Even the most cursory scan of the education coverage of the national papers over the last number of weeks has revealed many articles about and analysis of the government’s plans to turn all schools in England into Academies.

Originally a Labour policy for turning around ‘failing’ schools, the Academisation process is now seen by the Conservatives as a way of wresting control of education from the councils and placing it in the hands of the academy principals and their governors.

The arguments in favour of this landmark shift in education policy include reducing bureaucracy and allowing schools to be much more receptive to local requirements. The new freedoms enjoyed by the new academies, of which there are already several thousand