“The school system is not being privatised”, declared the Department for Education in April 2016, when it published an article on its website to “dispel some common myths” about academisation, the project that has now dominated education policy in the UK for a decade. “Instead,” the DfE continued, “heads and teachers are being given greater freedom to run their schools”.
Freedom is the stated aim of academisation. It is a policy designed to give schools more autonomy in spending, teaching and organisation. Brought into law by the Academies Act 2010, academisation is the process by which publicly funded schools are moved out of the control of local education authorities and into the control of private organisations called charitable trusts. These trusts can run multiple schools, and are free to choose what they teach (without having to follow the National Curriculum), who they appoint as board members or teachers, and how they spend their budget, which comes directly from the Department for Education. They are not allowed to make a profit.
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