Two councillors have spoken of their disappointment as a primary school consults carries out a consultation on a proposal to become an academy.
Labour councillors Jacqui Simon and Jacob Allen, who represent Woodingdean on Brighton and Hove City Council, said that they were shocked by the news.
They spoke out after Woodingdean Primary School wrote to parents on Monday (9 June) to say that it was looking to join the Eko Trust which currently runs 10 schools.
In the letter, the school’s co-chairs of governors said that they had spent the past two years “considering their options”, including remaining a local authority maintained school or federating with another school.
In the consultation document, the governors said that joining the trust would give the school a better chance of achieving an “outstanding” Ofsted rating, improve teacher recruitment and retention and help with budgeting as per-pupil funding had not kept up with costs.
The consultation document said: “We have given the first two options a great deal of consideration, including receiving a presentation from the LA (local authority) setting out how they could support the school.
“However, we concluded that remaining as an LA school, whether standalone or federated, would not enable the school to effectively address the three key considerations.
The council proposed reducing the school’s published admission numbers (PAN) from 60 to 45 in 2022 and last year as the number of children living in Brighton and Hove continues to fall.
But after overwhelming local opposition, the council decided against reducing the school’s intake although, this year, on national offer day, the figure for this coming September was 35 pupils.
The school, in Warren Road, has been rated good by the education watchdog Ofsted since 2012, with an outstanding early years section. The whole school was rated outstanding in 2006.
Councillor Simon said: “It is particularly concerning that the school is not providing an opportunity for parents and carers to hear all the facts and are restricting meetings to a maximum of 10 people.
“This seems like a deliberate attempt to stop people from hearing all points of view. The academy system is wildly inefficient, promoting competition between schools rather than collaboration.
“We have two fantastic schools in Woodingdean and energies would be better spent sharing and developing expertise together rather than engaging in competition over enrolling the community’s children.”
Four consultation meetings are planned for next Thursday (19 June) and Friday (20 June), three at the school and one virtually.
The consultation document said that space was limited to just 10 parents and carers but said that further meetings could be organised to meet demand.
Councillor Allen said: “As a former pupil of Woodingdean Primary, I’m especially saddened that they would want to leave our amazing family of schools in the city.
“As a community, we value transparency and local accountability. Moving toward academy status risks undermining these principles and removes democratic oversight at a time when our focus should be on strengthening public education, not fragmenting it.
“I urge the school to fully involve parents, carers, staff and the wider community before taking any steps that could irreversibly alter its future at a time when the trust in question is not on a stable footing.”
The Eko Trust is planning to merge with another multi-academy trust, the Compass Partnership of Schools which runs 15 primary schools.
The Eko Trust has 10 schools, two special schools and eight primaries, including two in Brighton and Hove which joined last year, Hangleton and Benfield. All are rated good or outstanding.
The consultation is due to run until Friday 4 July. For more information about the Woodingdean proposal, click here.
They will be the first of many and well done to them for taking the brave step .
The local authority have been failing schools for years with inadequate financial support .
Hopefully once the tide turns and the majority of schools join trusts then some of the very highly paid individuals in the department will find themselves unemployed .
School funding is provided by the government based on a national formula and not decided on by the council. Academy schools don’t get any extra funding.
As to ‘ .. very highly paid individuals …’ perhaps look at the salaries of academy chief executives before commenting on council salaries.
Chris, you beat me to it. Ed’s misunderstanding is a perspective I suspect a lot of people hold. Without local oversight, if an academy is struggling or there’s an issue, the council won’t have much of a say in it any more. It’s the reverse of making democracy local; it’s pushing it back to London.
Benjamin, be assured that, if an academy trust is run well, it has an awful lot more oversight over its academies than Brighton and Hove council has over its schools. You will find numerous examples, including locally, where schools have only started to thrive once they left the Local Authority and joined an academy trust – schools that were previously written off by both the local community when they were under Local Authority control.
Whilst it is correct that school funding comes directly from the government, and academies do not get any extra funding, an academy trust has better opportunities for efficiencies than local authority maintained schools, thereby making that funding go further to do what it was meant for – a good education for our children.
Respectfully, this is debatable. Academy trusts are accountable only to the Department for Education, not the local electorate or council. Local councils, by contrast, are subject to public scrutiny, freedom of information laws, and democratic pressure. Trust boards are often self-selecting and opaque in comparison.
Some schools may improve post-academisation, but this is not a universal trend. Many studies, including those from the Sutton Trust and National Audit Office, show mixed outcomes, especially for primary schools. Gains, where they happen, often correlate more with leadership changes or targeted support than the academy model itself.
Efficiencies in this context often mean centralising services or cutting costs through non-unionised staffing, lower pay, and fewer support roles. This might stretch budgets, but not necessarily in ways that improve education or pupil support, particularly for SEND students.
However, it’s not definitive either way. Eko Trust appears reputable and locally embedded, with positive Ofsted evidence. I guess the debate here is less about Eko’s track record and more about whether academisation, and the shift from local to trust control, is preferable in principle.
“an academy trust has better opportunities for efficiencies than local authority maintained schools”…Well they say that they do, but when they are asked exactly what those better opportunities are they never provide an answer. Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that it is not the Local Authority who would be replaced by an Academy chain, the LA do not run schools – it is the local school governing body who are replaced.
Quite why they are surprised I don’t know. There is nothing in the pipeline coming from the national Labour government that seeks to properly address the funding crisis in schools, so until that happens then schools will continue to look at academisation as an option. Mock shock from the city’s councillors shows they are either trying to deflect from failings at a national level, or they have little understanding of the bigger picture and why schools go along this route, much to the dismay of our local communities.
While Labour has announced plans to improve school funding and support, critics argue that the measures may not yet go far enough to fully resolve the ongoing crisis in school budgets.
Hi Ed. The Local Authority do not run schools. Governing bodies do. The LA do however license deficits so that schools can maintain a reasonable level of service. Whatever “very highly paid individuals in the department” you are referring to will unlikely match the £1.8million that Eko pays just six members of their management!
How much rent is this trust going to pay for the premises? This is publicly owned property and a commercial rent on fully repairing lease should be forthcoming. The rent can go to extra support for LEA schools.
Local authority public land is leased to the academy trust on a 125 year lease for a
peppercorn rent. Please explain why you believe commercial rent should be forthcoming from a non-commercial, charitable, not-for-profit organisation. Your demand is not very well thought out.
Academy Trusts don’t pay commercial rent on school buildings – they’re granted 125-year leases at a peppercorn rent, which is standard across the country under Department for Education rules. While the lease is usually on a fully repairing basis, the local authority isn’t allowed to charge a market rent or use it to fund LEA schools. So, although your point about supporting maintained schools is understandable, the current legal framework doesn’t allow rent income from academy sites to be redirected in that way.
How much is the CEO of this “not for profit charity” getting plus all the other admin staff and costs? Creates a similar framework to one that already exists at the LEA. Just seems illogical to duplicate posts and better to rationalise into the already existing organisation. Remember it is still the taxpayer picking up the bill at the end of the day. Why should a private school under a different guise be given any special treatment. Your economic outlook not very well thought out.
Here, see for yourself Ann, Google is your friend. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10279605/filing-history
Hello Ann.
Eko Academy Trust pay their six senior members of staff a combined salary of over £1.8million from the budgets of just ten schools.
Hardly an answer to the crisis in school funding but nice work if you can get it!