Preston school staff strike over academy plans

A teacher at a Preston secondary school says the high standards for which it has been recognised risk being unravelled by plans to turn it into an academy – and that staff are fighting “to save our school community as we know it”.

Charlotte Yates was speaking on the picket line at Corpus Christi Catholic High School in Fulwood, where she and colleagues were on strike over an attempt by the Bishop of Lancaster to force all schools in his diocese to join a church-run multi-academy trust (MAT).

The move would see Corpus Christi leave the control of Lancashire County Council and put the Mater Ecclesiae Catholic trust (MECMAT) in sole charge of the St. Vincents Road facility, which is currently rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

That prospect prompted teaching and support staff from the National Education Union (NEU) and the NASUWT to walk out for two days of strike action on Monday and Tuesday this week – causing the 800-pupil school to close on both of them. Some of those pupils even joined the picket, where the teachers who would usually have been leading their classes chanted, ‘We don’t trust the trust’.

Staff at Cardinal Allen Catholic High School in Fleetwood are also on strike over the same 48-hour period and for the same reason – having previously downed tools for a day in July.

The NEU claims the proposed conversion of Corpus Christi into an academy could see between five and seven percent being top-sliced from its annual budget – up to an estimated £400,000 – to fund the central services that MECMAC has to provide to the schools under its umbrella. That support would previously have been delivered by County Hall.

Ms. Yates, an English teacher and NEU rep, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that losing anything like that amount risks job losses – and jeopardises the performance that saw the school handed Ofsted’s ‘outstanding’ accolade across all four inspection categories following a visit just over 12 months ago.

“[They] couldn’t find a single point for improvement – there’s no better tribute to our leadership team, teaching staff and governing body than that,” she said.

“[The Diocese] would be better served learning from us rather than trying to impose [academisation] on us.

“If seven percent were taken out of our budget, it’s highly likely that would result in redundancies, which would obviously dilute the quality of education that we could offer, at a time when school [finances] are already squeezed.

“That’s why our entire staff body is unanimous in striking against this – we all recognise the threat that it poses to education, resources and the environment of the school.

“This is about saving our school community as we know it,” Ms. Yates added.

Academies have more flexibility than schools operating under council control – including an option to deviate from the national curriculum in some areas and to set their own admission arrangements and term times.

Lancaster Bishop Paul 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, Charlotte Yates said she would appeal to the Church “in the spirit of Catholicism” to enter into “a dialogue” over the divisive issue. She said the fact the unwanted conversion was being forced upon the school by the church whose faith it teaches “is actually quite distressing”.

She also warned that, while the decision to strike had not been taken lightly, staff were now “resolute” in their bid to block the Bishop’s blueprint for Corpus Christi.

“Our parents and our community understand how crucial this is – and I want to put on record our thanks to them, because this is a community effort.

“There’s no will amongst parents or staff for this to happen – and there’s no necessity for it to happen either,” Ms. Yates said.

Lancashire NEU branch secretary Ian Watkinson said the move to academise Corpus Christi – and the few remaining Catholic schools in the Lancaster Diocese which have not so far joined the three MATs established by the church – was unwise.

“We don’t believe [the MATs] have the capacity to support the schools in the same way as the local authority does.

“The church trust is full of good people, but they are thin on the ground – and the union is aware that some of the schools that are already part of it do not feel it’s able to support them in the way they’d like,” Mr. Watkinson claimed.

Emma Lord, the NASUWT rep at Corpus Christi said that in spite of the “leafy suburbs” in which the school is based, it has “a lot of disadvantaged pupils”.

“ We have the best outcomes for [such] pupils – we’ve proven it year after year – and we want that money to stay with the pupils, not with people with six-figure salaries in [the] centralised team in the MAT,” Ms. Lord added.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Lancaster told the LDRS its “sympathy” lay with the pupils affected by this week’s walkouts.

“It is of regret to the Diocese that the members of two teaching unions have decided to take strike action.

“Our sympathy lies first and foremost with pupils who will lose two days of education and for parents who will be inconvenienced by this action, which we consider to be unnecessary.

“It is our belief that academy trusts will guarantee high-quality Catholic education throughout the Diocese. We know this to be true from experience, because the majority of our schools in this area have already joined their Trust family and are flourishing.

“We are conscious that some unions are opposed to the creation of academies in principle, whether forced or voluntary. Nevertheless, the conversion of schools into academies is both the policy of the government and that of the Diocese of Lancaster.

“We sincerely hope that staff will reconsider their position.”

Corpus Christi headteacher John Hankin added: “Parents and carers were informed in advance that members of the National Education Union and of NASUWT were taking part in industrial action.

“Our school will open again to all pupils on Wednesday 23rd September.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Lancashire County Council said: “Decisions relating to academisation, engagement with staff and arrangements during the strike are matters for the schools, their governing bodies and the Diocese of Lancaster, not Lancashire County Council.”

As of July, 20 out of the 22 Lancaster Diocesan schools in Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre had so far joined the Lancaster Diocese’s Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic MAT, while 17 out of 23 in Preston and surrounding areas had become part of the Mater Ecclesiae Catholic MAT. Five schools in Lancaster were 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.

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.

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 trusts, were overcompensated by the grant they were given to cover the cost of the services they no longer received from the local authority. But now there are suggestions, like those being made by the NEU and NASUWT, that schools within MATs are being disadvantaged for the reverse reason.

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 Conservative and Liberal Democrat 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.