A wave of resistance by parents against their schools being taken over by academy trusts is building across the country, with protests in Essex, Kent, London, West Yorkshire, East Sussex, Dorset, Hertfordshire and beyond, according to campaigners.

This week there were two big protests by parents and teachers: one at Waltham Holy Cross primary school in Waltham Abbey, Essex, last Sunday; and on Wednesday strikes and protests closed three schools in Peacehaven, near Brighton in East Sussex.

Campaigners say there has been a shift in parents’ attitudes, with many now better informed about academisation and more willing to challenge decisions to take their community schools out of local authority control and hand them to private trusts.

Quick Guide Academisation of schools Show What is academisation? Academisation is when a state school in England is taken out of direct local authority oversight and becomes an academy overseen by a multi-academy trust. According to the Department for Education (DfE), more than 50% of children in state-funded schools are taught in an academy or in one of the government’s free schools. The majority of secondary schools are now academies, but the majority of primary schools are still maintained by local authorities. Are schools forced to become academies? Underperforming schools can be forced to become academies. If a school is classed as inadequate by Ofsted, an order is issued by the DfE. Previously it could also be triggered by poor performances in exams but that condition has been dropped by the education secretary, Damian Hinds. Schools that are rated good or better by Ofsted can elect to become academies if they feel it is in the best interests of the school and its pupils. What happens to a school when it becomes an academy? The school’s legal relationship becomes a contract between the trust that manages it and the DfE, cutting ties with local authorities. The school’s land and buildings are in effect leased to the trust. In most cases of forced academisation the school’s existing leadership is dismissed. The school’s governors lose their legal responsibilities, which are taken over by the trust, and there is no requirement for trusts to consult with parents. Often the school is renamed and a new uniform adopted. The trust retains a proportion of the school’s funding for its administration and executive costs. Is it government policy for all schools to become academies? No. The government was forced to abandon its plans to compel all schools in England to become academies after protests from many Conservative councils, which were opposed to forcing high-performing schools in their areas to convert. Under its original proposal, all schools were required to convert to academy status, or have plans to do so, by 2022. That was scrapped in 2016 by the then education secretary, Justine Greening, who said: “Our ambition remains that all schools should benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings. Our focus, however, is on building capacity in the system and encouraging schools to convert voluntarily.”

In addition, a Panorama exposé has raised awareness about the issue, and recent victories by parents fighting academy takeovers in Newham, Lewes and Redbridge, among others, have changed the narrative.

“Parents are beginning to realise and be angered by the democratic deficit integral to academisation,” said Simon O’Hara, a spokesman for the Anti Academies Alliance.

Among those currently campaigning against academisation are a group of parents at Paddock Wood and Horsmonden primary schools in Kent, who have set up a petition demanding a binding vote on plans to hand their schools to the Leigh Academies Trust.

Charles Marshall, who has two sons at Paddock Wood, said he felt “betrayed and let down” by the process. The first parents had heard of possible academisation was a letter in early December that said a review was under way.

Charles Marshall at Paddock Wood primary school in Kent with his sons James, seven, and Richard, five. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

On 18 December, the trust put out a press release with the headline “Paddock Wood and Horsmonden primary schools choose Leigh”, which announced the two primaries would become academies in the trust, “subject to due diligence”.

“As far as we were concerned it was a review of the school and a consideration of various options. And yet here it was – a done deal,” said Marshall.

Governors sent a letter to parents this week confirming that an academy order was issued in March but there were still outstanding issues. “It does not mean we have to convert or that a final decision has been made by the governing body,” the letter said.

Marshall said: “All we are asking of the governors is that they allow all parents and carers – those who support the governors’ proposal as well as those who disagree – a binding vote on this proposal to academise our local school.”

He went on: “What is most upsetting is that a local asset, a school that has been in the community for 110 years, is to be transferred to remote private control, to a group of unelected trustees, unaccountable to anyone except the secretary of state for education.”

In Hertfordshire, meanwhile, a group of parents at Woodside primary school in Goffs Oak have launched a legal challenge to plans to make the school an academy under the Ivy Learning Trust, amid concerns about the way the consultation was conducted. The school has since agreed to reopen the consultation for a further two weeks.

“There’s no good reason to do it,” said Tina Graham, who has two children, one of whom is in the school nursery and due to start reception in September. “We are judged a good school by Ofsted. We are not in deficit.”

Elsewhere, a group of parents at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic primary school in Redbridge, north-east London, are challenging plans for their school to become an academy and join a Catholic multi-academy trust.

According to one of the campaigners, Vicky Taylor, the decision has been made by the Catholic leadership in the diocese of Brentwood, which wants all Catholic schools in the area to become academies. Parents had been “completely frozen out”, she said.

“We want genuine dialogue and open consultation, and we want to be taken into account,” said Taylor. “We are major stakeholders. Our children can’t speak up. We have to speak up for them. It affects the future of the school and the local community.” The diocese was contacted for comment.

Last month parents at Budmouth College in Weymouth, Dorset, protested against their secondary school becoming an academy; there have been protests at Mackie Hill primary in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and a long-running battle against academisation continues at John Roan school in Greenwich, south-east London.

Teachers at John Roan will strike on Tuesday 14 May and lobby the Department for Education (DfE). While some families oppose the action, others are supportive, including Kes Grant, a Church of England priest who has three grandsons at the school. “When my grandchildren go on to have their own children who are able to attend a local Greenwich school, then I know that I will have made a difference.”

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “Despite the academy programme supposedly being about choice, parents now realise they actually have no say whatsoever in who runs their schools.

“This has led to a great deal of anger resulting in an increased amount of parent-led campaigns against forced academisation. Parents now fully understand that there is no hard evidence that shows putting a school into a multi-academy trust (MAT) will lead to improvements. Many parents are also concerned about the ethos of many MATs.”

Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, said: “Too often parents are finding they are shut out of decisions affecting their children, their schools and their communities by unaccountable multi-academy trusts and Tory ministers in Whitehall.

“The Tories told us that their school reforms would put power in the hands of parents and communities. As so many parents have found out, they have failed to deliver on those promises.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Each year hundreds of schools make the positive choice to convert to academy status – giving great teachers the freedom to focus on what is best for pupils, as well as more autonomy.

“There are more than half a million children studying in sponsored primary and secondary academies that are now rated good or outstanding, with standards rising faster in many sponsored academies than in similar council-run schools.”