The National Union of Teachers (NUT) yesterday condemned moves by private schools to rescue their finances through obtaining academy status.
A NUT spokeswoman told News Line: ‘We are opposed to academies in principle.
‘But the instance of failing schools that are strapped for cash trying to survive by gaining state funding through academy status underlines the inadequacies of this policy.’
The NUT was responding to an Independent Schools Council statement that it was expecting up to 20 fee-paying private schools to make the switch to take advantage of government funding.
Independent Schools Council head of research, Sam Freedman said: ‘Schools would only do it if they thought they weren’t going to survive in the independent sector.
‘If I am a head teacher of an independent school, looking at my books, and I don’t think I am going to survive past the next few years – one way I can assure my school will carry on is to become an academy.
‘If I am not in financial trouble, there’s no reason to become an academy because it’s only going to mean giving up some independence.’
So far four private schools are known to have applied for academy status.
Stephen Patriarca, the head of one private school, William Hulme’s Grammar School in south Manchester, said the switch was a matter of survival.
Patriarca told the Times Educational Supplement: ‘We could continue in the short-term, but in the long-term the situation was untenable.’
Schools used to have to attract £2m from private sponsors to gain academy status, but new Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has announced plans to relax the rules on sponsorship.
Earlier this month, he told MPs in the House of Commons: ‘The test of whether an organisation can be a potential sponsor should not be its bank balance, but whether it can demonstrate leadership, innovation, and commitment to act in the public interest.’
This could enable bankrupt private schools who cannot find a sponsor to acquire academy status and with it funding.