Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (How parents and teachers are frozen out of our schools, 30 July) has all the features of the tragedy of a school I used to know very well. Set in a 1960s housing estate, the children were loved but not cultured towards Sats and targets. Though the children achieved remarkable quality when their interest was engaged, the school was always going to struggle in this climate so, in a nasty vilification all over the local press, it was a sitting duck to the academy gang and it became one of a chain. We were told before she arrived that the headteacher had experience of failing schools and was confident of “turning it round”. She lasted a few weeks and we are now into our third headteacher.
But she is merely the head. There is an administrator who has responsibility for all six schools in the consortium and the school has a bursar as well. All these, and there may be more, are on a secret salary which combined will be far more than the local authority pays. And then there are the add-ons like cleaning and materials, ground maintenance, security etc, all out to contract.
In the meantime, and this is the cruellest bit, the children are screwed to the curriculum, hour after hour of grinding grammar and abstract maths formulae so that they can spout the required data in the tests. The people who do this to children will do anything for money.
Geoffrey Marshall
Pembury, Kent
• Aditya Chakrabortty’s disturbing piece about parents being powerless against faceless corporate academisation leaves out mention of the architect of this situation – Michael Gove. It is high time this man was called to account, perhaps by the education select committee, to explain his actions while education secretary from 2010 to 2014. With his ideologically driven, evidence-free mindset, he is directly responsible for the chaotic, fragmented and damaging educational landscape that now exists. The voices of parents are nowhere to be heard. Or pupils. Or teachers (the professionals). Or the endless, peer-reviewed research, which overwhelmingly does not support his projects.
Academisation must be halted, Ofsted must be reined in (or, preferably, replaced by a constructive, helpful, professional and collaborative peer-appraisal approach), but most of all, the voices of parents and children, who deserve much better than this, must be heard.
Max Fishel (retired assistant headteacher/advisory team leader)
Bromley, Greater London
• As one of our children explained when asked why she was campaigning to defend her school, “We are taught at school that if something is wrong you should say so.”
Aditya Chakrabortty’s article shows that the stated wish of this government for all schools to become academies may have been withdrawn but continues to impact on our children’s schools.
There are a growing number of cases where Ofsted declares a school “inadequate” yet parents, pupils and staff don’t recognise the picture painted by the inspectors.
Of course education provision is being affected by funding reduction and we, the stakeholders, are crying out for investment and improvement. But a change of management structure – being handed over to an unaccountable multi-academy trust which is registered as a private company – is no solution. In fact it leads to the damage and disasters that are being reported almost daily in the press.
It’s worth noting that schools that fail as academies are not allowed to be returned to their local authority.
We call for an end to schools being forcibly removed from local authorities and handed over to unaccountable companies, and instead to provide support so our schools can improve where necessary and remain answerable to the parents, pupils and communities they are intended to serve.
Anneli Harrison, Philippa Tshuku, Salema Khatun, Sayesta Miah, Jenny Huggett, Kirstie Paton, Ian Branagan, Soyeb Patel, Shamsun Nessa, Maggie Buckley, Kes Grant, Colin Fancy, Shebbida Ali Smeera Lauder Parents of children at John Roan School, Greenwich, Avenue School, Newham, and Highlands School, Redbridge
• Aditya Chakrabortty’s article shows how rotten the academisation process is and how Ofsted has become a tool of government policy.
The largest education workers union, the National Education Union, has not as yet led a much-needed national campaign on the issue, but it has supported local union branches and schools taking action. In Newham last year over 34 schools were on the borough list “in process” or “considering” academisation. School groups were galvanised into action and, after simultaneous strikes at three schools and convincing indicative strike ballots at others, many have been kept in the maintained sector. And last month a newly elected Newham council issued an education policy report opposed to academisation.
Union groups could not have achieved this without parents. In every success there have been parent groups committed to stopping their schools being taken over by unaccountable trusts with murky interests far removed from children’s education.
The combination of unionised staff and parents has been inspiring. Both groups remain active, ready to support schools and help keep them with the council.
Miriam Scharf
Branch officer, Newham NEU (NUT section)
• Aditya Chakrabortty makes a powerful case about the defects of the academy system but he falls into the common error of contrasting academy schools with schools under “local authority control”.
It’s a very long time since councils controlled schools and their role is now exiguous, to the extent that they are unable to build them.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
• There is a profound crisis in education and Aditya Chakraborrty’s article strikes at the heart of this.
The current system of neoliberal education has failed. Academisation is mired in corruption, cronyism and outright failure. The exam-factory system is failing our children and the recruitment and retention of teachers and other school staff is reaching crisis point.
Academisation has created fragmented provision, reduced accountability and democratic control, and the proliferation of obscene CEO salaries at a time when school budgets are being mercilessly squeezed.
We need a huge public debate about the future of education including aims, funding, structures and standards. Above all, we need a pedagogy and curriculum fit for a diverse 21st century, an educational service that is comprehensive, inclusive, democratic, progressive and fully funded.
The parents at Waltham Cross (and in many other areas around the country campaigning to keep their children’s schools part of the local family of schools) are a shining example to us all. As an organisation, we will continue to support them and everyone who campaigns against this failed experiment on our children.
We face an entrenched educational ruling class who have power and control over vast swathes of the education system. No one should be under any illusions that it will take a huge social movement of staff, parents and communities to shift them. But shift them we will.
Simon O’Hara
Anti Academies Alliance
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