Academisation angst over the break
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference that took place last week made many national headlines, most of them regarding academies. Below is a round-up of the key news from the conference and more.
- ATL members unanimously voted to consider “industrial action” in response to recently announced academisation plans. The motion rejects the government’s proposals and calls for the union to consider action. A DfE spokesperson said: “It is disappointing for any union to consider industrial action rather than working constructively with us. Strikes hold back children’s education, disrupt parents’ lives and ultimately damage the reputation of the profession.” Read more about it here.
- ATL members backed plans to create a new “super union” between their union and the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Discussions were already underway, but needed approval by members of both groups. If formed, the new union would have around 500,000 members altogether. More on that here.
- Mary Bousted, General Secretary of ATL, also condemned the government for an “insane” national curriculum and “test mania”, suggesting these are among the reasons why teachers leave the profession, and that it also takes a toll on children’s health. Words such as “nonsense”, “farce”, “alienating”, “disempowering” and “ministers living in a parallel universe” were also heard, and you can read excerpts of her speech here.
- Schools Minister Nick Gibb spoke at the ATL conference too, broaching big topics such as teacher recruitment (maintains it is not a crisis, but a “challenge”), workload, academisation and more. Mr Gibb defended government plans of universal conversion, leading to him being heckled by a disapproving audience. More on that and Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell’s speech here.
And in other academy news…
Education data company School Dash published a report comparing academy and LA maintained schools. The company says that while academy conversion “seems to have very little impact on the academic performance of successful secondary schools, it does seem to be an effective way to improve the performance of struggling ones.” And in light of this, BBC Education Correspondent Sean Coughlan wonders “Do academies get better results?“.
In an attempt to dispel any uncertainties around academisation, the DfE published a myth-busting paper yesterday about the academies programme. You can read “10 facts you need to know about academies” here.
If we had a penny for every time we wrote ‘academisation’…