Academies may turn education into Wild West

Easter was always my favourite school holiday. We caused havoc at museums, parks and sporting events around our home town, tearing the place up as young boys do, thinking everywhere is like the Wild West.

They were exhilarating but exhausting days. And it was a relief to everyone when order was restored and “back to school day” came. But very soon, such trips could be no more. That’s because, as announced in the budget by George Osborne, the Government wants to turn every school in England into an academy.

This will mean by 2020 every school in the country will have to be on the way to removing itself from local authority control. It’s a dirty word: academy – particularly for the parents of Hove. And it’s all because of the divisions that they cause.

On the one hand it will give headteachers greater autonomy while encouraging investment from the private sector; on the other, it will mean the ending of the standardisation of things such as school holidays and the potential loss of local accountability.

Take this week for example.

My Twitter feed was full of contrasting views. There were links to reports about an academy trust in Birmingham which has been stripped of its schools due to financial issues. But these were countered with posts about another trust elsewhere receiving an outstanding Ofsted inspection.

Confused? Me too. As one senior council official told me: “Everyone is seeking an evidence-based policy – something that doesn’t exist.”

She has a point as statistics, lies and Huffington Post links (or something like that) can invariably be mashed together to prove anything you want. So which is the right way forward?

Well, in Sussex we’ve been pretty lucky in that most of the academies so far have worked very closely with the local authorities.

This means while school holidays and school places are still standardised, academies have shifted educational focus and helped finance a dramatic increase in the standard of facilities.

For instance, Falmer High and Portslade Community College were not giving young people the skills or exam results needed. Rebranded as academies under the leadership of the Aldridge Foundation, BACA and PACA both have shiny new blocks the city council could only have dreamed of funding.

Both schools will also have access to a sixth form dance centre while the youth clubs for Sussex County Cricket Club will be based at the new complex in Falmer. And both schools have shifted their focus on to a more entrepreneurial way of thinking.

The driving force has been millionaire businessman Sir Rod Aldridge, a local boy doneturned good who’s now giving kids like himself the opportunities he never had.

Sir Rod has also been very keen to work with those in the town hall to ensure the schools he has put money into become a part of the wider education set-up and not an added extra.

The same can be said for City College, which is now the guardian of Whitehawk Primary School, which serves some of the most deprived children in the city and was placed in special measures.

But the danger is that by freeing every school from local authority control is that education from four to 18 will become the Wild West.

It not only risks sparking the biggest land grab since the dissolution of the monasteries but also means a critical part of a person’s life, namely their education, will be carried out with little or no scrutiny.

For that reason, the city council wants to set up an academies' trust to oversee all schools in the city and ensure some order is maintained.

The danger is others will try to operate beyond the sheriff’s reach leading to good, bad and probably ugly consequences. If my childhood taught me anything it’s that the Wild West is good for a time. But when it comes to children’s education it’s probably best that there’s someone, somewhere who can have some form of control over it.

SO the amazing story of AFC Wimbledon is to be made into a film.

For those not aware, the club in south London disappeared overnight when the owners took the team to Milton Keynes.

Locals rallied and founded their own team, which worked their way up the divisions and are now in the Football League. It’s a story deemed fit for Hollywood.

I hope Spielberg and Co are keeping an eye on what’s happening at The Amex.

If Albion make it into the Premier League two decades after nearly going out of existence, surely that’ll make a pretty decent blockbuster too.