However, each school’s situation is different and every senior management team and Governing Body faces a unique set of circumstances.
One school Strictly Education has worked with is Yardley Primary School, which had a very particular situation with a Local Authority funded facility.
Yardley Primary School started planning for conversion in September 2010, achieving conversion for a January 2011 start.
They worked in collaboration with two other schools, meaning the management teams and governors could share ideas and experiences. This did not prevent each school focusing on its own unique challenges early on in the process.
Despite a close relationship with the LA, Headteacher Norman Clear knew that forthcoming budget restraints would result in a reduction in tangible learning support. Norman felt the school would be better off managing its own finances, something that held no concerns as the school team were already highly self managing.
At Yardley, the LA was in the middle of funding and building a new Children’s Centre on the school site. With completion due after the anticipated conversion date, this meant a number of additional factors to consider. These included specifying the future right to lease when built, as well as ensuring that post-build warranties were in place for the Academy.
As Academies adopt a different legal entity under the Academy Trust Company, it was critical to ensure that the arrangements for funding to the school were in place to protect the school and its staff.
As an Academy cannot automatically get assigned services to deliver and receive funding from the LA simply by local agreement, it was important to document and contractualise these as part of the conversion process.
Having completed the process, Norman felt everything went pretty much to plan. “It was time consuming, but also interesting and worthwhile.”
He feels the school has already benefited from the conversion. “We manage an increased budget and can focus that on pupil learning and achievement. Fortunately, the LA has taken a pragmatic view and still works in partnership with us and the two other academies in the area.”
As regards using an outsourced service to support the school through the process, Norman believes this was the right decision.
“Things were made easy because of the project management and assistance from our support organisations – Strictly Education in partnership with Winckworth Sherwood. They really did give us fantastic support and advice.”
Strictly Education is an independent national company specialising in support to schools in the areas of Human Resources, Payroll, Finance, Property, ICT and Academy advice and guidance. They are currently working with a wide variety of over 80 schools including VA, Special, Faith and Community schools, assisting them in gathering the information needed to make a considered decision to convert, and in helping them through the process and beyond.
They work in a range of Trust arrangements from the most straightforward to highly complex multi-school Trusts where school improvement support arrangements help schools that do not meet the DfE conversion criteria in their own right.
To listen to Strictly Education’s exclusive podcast – The New Academy – please visit http://www.strictlyeducation.co.uk and click on the link on the right hand side.
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