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Press Release

Statement on Conservative Party's Primary Academies scheme

27 April 2009

Commenting on plans by the Conservative Party for 'primary academies', Voice General Secretary Philip Parkin said: "This is a controversial and unrealistic idea. It fails to understand the nature of primary schools, how they are run and their economies of scale, and shows a lack of understanding of how Academies are managed.

"It would only be feasible for a 3-16 institution or an unfeasibly large super-sized primary to become an academy – not a normal-sized primary school.

"Many small primary schools, particularly in rural areas, need the support and back-up of local authorities so 'freeing them' in this way could be difficult.

"Academies are not a magic panacea to transform education. Becoming an Academy is not necessarily the answer to a school's problems. The ethos of a school is more important than its organisational status.

"The key to the success of a school is the quality of the leadership. Changing the way schools are organised and governed is not a guarantee of success or better education, and the mixed results from the Academies established so far supports this.

"Investment, leadership, management, ethos, positive relationships with local communities and support for social and family problems are the engines of improvement, not the status of a school.

"We believe that all families should have access to good quality local education and all schools should benefit from the sort of investment that is being made in Academies."

Notes

Voice's current policy on secondary Academies is that it gives members full support whatever type of establishment they work in. Voice is not opposed to the existence of established Academies or to the opening of new ones, but it believes that the consultation and other processes required to establish them must be followed correctly and rigorously.

www.voicetheunion.org.uk/academy



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Voice: the union for education professionals

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