End academisation – we need democratic control
David Kaplan, parent and former secondary school teacher
“Dictatorship”, “dystopian”, “authoritarian”. These are not words used to describe the regime of Kim Jong Un in North Korea, but of a group of secondary schools in modern-day UK.
The CEO of Athena Learning Trust, a multi-academy trust (MAT) of three primary schools and six secondary schools in Devon and Cornwall, resigned in May this year, following mass meetings and protests of pupils and parents because of punitive discipline.
BBC’s Panorama programme highlighted the issues in ‘Britain’s strictest schools’. The programme spoke to nearly 100 pupils, parents and former teachers about their experiences at the Athena schools. Pupils and parents queued to talk to the BBC at two town hall meetings the documentary producers arranged.
“You are constantly scared that you are going to do something wrong,” one student with ADHD reported. A parent said of their child: “Day in, day out, he feels like he’s failing.”
Pupils are not allowed to look away from the teacher and get a warning if they do. The schools have a two-strike policy: a warning for one rule break, and then internal exclusion for a second infringement of the rules.
Pupils are sent to a room to ‘reflect’ on their actions, where they work in silence from workbooks. In one of the schools, there were 1,000 such internal exclusions a month between September 2025 and March 2026.
Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are disproportionately affected. One parent said: “Just to look out of the window to refocus – that’s not harming any of the other children, or their education – but that’s enough to be sent out, because that’s him not focussing on the teacher.” Such behaviour was not recognised as being linked to neurodivergence.
The suspension rate – being sent home for a day or part of a day – at another of Athena’s schools was almost five times higher than the national average.
Governors of the trust are working with the Department for Education (DfE) to identify alternative trusts to which the schools could transfer. But this is not enough.
The academies programme, allowing local authority schools to convert into state-funded schools independent of the local authority, was introduced by Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the early 2000s.
Initially, they were ‘failing’ schools, where it was alleged that enabling schools to determine their own curriculum and terms and conditions for staff would raise outcomes for pupils.
The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government from 2010 massively expanded the academies programme, encouraging Ofsted-rated ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools to convert to academies, giving them financial sweeteners to convert.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have no academies. But around 84% of secondary schools in England are academies, and around 43% of primary schools.
Academisation is privatisation, and has enabled MAT bosses to run riot with destructive policies of this nature without democratic accountability. There is no evidence that academies have significantly improved outcomes for pupils.
Generally, they have been forced to maintain teachers’ terms and conditions, in spite of having the option not to, in order to fill vacancies and because of industrial action taken by education unions. That’s a glimpse of the potential power the unions have to defend education: the unions should demand that questions such as disciplinary policies, alongside other important issues such as bullying, sexual harassment etc, should be under the democratic control of union reps, parents and students.
Academisation must end. The education unions should demand that Andy Burnham immediately brings in a legal route for academies to return to local authority control – something that Socialist Party members in the National Education Union fight for.
There needs to be a massive increase in funding to local authorities in order to bring MATs and academies back – with the democratic involvement of education workers, parents and students who have the expertise and local knowledge of what their communities need. We also need to continue to demand the end of league tables and the whole ‘exam factory’ culture that leads to these regimes.
With academies under the control and management of business-oriented academy trusts, there is no guarantee that similar issues won’t happen again.
Devon and Cornwall National Education Union members speak out
The press release from the Devon and Cornwall districts of the NEU – which confirms that “treatment of children at Athena has often been unacceptable, with pupils with special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds particularly poorly served” – has not been widely covered in the national press.
Perhaps the voice of trade unionists has not been publicised because they point to the potential for collective action to tackle these issues. The NEU reports that it has recently conducted successful strike ballots at several Athena schools, with the treatment of staff also a central issue. Staff report feeling “frightened and intimidated”. In some cases, staff were checked on by members of school leaderships dozens of times during a single working day.
They also point to wider issues. Devon and Cornwall NEU calls for the abolition of Ofsted and league tables, and their replacement “with an accountability system based on support, professional collaboration, inclusion and meaningful engagement with school communities”.
They call for the government to “commission an urgent review of the academy trust system and begin restoring schools to a democratically accountable local education service”.
School students can organise for change
Adam Gillman, Socialist Students
‘Has discipline gone too far in schools?’ This is the question raised in the BBC Radio 4 documentary: ‘File on 4 Investigates – Strict schools: Taking discipline too far?’
The documentary has many examples of what students face in secondary school. Launceston College has uniform inspections and silent corridors.
One student said: “You’re not allowed to pick up a pen unless you’re told to.” If you do this twice, you’re sent to intervention.
In intervention, students sit in silence, watched between plastic dividers for most or all of the day. Intervention can be used for acts such as speaking in the corridor, your top button not being done up, and losing focus.
“Zero-tolerance behaviour policies” have been implemented by school managements to control pupils. When there’s little funding for an education students need, it’s far easier to send pupils to a room than to have the staff to be able to help them develop.
Throughout history, students have played a role alongside the workers’ movement in campaigning to change things.
Students have organised against repression. In 1972 students organised in a students union, walking out of schools in London and protesting against corporal punishment in schools. Corporal punishment was ended in London in 1974, and nationally in 1986.
Student unions need to be rebuilt, so students can fight alongside workers. A student union gives students a way to discuss the issues and take collective actions, such as walkouts, to change things.
All across the world, young people are facing attacks on our futures, not only with repression in school, but increasing militarisation, wars, climate change and attacks on our living standards, while this capitalist system plunges further into crisis.
In 2019, hundreds of thousands of school students internationally walked out against climate change. Last year, Socialist Students led hundreds who walked out against Trump’s state visit to Britain.
Socialist Students is part of an international campaign for youth walkouts to ‘fight for our futures, not their wars’. We are helping to organise, school, college and university students to walkout on Friday 20 November.
