East Lancashire schools want more details on academy scheme (From Lancashire Telegraph)

East Lancashire schools want more details on academy scheme

5:09pm Wednesday 1st September 2010 in

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HEADTEACHERS are calling for more answers from the Government before applying to become academies.

The Department for Education today revealed the first wave of 32 to open this month – and none are in East Lancashire.

Clitheroe Royal Grammar School is the only school in the area to apply to become an academy, but no date has been announced for its conversion.

The coalition government’s new breed of academies will move outside of local authority control, and have the freedom to teach their own curriculum, and to set teachers’ pay and conditions.

Little other detail has been released. Nationally, 2,000 schools were initially interested in the move, but only 150 made a formal application.

East Lancashire school bosses said civil servants had been unable to answer a number of their detailed questions.

And some headteachers said many aspects of the school structure already had the advantages of the proposed academy scheme.

Headteacher Stephen Cox, from Bowland High School, revealed the outstanding school’s application to become an academy was on hold.

He said: “There are a lot of questions around teaching and funding issues, particularly to do with additional money, and where it comes from.

“The Department for Education and the local authority seem contradictory.

"The Department for Education has said we would receive this amount, and the local authority is saying it would be nowhere near that.

“There is no information about the nitty-gritty of academies and those who are becoming academies are taking a big gamble.

“They are a knee-jerk reaction to stamp their mark on education and it has been rushed for political motivation.”

Stewart Plowes, head of Turton and Edgworth CE/Methodist Primary School, added: “We registered an interest to try to find out more.

"The details were a bit thin. We have a lot of freedoms with the local authority.

"I don’t want only good schools to be academies. I don’t see it as a progression.

"There are some great schools out there.”