Collingwood College and Ravenscote Community Junior School to be Academy Schools?

Of the 1,567 schools that have applied to become academies, 30 outstanding schools from Surrey have applied to become academies and could be fast tracked to academy status by September.  Collingwood College and Ravenscote Community Junior School in Camberley are on the list of Non-Outstanding Schools that have registered an interest in becoming academies.  The full list can be found on the BBC News website.  The list however is not complete, according to the Department of Education, as it has only published the names of the schools it has contacted to tell them that their details will be published.

At the end of May, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary (and Surrey Heath’s MP) announced legislation that would allow schools to become academies.  Academies are publicly funded independent schools, free from local authority control and free to set their own pay and conditions for staff, free from the National Curriculum and free to change the lengths of school terms and the school day.  The Government believes that the freedom schools gain as academies will give them the flexibility to innovate, raise standards and achieve “enhanced outcomes”.

Now that the first list has been published, it will be interesting to see if other schools follow in expressing an interest in finding out more about academy status.  What do you think about the proposals?