Total Academisation?

8th May 2012; 13:00

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Read the Academies Commission blog post: And we’re off...The Academies Commission call for evidence is open

Read the RSA Projects Education blog post: Doing, and sticking to, your knitting

Launch of the Academies Commission Call For Evidence

The Government recently announced that half of all secondary schools are now academies or in the process of becoming one. The scale and speed of academisation has been unprecedented. But as yet there has been no holistic analysis of the impact of this change for pupil outcomes, or of the implications of an academised system for the future. The Academies Commission sets out to do this.

This event marks the Commission Call For Evidence. To open the debate, Christine Gilbert will be joined by fellow Commissioner Professor Chris Husbands to discuss key issues arising from mass-academisation of the English school system.

Chair: Gerard Kelly, editor, the Times Educational Supplement.

See what people said on Twitter: #acadcomm

The Academies Commission

Set up by the RSA and the Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning, with sponsorship from The Cooperative and CfBT, the ‘Speed Commission’ is chaired by former Head of Ofsted Professor Christine Gilbert. She is joined by Commissioners Professor Chris Husbands (Director of the Institute of Education), and Brett Wigdortz (CEO, TeachFirst).

The Commission will address two principal questions: What are the implications of complete academisation for school improvement and pupil attainment? How can improvement and attainment best be secured within an academised system? As such it focuses on issues of governance and accountability, and on outcomes for all pupils.

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