The Academy, Selsey rated inadequate by Ofsted

Sad news for The Academy, Selsey in West Sussex. 'Inadequate' Ofsted rating March 2013. It opened on 1 September 2011 as a sponsor-led academy, as a part of The Kemnal Academies Trust. This is yet more evidence that academy status does NOT improve standards or benefit our children.


Read full report here.

There is no "academy effect"

Local Schools Network, 6th December 2012

There is no “academy effect” – Henry Stewart’s research upheld by academics

Labour’s academy programme has been praised by the present Government who claim that academy status raised school performance especially when academies were sponsored by chains. This alleged rise in results is used to justify academy conversion even to the extent of forcing schools to become academies if the Government judges them to be “failing”. But research into academies set up under Labour by academics from Leeds and Manchester Universities found:

1 Academies rely heavily on “equivalent” exams (ie non-GCSE exams which are given GCSE equivalence).

2 Disadvantaged pupils do no better in academies than in non-academy schools.

3 Academies are not improving faster than non-academies with similar characteristics.

4 Some of them were on an upward trend before becoming academies.

5 1 out of 7 of Labour academies falls below the “floor target”, the benchmark used by the Government to claim that a school is “failing” in terms of academic attainment. The comparative figure for all maintained secondary schools is 1 out of 34.

6 It’s a myth that most Labour academies replaced low achieving schools in disadvantaged areas. Around a third do not fit that description in terms of pupil composition, and about a half have intakes with a higher attainment level than in the predecessor school the year before closure.

7 On average, academy pupils are only half as likely to achieve the Government’s expected number of EBacc subjects (GCSE A*-C in English, Maths, two sciences, History or Geography, and a foreign language). In a quarter of academies not one pupil reached this standard.

8 Attainment data for academy chains is similar to academies in general.

9 Academies in chains make higher use of GCSE “equivalent” exams than other academies and much higher use than in other maintained secondary schools.

10 Disadvantaged pupils in academies sponsored by chains do better on the 5A*-C (including Maths and English, GCSEs only) measure than in other academies but below the national average for maintained, non-academy secondary schools.

11 Results vary considerably among academies run by chains so it is difficult to believe that such sponsorship helps increase performance.

There is no “academy effect”, the researchers found. Instead, they confirmed the findings of PriceWaterhouseCooper 2008 that raising school improvement was ‘a more complex and varied process of change’ (see faqs above).

The report concluded: “Overall, this research provides detailed evidence to reinforce findings contained in the recent National Audit Office report (2010) that there is no academy effect but considerable variability, and that disadvantaged young people generally do no better in academies than in other schools”.

Academy Myths

Academy Myths

Ten Academy Myths – True /False quiz*

1. “Academies’ GCSE results improved by nearly twice as much as in non academy schools in 2011” (DfE)
TRUE/FALSE
2. Academies that have been running for a long time get better GCSE results than non academies
TRUE/FALSE
3. Academies with high levels of disadvantaged students do better than similar non academies (The Telegraph)
TRUE/FALSE
4. Academies make their results appear better by getting students to take easier qualifications
TRUE/FALSE
5. Although individual academies have mixed results, the education chains (like Harris) perform strongly
TRUE/FALSE
6. Academies exclude twice as many students as other state secondary schools
TRUE/FALSE
7. Funding levels for academies are available for the general public to see
(David Cameron told Education Select Committee)
TRUE/FALSE
8. The accounts for education chains, like all other charities, are made publicly available by the Charities Comission
TRUE/FALSE
9. Mossbourne is an academy and performs exceptionally well.Therefore all academies will perform exceptionally well
TRUE/FALSE
10. “All those schools that have taken on academy freedoms are working with other schools to help them raise standards more broadly.” (Michael Gove)
TRUE/FALSE

All the information about academies that is used in this quiz was compiled from the Department for Education’s own data by Henry Stewart of the Local Schools Network. It relates only to secondary schools. Why? Because the government doesn’t even have any data for primary schools!

You can find more information and data, including graphs, in this section.

* Answers: 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 T * 5 F 6 T 7 F 8 F 9 F * 10 F
* Q 4 They use GCSE ‘equivalents’ to boost results. When the lesser qualifications are taken out of the picture, the academies do even less well than LA maintained (community) schools.
* Q 9 That’s a bit like saying ‘David Beckham is a man and he’s a world class footballer. Therefore all men will become world class footballers.’ ????

(Source)

Academy Facts

Academies: The Evidence of Underperformance

The massive release of data by the Department for Education (over 200 pieces of data on each of over 5,000 secondary schools) makes possible a thorough analysis of how well different types of school have performed. The evidence is clear and overwhelming: Academies have not been the success story that their supporters have claimed. Instead there is a clear record of under-performance.
Henry Stewart should be credited for the very thorough analysis of those data.


The overall figures have long been clear, for the key measure of % achieving 5 A-Cs at GCSE including English and Maths:


Academies: 47%
Non-academies: 60%


The data now includes a figure for the % achieving 5 A-Cs including English and Maths but without counting non-GCSE qualifications like Btecs. Here the difference is even more stark:


Academies: 34%
Non-academies: 54%


The gap is huge but this is an unfair comparison. We know that the raw % pass rate (though currently Ofsted’s favoured figure) is closely related to the ability of the students at entry. We know that schools in disadvantaged areas tend to achieve lower % for 5 A-Cs and we know that the early academies were more likely to be in disadvantaged areas. So does this explain the discrepancy?
The answer is a resounding no. To analyse this, I split the data into five comparison groups according to the % of students on free school meals. The first group, the most advantaged, is of schools where less than 10% are on FSM and so on up to the most disadvantaged where more than 40% are on FSM. Academies still perform worse than comparable non-academies.

% achieving 5 A-Cs at GCSE including English and Maths:

Figures with GCSEs + equivalents
Overall Academies: 47%
Non-academies: 60%
Related to % children on FSM




Figures with GCSEs only
Overall Academies: 34%
Non-academies: 54%
Related to % children on FSM




The message is clear. When academies are compared to comprehensives with the same level of disadvantage, their results are worse.
Another example: the % making expected progress in English and Maths:







Film to explain the data

(Source)