Are Academies the way forward to educate our children or do they create a recipe for anarchy as the local authorities have no control over their ability to meet their legal obligations to provide school places? If it is the right way forward should it be imposed by stealth or should their be transparency?
The Free School movement is a great opportunity to bring back to life redundant buildings. It is a shame that Hackney's former police station was not successful in meeting this dream. At Pick Everard, a Grade II Listed former fire station in Norwich was successfully converted into a Sixth Form Free School in less than a year - Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form for the Inspirational Trust.
What is the future for our Schools?
The government is quietly pressing on with plans to force all English state schools into academy status by 2022, using its regional schools commissioners as behind-the-scenes arms-twisters, Education Guardian can reveal. Ministers seemed to have placated restive Tory backbenchers at the time of the Queen’s speech last month by backing down on proposals for blanket conversions of all schools. Some even thought it was a U-turn. However, they still say they want England’s system to be all-academy in six years. And the powerful but shadowy RSCs seem intent on enforcing this vision, though away from parliamentary scrutiny. A former police station in Hackney, east London, bought for £7.6m, has been rejected by the council as a school site.
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