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Parents, governors or teachers who think that turning St Bernard's Catholic Grammar School into an academy will benefit academically bright youngsters should perhaps think again. New research, published by think-tank Civitas on 14 December, raises fundamental questions about academies. Anastasia de Waal asked 118 academy principals for details of their schools' exam results. Only 40 responded and only 43% of these were willing to disclose the GCSE subjects and qualifications their pupils had been entered for. This strongly suggests youngsters are being entered for the vocational qualifications that are worth several GCSEs to make the academies' results look better. Why are academies not compelled to release details about their exam results or their costs? Why should academies be the only taxpayer-funded schools granted exemption from Freedom of Information requirements?
The summary of Civitas' findings are available HERE and the BBC has an item HERE. Anastasia de Waal has an article in the Guardian online HERE in which she says: The big question is what do these academies have to hide? If, as more than 80% of respondents believed, their academy is doing either very well or well, why would there be any reticence about releasing the details of their achievement? What matters to individual young people is not their school's position in the league tables. It is the individual qualifications they leave school with and whether employers or university admission tutors consider them worthwhile or not. As Anastasia de Waal points out, this is not a debate about whether 14-year-olds should be entered for German-style vocational training; it's a debate about whether students should be forfeiting core academic subjects for highly questionable, highly inflated qualifications. Within the last few weeks, Ofsted has reported that around half the new academies already in operation are failing to provide their pupils with a decent education. A quick glance at the DCSF's school performance tables for Kent highlights some of the problems. In 2008, only 14% of pupils at Folkestone Academy achieved 5 or more grade A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths. At Marlowe Academy, Ramsgate, it was 13% and at New Line Learning Academy, Maidstone it was 13%. The county average for Kent, which has many grammar schools, was 50% (about the national average). To discuss this article, join our mailing list. |
