IT was reassuring to read in an Echo article that Sir Richard Drax MP has reservations about the wisdom of forcing all schools to become academies – reservations shared, I believe by other local MPs.

I was deputy head at a large and very popular Dorset comprehensive school during the period when we (that is everyone, governors, parents, students and staff) achieved three Ofsted Outstanding grades and an earlier equivalent.

The school was described as unusually humane, relaxed and positive by successive inspectors, a number of whom started from the premise that we didn’t use targets or data in a sufficiently focused (we would say alienating) manner, only to find that the ethos of a school in which everyone mattered created success in its own way.

Despite being in a low funded LA and being one of the lowest funded schools, we never created a deficit or a redundancy.

Staff rarely chose to leave (unless it was necessary or related to competence – we were not complacent) and parents were overwhelmingly supportive.

The school continues to thrive, adapting to change but maintaining its ethos, exemplified in the Golden Rule. My description of the past applies equally to the present.

A simple question: what possible non ideological reason can there be to force schools like ours into a programme which has the potential to subvert its culture by encouraging excessive salaries for the leadership, depriving parents of a role and appointing trustees with powers that should be wielded by an accountable body. One size does not fit all.

The rush to academies feels like the Lansley reforms of the NHS and few would regard those as a success.

It is an attempt to introduce privatisation for ideological reasons not based on secure evidence.

Good schools depend on good leaders and committed staff – alienating staff, as this will, is a recipe for disaster; not for politicians but for students and families.

It seems as if this is an attempt to imitate the public schools so many Conservative politicians attended.

This is a failure of imagination to say the least; that is unless schools are funded to provide classes of 15, and funding per pupil is hugely increased – not to mention the sports facilities etc.

It also seems curious and an indication of the sloppy thinking inherent in current education policy that parents are trusted to set up Free Schools but not to sit on governing bodies!

This policy is a disaster waiting to happen.

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