Gibb receives critical reception at ATL conference

Schools minister Nick Gibb has received a negative reception from teachers at the recent Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) conference as he tried to defend government plans to turn all schools in England into academies.

Gibb was taking part in a question and answer session at the ATL’s annual conference in Liverpool, but was met with jeers as he insisted a fully academised education system would be ‘profession led’.

The new plans mean almost 17,000 schools which have not been converted into academy status must have committed to do so by 2020. However, the proposals have drawn a series of criticism from teachers, unions and MPs.

Arguing for academisation, Gibb said: "I'm spending time talking to colleagues who have expressed a concern. But the whole academies programme is about having a profession-led system, so that the profession is in charge and not local authority officials. That's the system we're moving to.

"If you talk to head teachers who become heads of academies, they have flourished."

The news comes after the National Union of Teachers (NUT) voted to ballot for strike action over the academies plan.

Commenting on some of the criticism made against the plans, Gibb argued: "They're not right, they haven't taken into account money made available in the Spending Review. Labour, when they did their calculations, did not look at that."

"We want there to be more autonomy in the schools academy system. People will make mistakes from time to time but we have a much more rigorous scrutiny over academies than maintained schools."

Mary Boston, ATL general secretary said the schools minister was brave to come to the conference but highlighted the problem was that his arguments did not tally with the experience of teachers in schools.