Headteacher Alan Streeter amd pupils at Beacon High School in Tufnell Park

A COMMUNITY secondary school in Tufnell Park is set to become an academy despite Islington Council’s efforts to keep it under local control.

Formerly Holloway School, Beacon High in Hilldrop Road was rebranded in 2019 after a “requires improvement” Ofsted rating. It will join the multi-academy trust Lift Schools, which runs 57 schools across the country, in January.

Academies are state-funded but privately run, meaning there is no local democratic oversight.

The Tribune understands that part of the impetus for academisation was a belief that Islington Council was not doing enough to support the school and could close it in future due to falling rolls – that is, fewer children being born and educated in the borough.

The school currently has 417 pupils, despite capacity for 600.

Beacon High governor, Labour councillor Paul Convery, told the Tribune he wished the school well but did not agree with its decision to academise.

“When a school is right up close to the local authority, it will always see the wrinkles and flaws much more than it will in a multi-academy trust selling a strong story,” Cllr Convery said.“The other governors believed that Lift offers a better deal. I think they’re wrong. I failed to persuade them of that, and I’m disappointed that they were unpersuadable. Beacon is a school that has been on a rapid improvement trajectory. I think the school feel they did that a little bit on their own and therefore will be able to carry on like that under the wing of Lift.

“But I think that loss of local accountability is eventually going to have its impacts.”

Cllr Convery first heard of the school’s plans to academise after he became a governor in December 2023, at which point it was framed as a “lifeboat” against closure, he said.

Islington’s falling birth rate means there are fewer pupils on school rolls, and therefore less funding, because schools are funded at a per-pupil rate by central government.

This contributed to the council’s closure of two Mildmay state primaries this summer – an attempt to have fewer, but fuller schools – and could have similar consequences for secondaries in years to come.

“The school felt there was a risk of closure and they had not been definitively told that the school would be safe,” said Cllr Convery. “By the time they did appreciate that Beacon was highly unlikely to be closed, they had already gone down a path of talking to a number of trusts.”

Co-secretary of Islington’s National Education Union (NEU) Terry Sullivan told the Tribune: “We’re fighting the closure of primary schools now. In four or five years’ time [falling rolls are] going to affect secondary schools. [Academisation] puts more pressure on the remaining secondaries that aren’t academies, because academies don’t have to listen to the local authority about how to manage with fewer children.

“They can promise the earth but it just puts pressure on schools that remain. It’s a domino effect.”

Beacon High will be the second local authority-maintained school in Islington to academise within six months, after Catholic secondary St Aloysius’ College in Hornsey Lane joined the All Saints Academy Trust in August.

Before these two conversions, Islington had a high number of local authority-maintained secondaries – London-wide, three-quarters of state secondaries are academies, compared to just four of Islington’s ten secondaries.

But from January, Islington-run secondaries will be in the minority, meaning “the writing is on the wall”, Mr Sullivan said.

Former Beacon High history teacher – who left in 2009 when it was still Holloway School – and national secretary for the Anti Academies Alliance, Alasdair Smith, explained: “This whole system of managing school places is a car crash because of academisation. [Local authorities] can’t do strategic planning for education because you’ve got competing bodies with vested interests in keeping their schools open. So other schools then have to take the hit. What [Beacon High is] gambling on is that they can delay that process by becoming an academy.”

While multi-academy trusts are not for profit, they are private companies whose leaders earn “spanking salaries”, said Mr Smith, including Lift’s CEO, who is paid up to £250,000 per year according to the trust’s financial records.

But the biggest issue with academies is the lack of democratic oversight, he added.

“Decisions over the future of schools rest with a trust, which is unaccountable to anybody except itself. They have their interests at heart, not the local people of Islington.”

A spokesperson for Beacon High said: “The decision to become an academy and join Lift Schools has been led by the desire to be part of a network of like-minded, inclusive schools and work collaboratively on school improvement. It has helped secure a future for our school, which may have been at risk had we decided to continue as a local authority school. This decision means we now have a bright future ahead of us, and can be confident in being able to continue serving local families and providing the high-quality, inclusive education that our pupils deserve.”

Islington’s children and young people’s chief Cllr Michelline Safi-Ngongo said: “We want all children and young people in Islington to have access to fantastic education settings where they are empowered with learning and skills for their future. Islington now has a ‘mixed economy’ of academy, foundation, Diocesan and local authority-maintained schools and we are committed to working with and supporting them all to ensure pupils receive a great education.”