Academies should be allowed to return to local authority control, a school leaders’ union has said.
Headteachers should be able to request for their school’s academy status to be reversed if it benefits pupils, delegates at the annual conference of the NAHT heard.
A motion, which was passed at the conference in Harrogate on Saturday, called on the union’s executive to lobby the Government to amend legislation preventing academies from returning to local authority (LA) control
It said some schools who have joined multi-academy trusts “regret” it, and the Government should provide a process for a school to join another trust or rejoin the LA.
The Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will require academies, which are state schools that are independent of LAs, to teach the national curriculum and offer the same core pay and conditions framework.
But the Bill does not include a route to allow academies to return to local authority oversight.
Delegate Alasdair Black, from Coventry, proposer of the motion, said his own experience of academisation had been “dreadful” and he described the current system as being like “a marriage without the prospect of divorce”.
He said: “This is purely about giving schools a choice. Whether they take it or not, that’s up to them.
“Currently there is no choice, and this is just about giving them a potential option which they may or may not choose to take.”
Delegate Rubina Darr, from Birmingham, said: “I feel that if we were offered the opportunity to go back to our LAs – which have been politically damaged on purpose – it would be in a heartbeat that we would go back.
“A just system should be one system.”
She added: “The only attraction for academisation I think is the big CEO salary.”
Delegate Debra Walker, from Sunderland, who spoke against the motion, criticised the “demonisation” of leaders within the academy system.
She said: “There are some broke people out there but we cannot tarnish the whole system by the poor people that seem to hit the headlines.”
Delegate Toni Dolan, from Barnsley, who spoke in favour of the motion, said: “I do believe that headteachers should have autonomy and be allowed to decide if the trust they are in is not fit for purpose.
“They should be allowed to apply to another trust or ask to rejoin the LA.”
Angi Gibson, incoming president of the NAHT, said the national executive viewed the motion as “crystallising” their position that the union does not favour one structure.
She said: “We are in favour of the right structure for the school and for the pupils.”
Last month, delegates at the National Education Union (NEU) annual conference voted for a similar motion which called for schools to be returned to LA control.
It called on the NEU executive to write to MPs and ask them to introduce an amendment to the Bill to “create a legal route for academies to return” to their local authority.
