What do sponsors do?
Sponsors provide two million pounds towards the cost of building a new
school. It sounds like a lot of money, until you realise
that a typical Academy costs £16m to £20m to set
up. The rest of the capital cost comes from the government. In other
words you pay
90% of the setup costs of the new school.
You also pay for all of its annual running costs, typically about
£5m per annum. The sponsor pays nothing.
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What
do sponsors get out of this?
They get to own the school. They appoint the teachers, including the
headteacher, and select the governors. They dictate what gets taught,
how it gets taught, the school admissions policy, who to award
contracts to, who can be suspended or expelled, and the style
of discipline.
They also get to push whatever agenda they want on their captive
audience: the young people who attend the school. This could be a
religious, a business or a philosophical agenda.
If you don't like any of this then there's nothing you can do about it.
Get on the wrong side of the school authorities, or get a reputation as
a "troublemaker", and you or your child will be the ones to suffer.
There's no good raising it with the headteacher or the governors,
they're picked by the sponsor.
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Are
there any restrictions?
Not really. Just about anyone can be a sponsor if they've got the money
or the
right connections. All that matters is that you're prepared to hand
over £2m. Evangelical Christian groups, some of whom have
bizarre views on a wide range of subjects, seem to be particularly good
at raising the necessary cash. No one asks where the money comes from.
It's interesting to compare what a teacher has to do to get through the
front door of a school, with what a sponsor has to do in order to own
it.
What you need to do to become...
| A Teacher |
A Sponsor |
- Stay on to sixth form.
- Get good A Levels.
- Go to university for three years.
- Get a good degree in your specialist subject.
- Do a one year Post Graduate Certificate in
Education.
- Pass the relevant police checks for working with
young and vulnerable people.
- Accept half the pay, and possibly a good deal
less, than colleagues who joined a law firm or worked in the City.
- Keep abreast of constantly changing government
initiatives for the curriculum.
- Work 50+ hours a week preparing lesson plans and
taking part in continuous assessment.
|
- Be rich.
- Be a good pal of Tony Blair.
- Have no academic qualifications to speak of.
- Have no relevant experience of teaching or youth
work.
- Read the bible.
|
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Do
sponsors always pay up?
No. In fact, to date (June 2006) very few of the City Academies have
received the full amount they were promised. In the meantime,
sponsors retain control of their schools. They are under no obligation
to place any external work out to competitive tender. If they wish,
they can award all of the school's contract work to their own
companies, raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.
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Fancy
a peerage?
It's recently come to light that some labour party members have been
offering peerages and other honours to those willing to sponsor an
Academy. This is such a serious allegation that it is currently the
subject of a police investigation.
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Sir
Peter Vardy
Sir Peter Vardy attended the Chorister School,
Durham. Conincidentally this happens to be the same school
that Tony Blair attended.
Sir Peter is one of this country's most successful businessmen. He
inherited a second hand car business from his father and built it into
one of the largest chains of car dealerships in the country. There's no
doubt that Britain needs people like Sir Peter, or that he has valuable
lessons to teach young people who would like to follow in his
footsteps. But does that make him the right person to run a
school?
A school is more than a place to churn out tomorrow's entrepreneurs. It
is the source of our future scientists, doctors, philosophers, writers.
It is where we prepare young people to become active and responsible
citizens.
Sir Peter now runs the following schools through his Emmanuel Schools
Foundation, with several more in the pipeline:
- Emmanuel College Gateshead
- Kings Academy Doncaster
- Trinity Academy Doncaster
Sir Peter has only one O-Level. He is simply not qualified to say how
maths, english, science, history, foreign languages, I.T. should be
taught. Nor is he qualified to select those who should teach the
subject. The danger of giving a man like Sir Peter Vardy control of
state funded schools is exemplified by the undermining of science and
the teaching of creationism
in his
schools.
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