You may recall my blog following the last budget where the chancellor announced the mass academisation of schools. Well it’s all changed, for now anyway. Nicky Morgan has announced that the Government after “listening”, are not now going to insist all schools become Academies.

You may recall my blog following the last budget where the chancellor announced the mass academisation of schools. Well it’s all changed, for now anyway. Nicky Morgan has announced that the Government after “listening”, are not now going to insist all schools become Academies.

Could it possibly be that as the referendum approaches, the Government don’t want to appear to be pushing something that is unpopular and might result in industrial action? Well it seems that the NAHT and LGA were quick to criticise the original plan with the LGA quoting that 81% of council maintained schools are rated as “good” or “Outstanding” whereas this figure is less in academies (73%). So it’s a case of looking at the figures, what works best? Who knows where this might lead now.

At the moment the plan is that the Government will push schools into academisation where a local authority can’t realistically argue that retention as a maintained school is viable because too many schools in the Authority have already converted. This will also be the case where an LEA fails consistently to meet performance targets.

Who will decide in practical terms which schools should have academisation forced on them will no doubt be clarified..at some point.