports events. The market in replica shirts is estimated to be worth more than £250 million annually, with the majority sold to teenage boys.

The Curriculum

34. The Union, with other members of the Children’s Food Campaign, has called for cookery to be mandatory for all secondary pupils as an essential life skill and an important mechanism for helping pupils to make healthy choices about their diet. Despite a broad consensus in the consultation on the secondary curriculum that cookery should be compulsory, in the secondary curriculum proposals published on 12 July, schools can opt to teach textiles instead.

35.The Prime Minister has announced the aim that pupils should be undertaking five hours of physical exercise per week by 2010 with a £100 million package with a greater emphasis on competition within and between schools

6 Research on link between physical exercise and pupil attainment

36.Researchers from the Manchester Institute of Sport and Physical Activity have been tracking the progress of over 3,500 pupils at Wright Robinson sports college in Manchester. The school, where more than 50 per cent of pupils receive free school meals, has introduced rock climbing, canoeing, street dance and trampolining among other sports. It has also set up intervention teams to help pupils who take no exercise with exercise and nutrition advice.

37.As reported in the Times Educational Supplement of 15 June 2007, the early findings of a ten year study revealed that pupils who take regular exercise (defined as those who attended at least three extra curricular sports clubs a week) were up to eight times more likely to achieve good GCSE grades in some subjects with large variations in most subjects.

38.Lead researcher, Dr Gillian Burgess, said, “There are some massive differences in exam results. I am not saying it is solely down to those pupils being physically active, but it’s a contributing factor. Higher physical self-worth and self-esteem leads to higher confidence. This makes pupils more likely to succeed physically and academically.” The study found that the focus on team and competitive sports turned off large numbers. When pupils, particularly girls, were given a chance to do exercise, such as aerobics, trampolining and dance, they were more likely to participate.

Privatisation in Education Unit/jttn- 18.7.07

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