What are Academies? How
do they differ from state schools?
Academies
can opt out of the national curriculum, although they are “required to provide
a broad and balanced curriculum to include English, maths and science”.
Academies have greater freedom in their admissions policies than state schools.
What are Free Schools?
How do they differ from Academies?
Free
schools are like Academies, but they are set up by local people and/or parents
with a common idea about what kind of school they want, for example, if they
want a local faith school in their area.
Are Academies worse or
better than state schools?
There are
many reasons to think the presence of Academies is bad both for the children
attending those Academies as well as for children still attending state
schools.
Exam
results for Academies are mixed, although judging a school by exam results is
flawed because how rich or poor the students attending that school are will effect the results, and exam results are often
not a good measurement of learning anyway (see last section for a fuller
explanation).
One
problem with academies is that they are set up by businesses, and other vested
interest groups. In some cases, these groups will have a lot of control of how
the school is run. They will often not have children’s best interests at heart.
Recently, it has been discovered that the majority of academies are selling
products in vending machines that have been banned from state schools because
they are so unhealthy. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg –
businesses cannot be trusted to put people before profit, or education before
profit. Even if Academies and Free Schools are not meant to overtly and
directly make a profit, we can expect that businesses will have a business interest
in becoming sponsors of academies.
However,
during the Leveson Enquiry, Michael Gove announced that he was open to the idea
that Free Schools could be run for profit in the future. This is not
surprising, and it will be not surprising if it is the same for Academies.
