Protests at the school gate, open letters, disputes at public meetings: it has been a tempestuous few months at Our Lady of Lourdes primary school, Wanstead, in east London. Last month the chair of governors, Greg Eglin, resigned after 30 years on the board. As he explained to the Ilford Recorder, he was stepping down “because I am opposed to academies”. Brentwood diocese plans to take Our Lady of Lourdes into a multi-academy trust (MAT). Eglin believes the academy model, in which schools are removed from the power of local authorities, is a mistake. “I think education should be the responsibility of the local democratically elected council,” he said.
Since 2010, when David Cameron and his education secretary Michael Gove threw their weight behind the academy system, the English education world has been divided. Freedom, autonomy, flexibility: that’s the idea. But sceptics say the reform just puts power into the hands of new, unaccountable managers, and point to examples of incompetence or worse in the running of academies. All this, they say, has delivered no improvement in the actual education of English schoolchildren.
In any case, the experiment is well underway. Just eight years after the government made academisation a priority, more than a third of state-funded schools have changed status; most secondary school pupils attend academies. Catholic schools have been slower, but are moving in the same direction: already more than 500 (a quarter of the total) have become academies.
Bishops and Church officials emphasise the practical side. The Diocese of Brentwood, among others, argues that it’s often easier to get funding as part of a multi-academy trust. The Blessed Edward Bamber MAT, in Blackpool, suggests that schools can “pool key skills, experience and resources” – and that, at a time when religious education is under attack, Catholic schools should stick together.
Not everyone sees it that way. The Diocese of Westminster planned to convert more than 200 schools into academies. But after 20 schools were reluctant to make such a change, the plans were held up. Since the academies would have been part of MATs, a relatively small amount of resistance can go a long way.
Opponents of academies are now urging Catholic teachers to join them. The National Education Union (NEU), which represents around 500,000 members, wrote to Catholic school teachers earlier this month encouraging them to work with NEU representatives against academisation. Becoming an academy is a “risky move”, the NEU claimed. The Government itself, they pointed out, is stepping back from its full-blooded support of academies: in May, education secretary Damian Hinds said they would not force schools to academies unless Ofsted rates them “inadequate”. Labour, meanwhile, has adopted a policy of reversing academisation.
The letter could, however, put teachers in an awkward position. Mark Lehain, founder of Parents and Teachers for Excellence, said the NEU had overlooked Catholic school teachers’ responsibilities. Since bishops make the decisions about academisation, Lehain told Schools Week, the NEU was “basically asking teachers to disobey their bishops and so put their jobs at risk”.
Andy Lewis, an assistant head teacher at St Bonaventure’s, East London, told the Catholic Herald: “The NEU seem to not fully understand how Catholic education works and the responsibilities of school leaders to their bishops.” Lewis says it’s “a shame” that the union have “decided to mount a blanket campaign against academies, with a particular focus on Catholic schools”. But he is “confident that leaders in Catholic schools will look at their situation and make the right decisions for their schools, while remembering the authority of the bishop in the diocese over his schools”.
Is he concerned about academies cutting wages and benefits such as maternity leave? “Many Catholic schools are already academies,” he replies, “and staff have not experienced the changes to pay and conditions or redundancies suggested by the NEU. A basic tenet of Catholic social teaching is the respect of the dignity of the human person, and in particular the worker. I’d expect all Catholic schools to be doing this.”
The effect of academisation on Catholic identity is debated. Independence from local authorities sounds promising. But as school chaplain Fr Matthew Pittam has written, maintained schools can find committed Catholics to serve as governors at a local school. But those same Catholics may be less enthusiastic about joining the board of a big multi-academy group. “The worry is that gaps may be filled with nominal or lapsed Catholics who are attached to the school,” Fr Pittam observes. “This would be a disaster for the flourishing of an authentic Catholic identity.”
Yet whatever the risks, academisation is likely to continue, and with it a set of dilemmas for teachers. They are caught between the shifting priorities of the government, the bishops, the academy trusts, and the education unions. The teachers who, in the midst of this, hand on the Catholic faith and the benefits of a good education are nothing short of heroic.
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