26 | MONE Y
ACADEMIES
Taking the government shilling?
Toby Sharpe reports on the growing trend for independent schools to change their status to state- funded academies, and case studies the successful transition of Colston’s Girls’ school in Bristol
D
ividing opinion among politicians, educators and parents alike, academies continue to play an important role in the shaping of the post-millennial education landscape. While viewed by critics as something
of a political marketing ploy, off ering a watered-down version of the independent education experience, supporters believe that academies represent an innovative response to an economic reality. Ron Glat er, emeritus professor of educational management and administration at the Open University, has commented in The Guardian that the term academy is a “highly misleading piece of school branding” and that it is “designed to give an impression of an institution that is both distinct from a ‘common’ school and also disciplined and academically focused, like the perception of the top English private schools.” From the same newspaper Geraldine Bell noted that: “They seem, so far, to be working... much bet er than most of the struggling inner-city schools they replaced.” Over the last three years, and with the help of the Free Schools Programme,
ABOVE & RIGHT: Colston's Girls' - one of the fi rst independents to take the Academy plunge BELOW: former Colston's Girls' headteacher Lesley Ann Jones
academy numbers have swelled from 203 in May 2010 to over 3000 for the year 2012/2013. Also on the rise is the number of independent schools that are converting to academies, largely out of necessity so as to remain aff ordable in tough economic times. Earlier this year, Liverpool College, one of the UK’s oldest and most traditional independent schools, dropped its fees and took on academy status, with funding being channelled directly from Whitehall. The school did this based on research showing that the number of parents able to aff ord yearly costs was relatively low, and that charging fees was therefore no longer a viable funding option. “Taking the government shilling”, as she puts it, is something that Janet e Wallis, senior editor of The Good Schools Guide, expects more and more independent schools to do in the future. Alongside the Government funding, each academy also has a sponsor, be this an individual or an organisation, which pays 10% of the capital costs in return for powers of infl uence when it comes to establishing the school in its new identity. “We cherish our history but look to the future”. So reads the mot o of Colston’s Girls’ School in Bristol, a long- standing independent secondary school that converted to academy status in 2008. Although a pioneer of the trend, Colston’s reasons for converting were not motivated by fi nancial stringencies.
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