National demo to say ‘No to Academies’

All schools in England are set to become academies by 2020, or have plans to do so by 2022. This was announced in George Osborne’s budget statement, as well as a longer school day and the possibility of Maths becoming compulsory until the age of 18. Over two thousand secondary and two thousand four hundred primary schools are already academies. The status was originally introduced for schools in urgent need of improvement. Since 2010, schools have been given extra funding to become academies. They are independent, state funded schools that receive funding from central government, rather than the local authority. They do not have to stick to the National Curriculum, but are overseen by academy trusts. The National Union of Teachers held demonstrations across the country to say ‘No to academies.’