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It looks like the school I work at is going to go for academy status
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_(English_school)
Which is odd because the original idea of academies was to help poorly performing schools, and we're one of the best by most criteria. The trouble is that the system now seems to be set up so that the last schools that stay with the local authorities will be at a big disadvantage - but I think there will be a lot of hidden costs for academies down the line. For example, we will need to buy in a lot of safety advice services that were formerly paid for by the local authority, costing a few hundred pounds a year. Since I plan to retire in 2013 it probably won't be too big a problem for me, but it'll be interesting to see what happens. One thing I need to be very vigilant about is my pension etc., at this stage I REALLY don't want to change that, the new schemes are nowhere near as good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_(English_school)
Which is odd because the original idea of academies was to help poorly performing schools, and we're one of the best by most criteria. The trouble is that the system now seems to be set up so that the last schools that stay with the local authorities will be at a big disadvantage - but I think there will be a lot of hidden costs for academies down the line. For example, we will need to buy in a lot of safety advice services that were formerly paid for by the local authority, costing a few hundred pounds a year. Since I plan to retire in 2013 it probably won't be too big a problem for me, but it'll be interesting to see what happens. One thing I need to be very vigilant about is my pension etc., at this stage I REALLY don't want to change that, the new schemes are nowhere near as good.
