EVERY council-run school in East Lancashire is set to be forced to become an academy under new government plans.

Legislation will be announced that will remove every mainstream primary and secondary school in England from council control.

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It will mean that every school in the region that’s not already an academy, private school or a free school will convert if the law change is passed by the House of Commons.

The news has been met with criticism from East Lancashire head teachers and teaching unions in the region.

Ian Adlington, head teacher at Marsden Heights Community College in Nelson, said: “I’m all in favour of collaboration but any long-term partnership should be looked at carefully.

“This will lead to schools scrabbling around to find academy partners and will leave my role more difficult and more ambiguous.

“I’m not totally against academies but it’s not something that we were looking at for Marsden Heights at this time.

“We need to be as flexible as possible to meet the needs of our community and I fear that that will be taken away.”

Draft legislation, to be published within days, will begin the process of implementing a pledge made by David Cameron in his conference speech last autumn.

The proposals would end the century-old role of councils as providers of education.

Pleckgate High School in Blackburn is the most recent school in East Lancashire that has converted to academy status.

Ivan Catlow, head teacher at St Cecilia’s RC High School in Longridge, said: “I’m shocked that the government is pushing an agenda that has not proved to be a success nationally.

“It’s not a positive move for schools and not the way that I think we can improve education in this country.”

Simon Jones, who represents the National Union of Teachers in East Lancashire, said: “Finally the government has come clean on its education priorities and admitted that its real agenda all along has been that every school must become an academy.

“The fig leaf of ‘parental choice’, ‘school autonomy’ and ‘raising standards’ has finally been dropped and the government’s real agenda has been laid bare – all schools to be removed from the support of their local authority and schools instead to be run by remote academy trusts, unaccountable to parents, staff or local communities.

“Parents will be as outraged as teachers that the government can undo over 50 years of comprehensive public education at a stroke.

“The government’s ultimate agenda is privatisation of education with schools run for profit.”