Report: Academies Not Panacea

In a report which will be regarded by many in education as predictable and embarrassing for ministers, the Sutton trust has found that no less than 72% of the £25M+ super schools do not pass muster for the governments own benchmark.

Further and also predictably, the BBC reports:

"It [the Sutton Trust] also suggested rises in achievement corresponded to falls in the proportion of pupils from deprived backgrounds."

No shit Sherlock!

Academies are a fucking shambles. They are a massive waste of money that let lunatics (if well meaning lunatics) like Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Foundation get a foothold into something that should not belong to them. While Vardy himself denies being a tub-thumping Creationist, there's absolutely no question that his enforcer, Nigel McQuoid is.

McQuoid famously allued to being decended from monkeys (i.e. that he didn't want children to think that they came from or are related to our primate cousins). Problem is, as is typical with relgious twits, he confused APES with monkeys.

Humans are apes, albeit a highly advanced ahd largely naked version, but apes nontheless. McQuoid doesn't like that idea - he prefers to think of himself as something special: creation of a loving god... etc. The man's an idiot and I wouldn't put him in charge of the family piss-up, let alone a school.

McQuoid/Vardy's King's Academy opened near me a few years ago and caused a storm. Poor kids dropped out (or were thrown out) and the rich kids got in. The percentage of pupils on free school meals (i.e. the less fortunate) dropped markedly and results went up.

BBBC reports:

Schools minister Jim Knight said: "It is important to note that the number of children on free school meals (FSM) in academies has actually risen compared to the under-performing schools they replaced.

Are you listening, Lord Adonis? What about you, Jim Knight?

Funny - that's the complete opposite of what the independent report says and the complete opposite of what I see on my drive home from work... there's plenty of very expensive metal driving out of King's Academy! The poor kids from "Hemo" are mostly going to the other schools further away.

Academies DON'T WORK! Open your eyes and give the poor a chance - all you've done with this failed experiment is prove what we all predicted: money does not make for a better education if you concentrate it all in one place.