Academy Schools In England Research Articles

Making sense of complex relationships in the workplace: principals in action

ABSTRACT This article presents findings of research focused on school improvement efforts in two secondary academy schools in England, examining how principals make sense of their role, their (inter)actions within their schools, and the complexities of their relationships with their rapidly changing environment. Sensemaking serves as a foundation for thinking about leadership and organisational change, providing a framework for understanding how disruptions of existing practice, uncertainty and ambiguity lead school principals to rethink and reorganise how they perceive their role within their organisational context. Based on semi-structured interviews and document analyses, this article identifies how problem-solving capacities, trusting relationships and professional collaboration with an array of stakeholders encourage adaptation of organisational activities and support openness to change. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on how school leaders think and act in their roles and on how the focus on relationships transform and interact with existing norms and values.

It's Not Over, Not Over, Not Over, Not Over Yet Resistance to Academisation from the Inside

Since 2002, the number of academy schools in England has increased – first gradually and then, since the 2010 Academies Act, rapidly. For some, a full academisation of the school system in England appears inevitable. In this paper, however, I explore how new teachers and senior leaders within academy primary schools quietly resist identifying as academy teachers, and in doing so resist the wider process of academisation. This resistance gives those who are opposed to academisation hope that another future is possible, one in which academisation is stalled and perhaps reversed.

Values-led governance and parental and community engagement in the Co-operative Academies Trust: An alternative in the neoliberal context of education?

This article examines the nature of governance in the Co-operative Academies Trust which comprises academy schools in England sponsored by the Co-operative Group. The historical and political context for the study is summarised, the research methodology is explained, and data are drawn upon from one case study academy. Structural, organisational and operational deviations of the Co-operative Academies Trust are outlined. The findings illustrate a values-led, branding message and strategic identity, and the placement of senior Co-operative Group employees in the Local Governing Body to ensure the strategic direction is focused upon co-operative values and community. Operationally, the engagement with stakeholders privileges a rational-goal approach, but signs of cultural shift are occurring concurrently with parent forum members demanding deliberation and voice in decision-making.

A qualitative study of health promotion in academy schools in England

BackgroundSchools are an important setting for health promotion. In England, around one third of publicly funded schools have become independent of local authorities since 2000 and are now academies, run by an academy trust. The aim of this research was to examine attitudes towards health promotion held by academy trust leaders and senior staff. The research questions were: 1. How do academy trusts in England perceive their role in health promotion amongst students? 2. How are decisions around health promotion made in academy trusts? 3. What factors inhibit and encourage health promotion in academy schools? 4. How might public health academics and practitioners best engage with academy schools to facilitate health promotion activity and research?MethodsQualitative study utilising semi-structured interviews. Twenty five academy and school leaders were purposively sampled to achieve variation in trust size and type. In addition, five respondents were recruited from public and third-sector agencies seeking to work with or influence academy trusts around health promotion. Framework analysis was used to determine emergent themes and identify relationships between themes and respondent type. Early findings were triangulated at a stakeholder event with 40 delegates from academia, local authority public health teams, and third sector organisations.ResultsThere is wide variation amongst senior academy and trust leaders in how they perceive the role of academies in promoting health and wellbeing amongst students. There is also variability in whether academy trusts responsible for more than one school adopt a centralised strategy to health promotion or allow individual schools autonomy. This was dependent on the trust leaders’ attitude and interest in health promotion rather than any perceived external accountability. Identified barriers to health promotion include financial constraints, a narrow focus on educational outcomes and school performance, and limited understanding about effective health interventions.ConclusionIn the current absence of national policy or guidance around health promotion in schools, health has variable status in academies in England. There is a need to better engage all academy trusts in health promotion and support them to implement a strategic approach to health promotion.

‘I think Irish schools need to keep doing what they’re doing’: Irish teachers’ views on school autonomy after working in English academies

Despite a lack of conclusive evidence connecting autonomous schools and academic success, school autonomy is regularly championed as being a way of not only improving schools but as a way of improving the quality of education in socially and economically deprived areas. This research builds on a recent paper published in Irish Educational Studies that argues that school autonomy should not be advanced in Ireland by exploring how teachers feel about features of autonomous schools. Irish teachers who have previously worked in academy schools in England, and who now teach in disadvantaged schools in Ireland, were interviewed about their experiences and how they would feel about features of autonomous schools being implemented in Ireland. The experiences the participants had in England indicate how school autonomy can be experienced in different ways – morally proper ways that engage with the broad purposes of schooling such as focusing on students and their learning, and morally improper ways that prioritise looking good on external measures at the expense of students and their learning. Overall, the participants were opposed to schools in Ireland becoming more like English academies but felt that having greater local flexibility over the curriculum in schools and offering a wider range of subjects would be beneficial, provided that it was embraced and enacted in a morally proper manner.

Autonomous Schools and Strategic Pupil Exclusion

This paper studies whether pupil performance gains achieved by autonomous schools - specifically academy schools in England - can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. In England there have been two phases of academy school introduction, the first in the 2000s being a school improvement programme for schools serving disadvantaged pupil populations, the second a mass academisation programme in the 2010s which by contrast enabled better performing schools to become academies. Overall, on average across both programmes, exclusion rates are higher in academy schools. When the two programmes are considered separately, the earlier programme featured a much higher increase in the incidence of permanent exclusion. However, a number of simulated counterfactual experiments based on the statistical estimates show that rather than being used as a strategic means of manipulation to boost measured school performance, the higher rate of exclusion is instead a feature of the rigorously enforced discipline procedures that the pre-2010 academies adopted.

Academies 2 – The New Batch: The Changing Nature of Academy Schools in England

AbstractThe English education system has undergone large‐scale restructuring through the introduction of academy schools. The most salient feature of these schools is that, despite remaining part of the state sector, they operate with more autonomy than the predecessors they replaced. Two distinct periods of academy school introduction have taken place, under the auspices of different governments. The first batch was initiated in the 2002–03 school year by the Labour government of the time, and was a school improvement programme directly aimed at turning around badly performing schools. The second batch involved a mass academisation process following the change of government in May 2010 and the Academies Act of that year, which resulted in increased heterogeneity of new academies. This paper compares the two batches of introduction with the aim of getting a better understanding of their similarities and differences, and their importance for education policy. To do so, we study what types of schools were more likely to change to academy status in the two programmes, and the impact of this change on the quality of new pupil enrolments into the new types of school. Whilst we do point out some similarities, these are the exception rather than the norm. For the most part, our analysis reveals a number of marked dissimilarities between the two programmes, in terms of both the characteristics of schools that became academies and the changes in pupil intakes that occurred post‐conversion.

Imitation is not always flattery! The consequences of academy schools in England for further education policy

This article explores the consequences of the introduction of academy schools in England for further education. It is argued that the uncertainty of the remit of academy schools has indirect consequences for further education and that the employability agenda of the sector is challenged by academy schools. This appears to be happening because of years of government neglect of the further education sector in England. The research participants in the article are critical of the employability skills of young people in general and there is criticism of further education as the sector is regarded as not having developed employability skills in young people effectively. The research is based on a funded evaluation of an employability programme introduced into two academy schools in the north-east of England. The article applies the work of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard by arguing that the academy schools are simulating the further education agenda. In simulation, a model of reality precedes what is real. The uncertainty surrounding the exact purpose of the academy schools appears to enable them to adopt agendas that have been traditionally associated with other sectors of education. This original argument forms the basis of the new knowledge in the article.

An analysis of the stakeholder model of public boards and the case of school governing bodies in England and Wales

This article analyses the stakeholder model of boards that is widely used in public and third sector institutions in England and Wales. The central tenet of this model is that such institutions should be strategically led by individuals who are representative of and from the groups that have an interest in them. The article focuses in particular on the operation of the stakeholder model of governing bodies of schools in England and Wales where a range of stakeholders including teachers, parents and the community are represented. The issues that arise from this stakeholder model of governing are analysed and the alternatives to it are considered. A significant alternative is the skills-based model, where boards are constituted on the basis of their expertise and not their interest in the institution. This skills-based model is becoming more prominent in the way governing bodies of academy schools in England are constituted and this is certainly the direction of travel outlined in the 2015 regulations. The article reviews the stakeholder model for the governance of schools at a time when there is much interest in the skills-based approach. The wider implications of shifting from a stakeholder to a skills-based model of public board membership are considered.

Academies, charter and free schools: do new school types deliver better outcomes?

SUMMARY School reforms featuring the introduction of new types of schools have occurred in the education systems of a number of countries. The most well-known of these new school types to be recently introduced are charter schools in the United States, free schools in Sweden and academy schools in England. We review the evidence on the impact of the introduction of these new schools on pupil outcomes and present new evidence for the case of England, whose introduction of academy schools has been one of the most radical changes in the school landscape of the recent past. The analysis of academies, charter and free schools concludes that, in certain settings, they can improve pupil performance.

Freedoms and Perils: Academy Schools in England

Can Dewey's Moral Principles in Education throw light on a contemporary policy issue in education, namely the privatisation of education through the establishment of academy schools in England? The article first considers what the policy entails, in terms of its conception of education as a market commodity. The next section suggests an alternative conception, drawing particularly on Deweyan claims for the fundamentally normative and relational nature of teaching, through his definition of democracy as ‘a form of associated living’ and the school as a place for such association. The third section relates the two conceptions of education and in their light considers tensions and conflicts in the academisation policy concerning inclusion, equity and social cohesion. The article concludes that the establishment of academy schools compromises these values and constitutes a danger to the commons, that is, to socially consensual and equitable ways of being together.

School reforms and pupil performance

The relationship between school reforms, specifically those involving the introduction of new school types, and pupil performance is studied. The particular context is the introduction of academy schools in England, but related evidence on Swedish free schools and US charter schools is also presented. The empirical evidence shows a positive causal impact of the conversion of disadvantaged schools to academies on end of school pupil performance and on the subsequent probability of degree completion at university. There is heterogeneity in this impact, such that more disadvantaged pupils and those attending London academies experience bigger performance improvements.

Ethos and vision realization in sponsored academy schools

This article investigates the realization of ethos and vision in the early stages of sponsored academy schools in England. It is a qualitative nested case study of ten academies. Nineteen key actors were interviewed, including principals and sponsor representatives. The nests were organized by sponsor type. Key themes are discussed within the context of the literature. There were common themes across all of the academies and some that were exclusive to individual cases. The conclusions drawn show that the leaders of these schools were initiating several actions simultaneously in order to develop their academies’ ethos and vision. The ethos and vision realization in sponsored academy schools is more complex than other examples in the literature owing to a greater number of actors and the urgency for change. In particular, the role of the sponsor is greater than much of the literature suggests.

Academy Schools in England

School choice has gained considerable popularity in recent decades as governments struggle to improve quality and reduce the cost of education by increasing competition among schools and decreasing...