Background and Summary
3.Academies are all-ability state- funded schools. They have sponsors from a wide range of backgrounds, including universities and colleges, educational trusts, charities, the business sector and faith communities. Academies have largely replaced city technology colleges (CTCs) and city colleges for the technology of the arts (CCTAs), set up by the Education Reform Act 1988, and all but three of which have now converted to become Academies. The first Academies opened in 2002 and there are currently 203 Academies in 83 local authorities. Of these, 6 converted from independent schools, 53 have a faith designation and 23 are all-through Academies, which include primary provision. Most Academies have replaced weak or underperforming schools, and others have been new schools in areas which needed extra school places.
4.The Act will enable all maintained schools to apply to the Secretary of State to become Academies. It is the Secretary of State’s current intention to approve all schools which have been judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted unless there are good reasons not to.
5.Primary and special schools will be encouraged to apply to become Academies in their own right for the first time. Academies are currently required to have a curriculum with an emphasis on a particular subject or subjects (see section 482(2)(a) of the Education Act 1996 (‘the EA 1996’)). For secondary schools, this requirement for a specialism will continue, but it will not be extended to primary schools or the primary curriculum of an all-age Academy.
6.The Act will make the process of applying to become an Academy as simple as possible and without a requirement for local authorities to be consulted.
7.The Secretary of State expects that a significant number of Academies will open in September 2010 and for the number to continue to grow each year.
8.Academies will be funded at a comparable level to maintained schools.
9.The Act will not give rise to any expansion of selection, but grammar schools and other selective or partially selective schools which become Academies will be able to continue to select on the terms on which they presently do so.
10.The Act will treat Academy proprietors as charities.