Brighton and Hove City Council is urging two Hove schools to rethink plans to join an academy trust.
The council is calling on governors at West Hove Infant School and Hove Junior School to reconsider a proposal to become part of the Aurora Academies Trust.
The council said: “The schools are currently consulting on whether to join the trust which would be an irreversible decision and move them out of local authority control.
“Parents, carers and staff are being asked to comment on the proposals which will lead to changes in some of the services families can access and the support systems for both schools.
“The council believes joining the trust at this time is the wrong decision and we’re writing to parents and carers of children at the school setting out the reasons.
“The council’s view is that academisation will lead to greater fragmentation of the education system in the city and remove accountability from local communities and parents.
“Unlike many other areas in the country, the majority of schools in Brighton and Hove have remained proudly ‘local authority maintained’, working in partnership with each other and the council in order to best support all children and young people within the city.
“The council’s view is that joining a trust does not improve local partnerships, nor does it necessarily enable more vulnerable pupils to access the support they require.
“For example, the council’s Ethnic Minority Achievement Service provides vital support to children who have English as a second language and this support would potentially be lost if the schools choose to academise.
“The schools are currently engaged in a four-week consultation.
“Councillors are urging the schools to reconsider this process at the very least to ensure the local community understand the risks and challenges and spend more time understanding what will be lost by joining an academy trust.”
The Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor said: “We urge the governors to pause this consultation and work with us to ensure all stakeholders have the information they need to make an informed decision.
“This is a decision that will impact on the future education of thousands of city children and should not be made lightly or without considering all the facts. The council opposes this proposal.
“We are seeing an unprecedented reduction in the number of primary-aged children within the city. Joining a trust does not create more children – and fewer children means schools have fewer funds available.”
Councillor Taylor added: “We are keen to work with school leaders and learn from what has been a challenging situation for many schools in the city over the past few years.
“Years of underfunding from national government has not only affected schools, it’s affected local authorities too and has contributed to the difficult climate.
“We want to make sure we work together to do all we can to safeguard the future of the city’s schools.
“We are therefore very much of the view that now is not the moment to continue the drift towards academisation.”
To read our story about the proposal and the consultation, click here.
So let the council tax payer keep paying…!
As they did for your education and the vast majority of residents
You’d pay regardless of the transition or not.
Who funds them if they are out of the council’s control then ? and does it stop the council dictating the curriculum ?
The funding changes from local authority to the Department of Education. You’d still pay your contribution towards it through your NI.
The funding for all schools comes from the Dept of Education but they get local councils to manage individual schools budgets.
So the council would still get the funding for the schools that remain under council control (which is earmarked for each school and can’t be spent in anything else).
If the schools become academies, the curriculum is largely dictated by the academy trust that runs them. Academies have the freedom to deviate from the National Curriculum, allowing them to tailor their offerings to the trust’s ethos or specialisms. However, they are still required to teach core subjects like English, maths, and science and to meet national standards, including preparing pupils for standardised tests and inspections. This autonomy raises concerns about consistency and local accountability in education.
Perhaps this is what is wanted – freedom from local council interference on the curriculum – remember the now discredited “critical race theory” that the greens spent so long trying to hide. And spent a fortune on – probably from the ringfenced schools budget.
City Academy Whitehawk’s (An Aurora academy) Ofstead grading in may 2024 is good and mostly outstanding:
The quality of education: Good
Behavior and attitudes: Outstanding
Personal development: Outstanding
Leadership and management: Outstanding
Early years provision: Outstanding
So Aurora have a good track record of delivering good and better education. Hard to see what the problem is.
Unfortunately the council are reaping what they have sown here. Poor performance and a very obvious lack of transparency with their sham ‘consultations’ leads to a loss of confidence. They will very much dislike the loss of control.
I think your observation is pretty estute here. The clear negative perception around the council’s management of the school situation will encourage academisation.
I wonder if there has been consideration to what it means to lose local control? Academies can effectively ignore all the work to level the playing field, like those done by Class Divide, instead choosing to focus on one school to be better than all the others.
And it will make it harder for the council to manage the excess school places situation.
IIRC from earlier B&H News articles academies are outside of the PAN system so there will be a smaller number of schools left in the system and it will likely require closures of entire schools rather than just reducing their intakes.
I never paid much attention to these debates until my children attended an school run by one of the big MATs. It was far worse than we had imagined was possible within the law. Please protect your schools while you still can.