‘Victory’For Hastings Academies
KENT BARKER
Eight Hastings schools and six others across Sussex are to be removed from control of the University of Brighton Academies Trust (UBAT).
In a brief statement on 20 January UBAT said “Trustees have informed the Department for Education of their desire to seek to transfer the academies in the Trust to other Academy Trusts.”
It follows revelations last year that UBAT was reserving an excessively high percentage of funding money – 20% in one case – for ‘central services’. It led to schools’ staff across the academy chain taking industrial dispute with some coming out on strike.
The local schools involved are: The Hastings Academy, and the St Leonards Academy, the West St Leonards, the Baird the Silverdale and the Churchwood Primary Academies as well as the Dudley Infant Academy and Robsack Wood nursery and primary.
Hastings MP Helena Dollimore said “It has been confirmed that UBAT will no longer run our local schools. This is a victory for the young people of Hastings and Rye, and a vindication of what pupils, parents and teachers have been campaigning for.” As HIP reported just before Christmas (Issue 267), Ms Dollimore lobbied the Education Minister, Bridget Phillipson, who agreed to ending the academies’ “current financial model and to collaborating with school leaders on future budget setting to ensure we can drive high and rising standards in every school, including in Hastings”. Thus it is a moot point as to whether the government stripped UBAT of its schools or whether the trust pulled out voluntarily before it was pushed.
The news was given a mixed reception by the National Union of Education (NEU) who said “Financial mismanagement, a lack of transparency and insufficient funding of frontline services have damaged UBAT schools.” But the union also believes that the whole academy model – introduced by Tony Blair in 2000 – is unsatisfactory.
As of last year there were 9,836 academies in England – 43.5% of all schools. Many were under the control of MATs – Multi Academy Trusts. A union spokesperson said: “The NEU are concerned that this is a deeper issue that affects all children in schools run by MATs. There are ‘UBATs’ out there that haven’t yet been exposed. The NEU wants all schools to return to local authority control (‘maintained status’), and for the government to properly fund local councils … We want all UBAT schools to be returned to local authority control and for the wider school community, including all unions, to be included in the discussions about the future direction of these schools.”
It would seem unlikely that Hastings’ UBAT schools will return to local authority control – nationally it is almost unprecedented. However a majority (110 out of 174) of East Sussex County Council’s schools are ‘maintained’ and the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said recently that she was “open to considering” whether struggling academies can return to local authority control and is reviewing the process for opening new schools. The Department for Education told HIP: “We will now work closely with the Trust, schools and local authorities involved to select the strongest alternative providers for each of the schools and to ensure a smooth transition.” but they declined to elaborate.
Meanwhile the government has published its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which would move the rules governing academies nearer to those for maintained schools including adherence to the national curriculum and a requirement for new teachers to either have or be working towards qualified teacher status.
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