[Closed] What was the advantage of academy schools again?

Nope, no numbers just experience of two schools and anecdotal evidence of a lot of teachers from different schools.

Entirely possible I've got the wrong end of the stick from the subset of "data" available to me.

Having said that, negotiable salary is deemed a good thing in almost every walk of life world wide, I'd be interested in understanding why it's wrong for teaching.

[i]negotiable salary is deemed a good thing in almost every walk of life world wide[/i]

Except in this case you seem to be saying that the negotiation will be only downwards to make staff cheaper, not upwards to reward excellence?

wwaswas, are you saying negotiable salary *is* an advantage, but my examples of why its good are flawed? Or are you saying negotiable salary is a disadvantage?

I think your justification of individually negotiable salaries being a good way of reducing wages for experienced, dedicated staff is a bad thing.

I also think for a national public services (like police, nurses, teachers etc) there is a big advantage for all concerned to have nationally negotiated wage settlements.

Interesting, so what percentage of newly recruited (non-management) teachers have more than (say) 15 years experience in your school as opposed to new recruits with less than 3 years?

None, the same as at 2 academies I worked in.

Interesting, I can understand why LA schools don't take on teachers with longish service, it's pretty openly complained about.

Why don't academy Schools take on older teachers?

I also think for a national public services (like police, nurses, teachers etc) there is a big advantage for all concerned to have nationally negotiated wage settlements.

Understood.

Interesting, I can understand why LA schools don't take on teachers with longish service, it's pretty openly complained about.
Why don't academy Schools take on older teachers?

Speaking as a science teacher its because 1 there arent any and 2 there arent any with a 3 significant point being therw arent any. This is what happens in the south of england anyway. We employ nqt's as they are the only people who apply. Most only last 2 or 3 years. Experienced teachers have either quit, moved to the private sector or been promoted.

One advantage of academies is they own and run the buildings so have a reason to make them energy efficient. LEA's run the buildings maintenance and upkeep but schools pay the energy bills which means who pays for insulation or more efficient lights etc?

Well councillors dont run the departments so no surprise there.
No idea what your point is

When MrsMC was researching academies she could not find a single teacher who could point to the benefits of being in one. It's all about handing over a big chunk of taxpayers' money to people who are not accountable to the electorate.

outofbreath - Member

Why don't academy Schools take on older teachers?

By your own earlier argument, because academies will want to pay them less than they are currently earning?

I was at a conference today with a lot of other school heads of department! The main discussion was the recruitment crisis! Almost every science department had open positions that simply could not be filled! Forget pay scales etc there are simply not enough staff for the jobs required and very few new teachers coming in to replace those who are leaving!

Academies are now so numerous the DfE can't cope with centralised monitoring of them all. So they are setting up more regional teams that will monitor academies in local areas...........you know almost like what LAs were in place to do, but these are better because ermmmmmm

For schools considering academy status at the moment (lots!) I think it's a case of jump before being pushed. Good schools can stay under LEA control, but they are only one OFSTED away from a "requires improvement" whereupon an "appointed" accedemy chain can be imposed on them.
I fully support schools being able to pay to attract (and retain) the best, and also to not allow coasting mediocre teachers to get high salaries based on length of time in role, but culturally I am not sure education works like this. Giving good head teachers and local COOP groups control over their area of schools is potentially a good thing, but the real driver for the changes is driven by a misguided Tory ideology.

I was at a conference today with a lot of other school heads of department! The main discussion was the recruitment crisis! Almost every science department had open positions that simply could not be filled! Forget pay scales etc there are simply not enough staff for the jobs required and very few new teachers coming in to replace those who are leaving!

Very few schools round here seem to have a physics teacher.

You seem to have got my point though, which was that local authority education departments are no more accountable to the electorate than academy trusts

Its obvious that when the education system is controlled and delivered by the agencies that elected individuals are responsible for that the electorate has more influence over them than they do with ones run by private charities who they never ever get to vote on. this influence may not be much but it still more than nothing

1. Academies don't have to comply with nutritional standards so they can supply cheaper, poorer quality meals to pupils.

This has happened at my 8 year olds school. In fact they are now so poor quality that he asked to take sandwiches to school for lunch. Then they have the cheek to police their sandwich boxes to make sure they are not eating junk food.

Also, they have lost so many good quality teachers since changing over to academy status, and they have got rid of all TAs even though they are clearly still needed in some classes

Not sure how to put this but most academy's in my part of the world appear "a little right wing Christian fundamentalist" search on Peter Vardy - creationist nutter funding schools