Academy

Academy Update:

The Governing Body met tonight to confirm that Urmston Grammar has now converted to academy status as of September 1st 2010.

The Secretary of State has confirmed his consent and wished us well, as one of 30 Schools who have manages to get a quick start in publicising and consulting on our intent.

We look forward to increased staffing and additional funding as well as celebrating our status as an outstanding Grammar whose strengths stem from outstanding teaching, exceptional commitment from all staff and students and mutual trust and respect.

I am grateful to Governors for again gifting us their time to move us forwards with an unswerving commitment to the integrity of staff rights and that oft stated gratitude to all teaching and support staff who make Urmston Grammar an outstanding school.

MGS 31st August 2010

Staff update:

As our summer holiday progresses, the movement in the academies bill means that we may yet open as an academy on September 1st.

Whilst we have been enjoying our holiday, the DfE and our Solicitors have been progressing matters and I have been in constant phone and email contact from Europe.

We have settled and agreed the transfer of all assets and contracts to our satisfaction which means that for all staff (teaching and support, catering and cleaning), there will be absolutely no change in employment and pension rights as well as no change with all other contractual agreements with "Trustees" with whom staff previously had contracts with as Governors. Full compliance with national pay awards etc and rights to support and representation are as ever personally guaranteed as well as written in to the new contracts to be issued on the 31st August as previously stated.

We have also had full consent from the Secretary of State to progress our application and we have formed a new 'company' with agreed articles and memoranda. We have also signed the funding agreement this week with the Grammar Schools annexe added to further protect the school's right to selective admissions.

There will of course be a number of new opportunities opening up as our new status unfolds on September 1st and as ever, should there be issues that unfold where you feel the need to seek guidance and support do let either myself or Sarah know as soon as possible.

MGS 25th August

We are currently working through both the legal and financial details of this process with our legal advisors and the DfE. During recent months, I have through my position on the GSHA Executive and on the SSAT National Headteachers Steering Group, met with the Permanent Secretary, David Bell, the Minister of State for Schools, Nick Gibb MP and the DfE Director General of Schools, Jon Coles in order to determine the benefits and detail of our pursuit of the Academy Status option as part of a consultation programme with Headteachers on wider Education Policy.

Please rest assured that having been aware of this process at least a whole year before the election having discussions with Sir Bob Balchin and at meetings with the then Shadow Schools Minister, Michael Gove, I have undertaken extensive research in to where we are leading the school.

Should there prove to be issues that I feel would disadvantage Urmston Grammar and my colleagues in local schools in any way, the process would be halted until the matters are resolved. Whilst all of the processes are in place and ready to go at a moments notice, we are still working directly with the DfE on the level of funding the school will get as we have been for two months now. The whole process of setting up a funding formula which may be applied to all schools is complicated by wide variations in how LAs delegate funding and the large variations between how Local Authority funding levels differ; Trafford being a very low funded LA will inevitably gain on a long term balancing out of those variations, but this will take many years to effect.

For those who may have concerns, please note that we do have the option of deferring academy status, and most sensibly, this option has been offered allowing us to elect to wait a month, 6 weeks or however long it takes to ensure we have made the correct judgment in signing up as an academy.

In context, it is anticipated that all schools will become academies eventually, those not performing quite as well as we do will have to produce business plans to outline how they will use the new freedoms that all schools are being offered in this new "permissive" system that we are being trusted to make work. Eight fellow Headteachers from the Secondary sector in Trafford are all pursuing this agenda in a collaborative way.

MGS 2nd July 2010

Consultative Process: 27th May 2010

Dear parents,

You may have heard and read about an option for Academy style freedoms being offered to outstanding schools. Having written to you all via pupil post, I am putting an update on this page to regularly appraise you of our position and the implications of what we are doing.

Firstly, in light of the press printing some pretty extreme views on what academy freedoms mean, I felt it important to tell you we are not doing the following:

We are not having a new Governing Body who will promptly change the school in to a profit making venture. The same Governors, operating with different titles (Academy Trustees) will continue to run the school as they have for my 11 years here.
We are not seeking sponsors who will promptly change the school.... etc.
We are not becoming a faith school/academy changing the school into an extremist religion based establishment!
We are not dropping the national curriculum, looking for easy qualifications and fanciful subject offerings that are of no use to our students.
We are not sacking staff, employing non specialist staff or changing their conditions of service.
We are not planning to suddenly become incompetent in how we run the school, somehow falling in to special measures, financial ruin or the cause of a national disaster in the field of education.

In short, neither you as parents, my staff, nor the children will notice the slightest change in the school other than the obvious benefits of additional funding.

There is overwhelming support from the teaching staff when this is discussed, the proposal was also raised and supported by Governors when first reported to them in my Spring term Governing Body report published last November.

This is as stated, a tremendous opportunity for Urmston Grammar School, one that it would be foolish not to accept.

From my own personal perspective, I began my career at Urmston Grammar School 11 years ago by losing those very freedoms that are on offer again today. As a grant-maintained school we were funded directly from the government and our return to local authority control not only cost the school £250,000 it also removed some of the freedoms we had.

Urmston Grammar School is a foundation school, and as such has limited involvement with the Local Authority. The Governing Body is the employer of the teaching and professional support staff, the school runs its own financial systems, its own payroll, its own catering staff, and its own cleaning staff, so we are well used to many of those challenges that this new opportunity offers us.

The direct funding of the school will bring with it considerable advantages for your sons and daughters. We should all celebrate being given the funding and the freedoms to further build on our successes which are in reality those of your children, who may now benefit at long last from a focus on education and not bureaucracy.

We will, place updates on the front page of our website as events unfold in coming weeks and months. We are eagerly anticipating those ‘academy freedoms’ that may come to the school in September 2010.

Yours sincerely,

M G Spinks,

Headteacher.

27th May 2010

Consultation has now ended, the deadline published being Friday 2nd July