Birmingham academies will learn from mistakes of others

Dec 31 2008 by Andy Richards, Birmingham Mail

 in their network area and all the proposed academies are fully supporting the vision for an outstanding and appropriate education to the people of Birmingham.”

The spokesman added the proposed engineering academy on Aston Science Park will be available to students across the city while the proposed digital media academy at Eastside will serve the West Midlands.

The IoE report concluded the performance of academies has been “varied”.

It raised concerns that academies had much higher exclusion rates in 2007 than nearby state schools. This, it said, “can have damaging effects on neighbouring schools if academies exclude more pupils but do not take excluded pupils from elsewhere in the authority”.

It has been suggested that academies have higher exclusion rates when they open as head teachers seek to instil discipline. The report recommended academies’ admissions procedures face scrutiny to ensure they do not harm the intakes of other schools. A government-commissioned report found three applications for every Year 7 place at an academy. While academies take more pupils from the poorest homes than other schools, the overall proportion of poor pupils has shrunk, as more middle-class parents are choosing them.