Brighton and Hove City Council plans to set up its own academy trust for schools in response to a government announcement today (Monday 23 February).
The Department for Education published a “white paper” or policy proposal which would require all schools to be part of an academy trust.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, said: “There’s a lot in the white paper, which the whole sector will be reviewing as quickly as possible.
“But I wanted to give an early commitment to the city: if the government proceeds with the plan to have all schools join an academy trust, we will set up our own local authority trust.”
“Brighton and Hove has one of the strongest local authority maintained school sectors in the country – and we have bucked the trend towards academisation.
“We believe deeply in a city family of schools – and we are confident that there would be strong support for the local authority to maintain that via our own trust.
“I will be writing to head teachers and governing bodies this week to set out our initial position. We welcome their partnership in reviewing the white paper and shaping our response as a city.
“But the message is clear: there is no need to rush off and join existing trusts – there is a better option available which is that we can create one together as a city.”
At the moment, Coombe Road Primary School is considering joining a multi-academy trust while Woodingdean Primary School recently did so.
Moulsecoomb Primary School is run by an academy trust after a poor Ofsted inspection result forced the school’s hand.
A similar process led to the creation of the Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (BACA), the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) and City Academy Whitehawk.
Others such as Hangleton, Benfield and West Blatchington primary schools have voluntarily made the switch.
And the King’s School and the Bilingual Primary School were set up from scratch as free schools – a type of academy.
So rather than the Labour council supporting communities to “resist forced academisations” (as they promised in their 2023 local election manifesto), they are now simply talking about setting up their own academy so when the government force all schools to join an academy they can be forced to join an academy set up by the council rather than one set up by another body.
The lack of willingness of these councillors to stick up for residents against their own party’s damaging policies knows no bounds it seems.