14 Jan 2013

By Terry Wrigley

The Academies Commission was set up by the Pearson Group and the RSA. It was widely expected to be a whitewash. It was explicitly set up not to question the academies programme but to help them work better.

Surprisingly its report has revealed very serious problems of achievement, school admissions, school improvement, how sponsors are chosen, financial irregularities, and poor management. It condemns the casual attitude of the Coalition Government towards academies, which are clearly a law unto themselves.

Tags: Academies commission, Gove

9 Apr 2012

There is ample evidence that many of the 24 open free schools or those that are due to open later this year will have a negative impact on existing good or outstanding local schools.

Tags: Free Schools, Unions

1 Mar 2012

It is often forgotten that we have had primary academies, as part of all-through academies, since 2002, giving plenty of time to assess their performance.

Tags: Primary, Statistics

23 Feb 2012

While the local authority rate for permanent exclusions is .14% and all academies are double this at .3% some academies exclude far higher numbers. 8 academies exclude more than 1% of their pupils with All Saints Academy Dunstable excluding 3.24%

Tags: Exclusions, Statistics

6 Feb 2012

It seems that only 1 in 10 academies can genuinely claim to be achieving even quite good results for disadvantaged pupils.

Tags: GCSE, Statistics