I came across a link in a tweet last year which I felt summed up one of the main problems with the current academies programme. A difficulty we face as educators is that our leaders are under increasing pressure to conform to the demands of the global educational reform movement. These demands make it hard for headteachers to stand up to the swell of international opinion (as forced by stakeholders, inspection bodies and corporations who are investing in education) that expect to see an alignment to global market trends and the relational costs of human capital. It takes a confident headteacher and an in-tune board of governors to use the academies conversion programme as a springboard for true autonomy, designed to feed the school they run in the best interests of the students and wider local community, taking into account the history of the institution and its previous successes, regardless of the threats and pressures that come from the DfE and Ofsted. It strikes me that we are right to lose confidence in our leaders if they continue to promote the fear of external measures as the reason for the changes they apply:
'I firmly believe that when the staff in an academy or school see all the initiatives in their institution geared towards external accountability measures, they are right to lose confidence in their leaders because the leaders have clearly lost confidence in themselves.'*
*I cannot attribute the quote to its source as I failed to make a note of the link. I apologise for this.
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