School staff strike in academy conversion row

A teaching union claims that plans to force every Catholic school in the Diocese of Lancaster to become an academy will drain vital funds away from the classroom – and could see teacher numbers cut.

The National Education Union (NEU) is calling on the Bishop of Lancaster, Paul Swarbrick, to ditch his policy of directing all diocesan schools to join one of the church’s three multi-academy trusts (MATs).

Union members at one of those schools – Cardinal Allen Catholic High in Fleetwood – went out on strike over the issue on Tuesday.

They are set to do so again on 21st and 22nd September, when they will be joined by NEU staff at Corpus Christi High School in Preston who have also voted for strike action.

Bishop Swarbrick set out his intention back in 2020 for all Catholic schools in the Lancaster Diocese – which covers Central and North Lancashire, the Fylde coast and Cumbria – to convert to academies by the end of the current 2025/26 academic year. The vast majority of them have already made the switch.

However, the NEU has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that strikes could spread to some of the other schools that have chosen not to do so – of which there are five in Central Lancashire and one on the Fylde, in addition to Corpus Christi and Cardinal Allen.

When a school becomes an academy, it leaves the control of the local education authority for that area – Lancashire County Council for most of Lancashire and Blackpool Council for schools in that patch – and joins a trust or sponsor.

Academies have more flexibility than schools operating under a council umbrella – including an option to deviate from the national curriculum in some areas and to set their own admission arrangements and term times. Bishop Swarbrick has previously said he wants to use academy status “to protect, secure and develop the Church’s mission in education through greater collaboration and support between our school communities and parishes”.

However, the NEU says academies have to sacrifice some of the funding they previously received as maintained schools, because the not-for-profit MATs “top slice” academy budgets to fund the central services that would previously have been provided by the local authority. The union also claims that this cash is “used to maintain the high salaries of central executives who don’t teach”.

Nat Kerray – a curriculum leader and NEU rep at Cardinal Allen – told the LDRS that his school had previously explored becoming an academy, but concluded that it “just wasn’t in anyone’s interest in terms of the the money it would cost – [given] the teachers we’d have to lose and the impact it’d have on the classroom”.

He added: “Going from paying what we pay Lancashire County Council now to what we would pay the MAT, we’d have to lose possibly five teachers.”

Mr. Kerray said attempts to discuss the school’s concerns with the Diocese had been met with a “dismissive” response.

“They’re just saying, ‘This is happening and we’ll force it through if [we] need to,’” he said.

Lancashire NEU branch secretary Ian Watkinson said it would be “understandable” if those Catholic schools that had not yet converted considered taking industrial action if they, too, were alarmed at the prospect of being “forced down an academisation route that simply isn’t right for their setting”.

“They’re concerned about the top-slicing of funding that should be being spent in the classroom going to create an extra layer of bureaucracy – and that’s what’s happening with these Catholic MATs,” Mr. Watkinson said.

Academies are state funded in the same way as maintained schools and, from a policy perspective, there should be no financial incentive to convert, nor any financial penalty for doing so.

However, there were claims that early waves of schools that converted in the 2010s, which became standalone academies rather than joining trust, were overcompensated by the grant they were given to cover the cost of the services they no longer received from the local authority – and now there suggestions, like those being made by the NEU, that schools within MATs are being disadvantaged for the reverse reason.

Ian Watkinson appealed for Bishop Swarbrick to guarantee that no school will be forced to become an academy – and claimed that some of those that had done so willingly were already regretting their decision.

“There are plenty of headteachers that have converted [their schools] who are concerned, because the MATs don’t have the same capacity to provide the support that’s needed – and the level of top slice is impacting what they’re able to deliver.”

Responding to the issues raised by the NEU, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Lancaster said: “The National Education Union is opposed to the creation of academies in principle, whether forced or voluntary.

“The conversion of schools into academies is, however, both the policy of government and that of the Bishop of Lancaster.

“It is our conviction that academy trusts will guarantee high-quality Catholic education throughout the Diocese. The majority of our schools in this area have already joined their Trust family and are flourishing.

“We therefore regret that the decision has been taken to proceed with strike action.

Our sympathy lies with pupils who are losing a day of education and for parents who will be inconvenienced by this action.

“We sincerely hope that the NEU will reconsider their position.”

The LDRS approached both Cardinal Allen and Corpus Christi schools for comment.

Andrew Cafferkey, headteacher of Cardinal Allen High School, said: “Parents and carers were informed in advance that members of the National Education Union were taking part in industrial action [on Tuesday].

“Our school opened to pupils in Year 7 only, but [was] open to all students [again on Wednesday].”

Twenty out of the 22 Lancaster Diocesan schools in Blackpool Fylde and Wyre have so far joined the Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic MAT, while 17 out of 23 in Preston and surrounding areas have become part of the Mater Ecclesiae Catholic MAT. Five schools in Lancaster itself are in the process of joining the Mater Christi Trust.

In April, the Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool – which incorporates West Lancashire, South Ribble and Chorley – also announced an “academisation strategy” for those Catholic schools in its patch that have not yet adopted academy status.

Meanwhile, the Anglican Diocese of Blackburn has its own MAT, Cidari, which has 16 academies.

The Lancashire County Council area – which excludes Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen – has seen a far slower academy conversion rate than the national average.   As of January 2026, just 20 percent of schools in the County Hall patch are  academies or free schools – 128 out of 618.    

Across England, the proportion was 46 percent in January 2025, the latest date for which figures are available.  

When academies were first created in the early 2000s, they were seen by the then Labour government as a way of driving up standards in failing schools.

The coalition government opened up the programme to all schools a decade later and encouraged them to convert in high numbers.

Schools rated inadequate by Ofsted were later ordered that they had to join an academy trust on the basis that the support they would receive would help them to improve.

In its ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ white paper, published earlier this year, the current government set an expectation that all state-funded schools will join or form a “school trust” in order to extend the number of multi-school groupings across the education system.

However, under that plan, local authorities would, for the first time, be allowed to establish their own trusts – potentially slowing the 15-year trend of councils having less involvement with schools.