Support for schools seeking acdamey status

County Hall is writing to heads to say it will do everything it can to assist schools wishing to transform themselves into academies.

And the council has invited Education Secretary Michael Gove to attend a conference in Oxford, so local heads can learn about what becoming an academy would entail.

Last month, Mr Gove wrote to all primary, secondary and special schools inviting them to apply for academy status.

Oxfordshire heads this week said they had more questions than answers over the Government’s invitation for schools to free themselves from local authority control.

But Michael Waine, county council cabinet member for schools improvement, said he wanted to ensure all local schools were given the most detailed information available.

County Hall will also be raising its own concerns with the Government about the financial problems it could face meeting its statutory obligations to schools that remained in council control, if a large proportion of schools opted for independence.

So far, five primary schools in Oxfordshire and nine secondary schools have registered their interest in becoming academies in response to the new Government’s invitation.

Academies form a major part of the Government’s education reforms.

Fitzharrys School, in Abingdon, St Birinus School, in Didcot, and Faringdon Community College are among those to have expressed an interest in changing status.

Mr Waine said: “I am writing to all heads and governors saying that if this is the path they wish to take, we want to discuss it with them and support them in the decision they make.

“I am wholly in favour of diversity. We now want to help schools access the information they need in order to make a decision. We would not want to put any blocks in their way.”

But he admitted a substantial exodus of schools from county council control could present the local authority with serious difficulties.

“My main concern is for those schools who wish to stay in the local authority family, and ensuring there is sufficient funding centrally to meet their needs. If more and more schools become academies, limitations would be put on the local authority’s ability to meet its responsibilities to the remaining schools, and whether we could continue at the current level of commitment.”

Keith Mitchell, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said: “If schools believe they can offer something better, we will support them. We are not interested in building empires or hanging on to anything.

“But schools taking this route will have more to do. They will have to stand on their own feet.”

Mr Mitchell said each departing school would effectively take significant sums of money with them.

“If a significant number went, as an education authority we would have to plan how to manage that and cut our cloth accordingly.“ Chris Bryan, headteacher at St Birinus, said he wanted more information about potential financial advantages.

He said: “The only way to find out more was to express an interest.”

The primaries that expressed an interest were Appleton, Stanton Harcourt, Banbury’s Dashwood Primary School and Abingdon’s Rush Common and Thomas Reade.

The other secondaries to have expressed an interest are Oxford’s Cherwell and Cheney schools, Banbury, Bartholomew in Eynsham, Langtree in Woodcote and Gosford Hill in Kidlington.