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12 April 2026

Tag: academisation

The Education Excellence Everywhere White Paper: Everything you need to know

Nicky Morgan today revealed her white paper for education to drive “Education Excellence Everywhere”. Here is everything you need to know:   Recruitment Looks like we have some sort of recognition about the teacher recruitment problems. The paper says recruiting is becoming more difficult and the government “recognise the challenge is increasing” 1. The National […]

Academy conversion is an unnecessary distraction – here’s how to survive it

Schools must become academies by 2022. Prolific education tweeter (@SchoolDuggery), and governor, Rachel Gooch advises what to do.   Budget Day for the Chancellor coincided with budget day for the large secondary school where I am a governor. Like Osborne, the financial outlook was rather worse than we had expected a year ago. Unlike the […]

What Is An Academy? (And other questions about converting schools)

The government has announced it wants all schools to become academies by 2022. But what are they? Editor Laura McInerney looks at questions about the policy, and tries to answer them straightforwardly.   1.  Aren’t academies run by private companies? Is this just privatisation of schools? Not quite. We have to be careful with language […]

So you want to join an academy trust? Make sure you ask these 7 questions first

Many schools will be thinking about joining a trust or federation. This is probably a sensible response to rising costs, falling budgets, diminishing services and ever-more demanding accountability. But groups of schools come in all shapes and sizes. We have to look behind the label and discover what is really going on. These sorts of […]

Year in review: A school business manager’s perspective on 2015

The pace of change has made it a tough year for schools, academies and their business managers. But it is also the year that school business management came of age Policy changes in the wake of the general election, cost pressures from increased national insurance and pension costs, and the fragmented landscape of academy, maintained, multi-academy […]

Changes in the Financial Handbook for Academies

The focus this year is on transparency, with the 2015 handbook seeking to bring in new rules to ensure academies spend public money wisely and fairly The annual Financial Handbook for Academies is rapidly becoming a rule book for the industry – and the 2015 edition contains several stand-out changes that need careful consideration. Here […]

Questions for new CEOs

Becoming chief executive of a multi-academy trust (MAT) or federation is an exciting step forward for many headteachers and gives the profession new bands of leadership to aim towards. But the change in role from head or executive head to chief executive should not be underestimated; neither should the move from a single school to […]

Nicky Morgan: Academies are a ‘better kind’ of school than local authority ones

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, education secretary Nicky Morgan agreed that academies are a ‘better kind’ of school than those overseen by local authorities. Ms Morgan appeared on the show to reval planned government powers for firing headteachers and forcing ‘coasting’ schools – described as those with poor levels of progress – […]