Commenting on the passing of Motion 37 at NEU Annual Conference in Brighton, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"The NEU is opposed to forced academisation and any plans to further academise the sector.
"The marketisation and privatisation of schools through academisation is a costly and hugely disruptive policy that the system can ill afford. Schools are already running on empty.
"Further academisation is also not the answer to drive school improvement and collaboration. It risks the opposite: more competition and more fragmentation. The Government must preserve and strengthen maintained schools as a core part of our education system. They must also learn from, and champion, the many successful partnerships that local-authority schools are a part of that support schools to learn from each other and drive a self-improving system."