Council appeals to schools to ditch academy plans

Brinsworth Comprehensive and Wales High—both rated outstanding—will shift outside local authority control in October.

The head teachers of both schools claim that the breakaway will hand them better control over their finances and curriculum and is in their pupils’ interests.

But the council’s strategic director for Children’s services, Joyce Thacker, and Cabinet member Cllr Paul Lakin, wrote to all heads and governors about the Government’s Academies Bill to express their disapproval.

They said: “We are disappointed that Wales and Brinsworth have acted so soon without any consultation with their wider learning community before they made their decision to convert.

“We do not recognise ‘freedom from local authority control’ as freedom in the Rotherham context.

“All schools and partners have signed up with the local authority to several key principles within Transforming Rotherham Learning, our strategy for change for the future.

“If all schools were to become academies, it could significantly damage this vision and practice, at the very least making it very difficult to influence and persuade independent and powerful academies.”

The borough council sent out another version of the letter to heads and governors a week later, from which direct criticism of Wales and Brinsworth's consultation process and decision to convert had been removed.

Brinsworth head teacher Richard Fone denied that the appeal of becoming an academy was breaking free of the borough council.

“We will have greater freedoms as an academy,” he added. “It’s not as if we’re trying to escape the clutches of a malevolent local authority.”

Academies will be able to set their own school days and terms, and the best will not need regular Ofsted inspections. Budgets will come directly from the Government’s Young People’s Learning Agency.

Brinsworth will begin a full curriculum review in September, but Mr Fone said visible changes for students would take time.

Wales High School head teacher John Day emphasised how importantly his school was taking consultation.

He added: “Underpinning any aspect of conversion to academy status is the sincere and deep indication to embrace all that’s good about the principles of Transforming Rotherham Learning.

“We are determined that there will only be advantages for this community from having three outstanding schools in Rotherham, as many local authorities do not have any achieving at that level.”

St Bernard’s has also registered an interest in becoming an academy, but the process would take longer because its Ofsted rating is not as high.

Despite criticism of others aspiring to academy status, the borough council continues to back Maltby Academy—converted in January so that Rotherham could access the ill-fated Building Schools for the Future goldmine.

Ms Thacker and Cllr Lakin said the difference was that the council was co-sponsor of Maltby, whereas new, outstanding-rated academies would have true independence.