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Academies

Answer

Academies are situated in areas of deprivation and/or educational need. The main criteria for consideration of an Academy is for it to be sited in an area of historically weak educational performance and that the local authority area concerned is listed in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister statistics on deprivation. Other factors such as poor ratings by OFSTED and low admission numbers for predecessor schools are sometimes considered, but it is the academic under-achievement and deprivation that are of primary importance. Some Academies are being established in areas not considered as deprived overall but with particular enclaves of deprivation or low attainment.Local authorities have supported all Academy proposals to date through signing where appropriate the Expression of Interest (EOI) that formally establishes the project.DfES is responsible for: identifying potential Academy proposals; working with the responsible stakeholders to produce an EOI for establishing an Academy; assessing the viability of the proposal once an EOI has been received including consulting with stakeholders in the local area; co-ordinating the building process for the Academy, setting up the Trust that will govern the Academy; working with the Trust and the Sponsor to set up the educational vision and ethos of the school; organising for the Funding Agreement to be signed between the Secretary of State and the Trust to govern the Academy.All of the 27 open Academies are in areas where the Building Schools for the Future programme is running. A breakdown of which local authority is in which wave of the BSF programme can be found at http://www.bsf.gov.uk/documents/ in the document ““Local Authority project by wave””.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

36362; 440 c2401-2W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Disadvantaged Location Academies Building schools for the future programme

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk