Education: Head seeks freedoms and funds as primary academy

Copthorne Primary, in Bradford, is among the first in Yorkshire to declare an interest in become an independently-run state school under the Government's plans to rapidly expand the programme.

Headteacher Naila Zaffar, who become a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours list last week for her services to education, said academy status would give her school greater funding and freedoms.

At least five outstanding schools in the region are considering the move, including Scout Road Primary in Mytholmroyd, Oatlands Infants, St Aidan's CE High School in Harrogate and Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in Grimsby.

Most outstanding schools contacted by the Yorkshire Post, however, have said they have yet to decide whether to go for academy status and more than a dozen said they were not interested.

The new Education Secretary Michael Gove has said all schools which are rated as outstanding by Ofsted are now automatically pre-approved to opt out of local council control and become academies.

Previously academies, which are funded directly from central government and given the freedom to set their own curriculum, admissions, employment arrangements and term times, had only operated as secondary schools.

Now both primaries and special schools are able to join the programme and all schools have been invited to apply by Mr Gove. Special schools will be included next year.

All outstanding schools will need to sign an agreement to help raise standards at another in order to become an academy.

Copthorne is one of 286 outstanding schools in the region and one of the first primaries in Yorkshire to declare an interest. The school, which has more than 400 pupils, serves a deprived inner-city area of Bradford, close to the city's university. Almost all its pupils are from ethnic minorities with the majority of children of South Asian origin.

It was rated as outstanding by Ofsted in 2007. Now Mrs Zaffar believes becoming an academy would help it improve further.

"It would give us a greater budget and greater freedoms over the curriculum to be able to meet the needs of our local community.

"Freedom over things like term times would give us flexibility to take into account things like Eid days and we would have a greater say over what we teach."

St Aidan's CE High School in Harrogate, is also expected to declare an interest in achieving academy status.

Headteacher Dennis Richards said he liked the idea of being able to help raise standards at another school and he also welcomed the scaling back of bureaucracy.

"We are more interested in this than we ever were in becoming a grant-maintained school.

"I do think the fact that this policy was first introduced to help the most disadvantaged schools does mean that it has the right motivation.

"I am also less convinced than I used to be for the need for a whole range of locally-provided education services."

Mr Richards said local councils should retain a role in deciding admissions policy, maintaining buildings and providing school transport. Oatlands Infants headteacher Elizabeth Robson said the school had registered an interest with the Government in order to find out more.

She said: "We're purely at the research stage, we just want to work out what it would mean for our school and the pros and cons of becoming an academy school. Once we know more then we can decide whether to put it to the full board of governors to make a decision."

Head teachers who rejected the offer of academy status cited the size of their school, the need for local council support on areas such as health and safety and uncertainty over the funding as the main reasons.

Peter Leach, headteacher of Hilltop Special School in Rotherham said: "As a special school we have a lot to gain by working in partnership with other schools rather than going our separate ways and being split from the local authority."