All-Party fight against academy schools

SENIOR councillors from all three main parties and union leaders at Warrington have joined forces to oppose any plans for academy schools – which they say would threaten existing educational establishments.
In a joint statement, the group say that opening the Academies Programme to all could disadvantage maintained schools and create a two-tier system.
There is no appetite for academy schools at Warrington, they add.
The statement says: “The provision of education within Warrington is carefully balanced and would be disrupted by conversion to academy status and in particular by the setting up of a brand new academy.”
Council leader Ian Marks (Lib Dem), his deputy Keith Bland (Cons) and Labour group leader Terry O’Neill have all signed the statement.
They are joined by union leaders Pam Howard, joint branch secretary, Warrington LG UNISON, Beth Purnell, divisonal secretary, Warrington NUT, Gerry Connor, negotiating secretary, Warrington NASUWT, Bob Pinnock, branch secretary, Warrington GMB and Stephen Waldron, local secretary, Warrington ATL.
The group refer to a Ministerial communication from May last year saying the Academies Programme would be open to all.
The statement says: “It is the responsibility of the school to manage the conversion to academy status but there would be a significant amount of work within the council to assist such a process. No additional resources would be available to support this increased work-load.”
A University of Chester decision not to proceed with plans for an academy school at Warrington was welcomed by the group..
But they add: “We are also concerned that if one or more of our high schools converted, then this would lead to a two-tier funding arrangement which would disadvantage maintained schools.
“A number of central services are currently offered to maintained schools. The removal of funding for delivering these services to academies would put our ability to maintain services to the remaining schools at risk.”
The group says it is proud of the “positive relationship” the council has with Warrington schools which have high standards, with the number of good and outstanding schools above the national average. They point out that Warrington is among the highest performing local authorities in the country for education.
Under-performing schools are also challenged, they say.
“One of the reasons for this is the close collaboration between the local authority and schools and also between schools. This includes sharing data, approaches to the curriculum, resources and in some cases staff. We will be concerned if this collaborative approach was weakened, as it might be, if some schools converted to academies.
“Such challenge would no longer be available from the local council, based on its knowledge of the school and its local context as this would become the responsibility of civil servants,” they conclude.