Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My top tip would be: do it! It’s a massively liberating experience. It gives schools much
greater autonomy and I think that is fundamental in terms of how we need to move school improvement
forward in the 21st century.
My top tip for anybody wanting to convert is to start and engage in a dialogue with
your staff as soon as you possibly can. Even before it’s possible for you to apply for
academy conversion, start a conversation. Bring it out in the open, engage in a debate,
alleviate the concerns and address the fears.
The top tip to the governors is really: have a focus, why are you becoming an academy?
Get that information right. Consult with everybody, but especially your staff. Take your staff
with you.
I think that tip of actually involving people at the earliest stage possible is important.
That way you have a number of staff who are quite confident in what this process is about
and you allay any fears that they may have.
All I can say, particularly for any school who has not sort this kind of autonomy before
– so they might not be old grant maintained schools or foundation schools, it’s been
very empowering, not just for me as a headteacher, but for governors, for parents and carers
alike. There are many that won’t notice any difference whatsoever, but those who really
want to play a part in the leadership of the school have the chance to do so through foundation
status and now hopefully through academy status as well. So it’s the empowerment of the
local community that has really intrigued us over the past few years.
Never stop talking about it. Talk to every single person who could or might be involved
in the process and keep on talking about the benefits, because you win over people very
very easily if they know what’s going on.
Well, my top tip I suppose would be absolutely ensure that the governors and the headteacher,
principal, the senior team speak with one voice. They both have to be absolutely determined
that this is the way forward, before they even go out to consultation.
The important thing to remember for anyone converting to academy, is the freedoms allows
you to impact on the quality of teaching and learning for the young people under your control.
I’ve now been an academy for 6 months and initially there were some fears and trepidation
but there is absolutely no way I would go back on it. It’s absolutely the right way
for my school to go.
I’d have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending to other schools to become an academy. If
you’re confident, you’re robust, you believe in yourselves, I think you’re the
right thing to do.