200th Academy Opens

Schools Secretary Ed Balls celebrated the opening of England’s 200th Academy school and announced moves to open up the flagship Academies programme to new sponsors by scrapping the £2m sponsorship fee.

Mr Balls announced that there will no longer be a financial requirement for new Academy sponsors for schools opening from September 2011. This builds on the success of abolishing the fee for universities, further education, college and high performing school sponsors.

He said the test will now be the organisation’s educational track record, their skills and leadership and their commitment to working with local parents, teachers and pupils rather than ability to contribute financially.

Speaking on a visit to open an Academy in London today, Mr Balls said the changes underlined yet again the Government’s long-term commitment to Academies to target deprived areas and replace existing weak or underperforming schools.

Ministers will be opening more than 400 new or refurbished schools over the next three terms, including 67 new academies. Thirty-three BSF schools are also opening this term, along with the first 97 schools opening under the Primary Capital Programme.

Overall, more than 4000 schools at an average of 25 a week will have been built, rebuilt or refurbished by July 2010 since 1997 – the biggest sustained period of school building for decades.

It follows the acceleration of almost £1bn of capital spending to this financial year from next, to help support jobs and the construction industry and accelerate school building projects during the downturn.

Ed Balls said: “We’ve swept away the historic legacy of under-funded and under-resourced schools thanks to our sustained, record capital investment programme over the last decade.

“A world-class education system needs world-class facilities – that’s exactly what we are delivering. This is the largest sustained capital investment in schools for decades – giving parents, teachers and pupils outstanding classroom, music and sports facilities; transforming their aspirations; and driving up standards.

”Schools in England have had the biggest sustained investment in facilities for decades – with an eightfold real terms rise between 1997 and 2011 alone. Around 4000 schools and tens of thousands of classrooms have been newly built, rebuilt or refurbished thanks to our £53 billion of capital investment over the last 12 years.”