Best Practice

The pros and cons of academy conversion

Government policy
In the first of a four-part series, Peter Chambers looks at the benefits and disadvantages, as seen by school leaders themselves, of academy conversion.

A school’s decision on whether or not to go for academy status is often contentious.

Even now after some 12 years, with more than 2,300 academies open representing more than half of all secondary schools in England, the arguments still rumble on about whether they improve standards overall, their effect on other schools, and whether they increase social division in education.

This short series of articles, to run throughout January in SecEd, documents the benefits and challenges of academy status as seen and experienced by different academies and maintained schools. It includes some that passionately believe in the independence and financial benefits that academy status gives – and one that believes equally passionately that becoming an academy is not for them.

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