Church schools lead stampede to academy status ahead of deadline

Church schools led a stampede of institutions towards academy status last month, as governing bodies rushed to take advantage of a �25,000 conversion grant before it was scrapped on New Year’s Day.

Some 206 applications for schools to convert voluntarily to become academies were submitted to the Department for Education in December, newly-released government figures have shown.

This is far in advance of any recent monthly figure for this time of year on record, and nearly four times the number of applications seen in the same month the previous year, exclusive analysis by Education Uncovered shows.

A deadline-day rush also saw 22 schools register for conversion on the day that applications had to be in before the government’s conversion grant, paying schools for academisation costs including lawyers’ fees and rebranding, expired.

Further investigation of the figures shows that they were dominated by church schools, with Roman Catholic primary schools out ahead as the most likely institutions to apply for academy status last month.