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Taxpayers foot bill for barred academy pupils
EXCLUSIVE: Academies opened to transform inner-city education have cost Yorkshire taxpayers more than £250,000 by excluding problem pupils and forcing local councils to pick up the bill.
Leeds Council has spent 221,000 paying for places for children who have been removed from the David Young Community Academy since it opened, the Yorkshire Post can reveal. Another 23 problem pupils have been excluded from an academy in South Yorkshire – with taxpayers again picking up the bill.
The flagship Leeds school in North Parkway, which is sponsored by the Church of England Diocese of Leeds and Ripon, is not governed by the same rules as community schools, which lose cash when they expel pupils.
Instead academies that permanently exclude children still retain the same level of funding, which comes directly from Government – meaning local councils must find extra money from their budgets to pay schools to take on the rejected children.
Teaching unions in Yorkshire say the situation is "grossly unfair" and claim community schools are being punished as local councils are forced to pay for pupils whom academies do not want.
David Young Community Academy in east Leeds, which replaced Agnes Stewart and Braim Wood High School for Boys, has permanently excluded 22 pupils since it opened in September 2006. Figures obtained by the Yorkshire Post under the Freedom of Information Act show that finding places for these children has cost Leeds Council a total of 221,000.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) said Government rules which ensure that "funding follows the child" did not apply to academies.
In a school run by the local education authority, the council would deduct funding from a secondary where a pupil has been excluded and divert cash to the school which takes on the child.
But councils have no powers to deduct money from academies, which are run independently of local education authorities and manage their own budgets.
The DCSF spokeswoman said a major consultation on pupils being excluded from academies had been carried out by the Government, which was due to make an announcement shortly.
Academies were introduced by the Government to raise standards in inner cities and deprived areas by closing down failing secondaries and replacing them with independently-run institutions, backed by a private sponsor with the freedom to set their own admissions and exclusion policies and directly employ staff.
There are seven academies open in Yorkshire and although the majority have not excluded any pupils in the past two years David Young Community Academy and the Trinity Academy in Thorne, near Doncaster, have already removed 45 problem pupils between them.
Trinity Academy, which is sponsored by the Christian-based Emmanuel Foundation formed by Sir Peter Vardy, declined to provide figures on how many pupils it had permanently excluded since it opened in September 2005.
However the Yorkshire Post can reveal Doncaster Council has so far relocated 23 pupils who have been excluded from the academy in South Yorkshire.
Angry teaching unions officials in Yorkshire have called for the rules to be changed to create a "level playing field"
The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers national executive member for South Yorkshire, Paul Desgranges, said: "I don't think the financial penalty of losing money should ever be a factor in deciding whether or not to exclude a pupil –but why should the situation be different from local authority school and academies?
"What it means is that the more challenging pupils can be excluded from an academy and put into local education authority schools who are also being penalised because it is the council who has to pay for them."
The principal of David Young Community Academy, Ros McMullen, said: "All of our permanent exclusions have involved very direct violence or violent behaviour such as extreme bullying and we do not and will not tolerate violence in the academy.
"I will continue to make it a priority here to instil good behaviour and discipline and to ensure that there is a safe, secure environment where students and adults can work and learn together without fear."
The principal of Trinity Academy said the vast majority of pupils had grasped the opportunity at Trinity but some children "did not like being challenged".
Leeds Council is introducing new rules which mean all new academies in the city would be signed up to the council's existing admissions and exclusions policy.
The chief executive of Education Leeds, Chris Edwards, said: "Funding arrangements are set nationally, so we work within those rules to do whatever it takes to give all our young people access to learning in a safe and appropriate environment."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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