This article was first published in TES

Whatever you think about academies, it seems that they are here to stay. Forty per cent of secondary schools have converted, or are in the process of converting to, academy status and, although the rate of conversion has slowed, there is little reason to suppose that this number will not continue to grow. Indeed, recent research by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) showed that a majority of council lead members and directors for children’s services thought that more than half the schools in their area would have academy status by the end of 2013.