Friday, January 14, 2011

On academy status

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this subject. Quite the contrary, in fact! But my son's school is in the process of considering Academy status, and they're currently holding meetings with parents who want to learn more. I confess that, since my son is already in sixth form, I feel somewhat remote from the whole business and haven't given it too much thought. However, for parents with kids lower down the school, there are a lot of questions - particularly in the light of the fact that ours is a faith school.

I came across these materials on teachers.tv which I thought might shed some light for teachers and parents at schools considering going down this route.

I have heard positive reports from struggling schools that have switched to this model. But I have no idea what happens in the case of schools that are not struggling. I guess only time will tell. And my inner cynic (yes, even I have one) tells me that we will encounter problems no-one has thought of or catered for beforehand, some of which may prove to be showstoppers.

1 comment:

V Yonkers said...

I am assuming, from looking at these resources, that "academy status" is similar to the "charter school" in the US.

I loved the quality of the videos on this site. But as I started to dig deeper into the site, I found there were a number of videos to which I did not have access. I am finding this more and more these days as it seems that there are barriers going up to access information and resources across borders. In fact, the "intellectual property laws" have had a real impact on the internet.

Of course, at the same time, the university of Manitoba is again offering its international course on Connectivism. It'll be interesting to see what will happen in the next few years as there is the growing tension between commercial use of resources and internet resources available to all. There needs to be a business model that allows people to make a living in knowledge without excluding groups from access to that knowledge due to lack of means.