Primary School, mixed socially, ethnically, and by ability, huge parental involvement, staff turnover generally low, 85% Sats level 4 and above, some level 6....sound like a failing school?

Katherine Laweson's picture
 186
Our school, a place where children are supported no matter what their background or needs, (and some are very complex) was put in Special Measures earlier in the year and is now facing forced academy status. We have a very short time to make a decision and can get very few answers to our many questions frorm the DfE consultant. Apart from a dismal Ofsted report we are NOT a failing school.
Any suggestions/experiences welcome!
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Comments

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 17:42

Rebecca

This is total tosh – just the sort of general smear you would be prompt to condemn if it came from anyone else and Janet would denounce as ‘unreferenced’.

So, let’s fisk it from the top:

…. soon after Gove arrived the word went round that nobody who criticised him in any way was to get any work or government contracts.

What Gove actually did was end the ‘contracts for cronies’ culture entirely by insisting that all contracts worth £10,000 or more had to put out via the Cabinet Office businesslink process to formal tender - overseen by officials, not ministers and judged by objective criteria. ..... and then published under the transparency protocol.

He stated many times that he was on a mission to clear out ‘the mandarins in the DFE’

In that case you should have no problem naming just one occasion when he said any such thing. ...........

In fact, the total number of compulsory redundancies at DfE at the last count was ZERO. Voluntary redundancies were a mere 148, a tiny fraction of the 900,000 + who have lost their jobs in the public sector during the period as part of the deficit-reduction drive.

As for ‘mandarins’, there have been only four notable departures I can recall. One was Sir David Bell, the former Perm Sec. He has said publicly (and ‘on oath’, as it were, to the select committee) that he had always intended to leave within 18 months and told Gove so when he arrived. Bell left to be Vice Chancellor of Reading University. At the time he left, he was the second longest serving Perm Sec in Whitehall. (Bell’s successor is hardly a ‘yes man’.)

Other senior leavers were - Jon Coles, former director-general for standards, who went to run an academies chain (hardly a job for a Gove 'enemy'); Sue Higgins, former director-general of finance., who went to work for Eric Pickles (ditto); and Lesley Longstone, former head of infrastructure and funding, who went off to run New Zealand’s education ministry (a HUGE promotion). None of these were ‘pushed out’ by Gove.

I’ve received accounts of very able and respected people suddenly not only finding they had no work but also that their invoices for existing work went unpaid.

Are you seriously saying that DfE ministers have instructed civil servants to defraud people of legitimate earnings? If a government department fails to pay its bills, the remedies are many and obvious. I simply don’t believe you can stand this one up. Can you?

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 17:59

You don't need to get rid of many to make it clear what's going on.

Most people involved aren't actually employed at the DFE.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 18:20

Look at articles like this Ricky:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8013973/Michael-Goves...

“I am inclined to trust the common sense of the majority of mums and dads who recognise that their children want proper uniforms, strict discipline, academic subjects rigorously taught and not some of the wild and wacky theorems that have distracted some of our schools from delivering on the basics over the last 20 years.”

That's an agenda for clearing out everyone with experience in education in comprehensive schools. You can't survive on the front line unless you actually learn to work with classes of children. Simply shouting at them to shut up and listen and absorb whatever you tell them went out with the cane. And the days when we wanted a class in society who were trained only to do what they are told and not to think for themselves ended with the world wars.

It's deeply ironic that Michael Gove condemned 'wild and wacky theorems' which had been tried and tested in classrooms for decades but never, ever stopped to think that his own ideas, dreamed up night after night and based on no experience whatsoever, might be anything other than utterly brilliant.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 20:48

"Are you seriously saying that DfE ministers have instructed civil servants to defraud people of legitimate earnings? If a government department fails to pay its bills, the remedies are many and obvious. I simply don’t believe you can stand this one up. Can you?"

No I'm not saying that. I'm saying that people have suddenly found their contracts have ended and that they haven't been paid and that they only reason they've been given is that they've said things which have been perceived to be critical of this government's policy - if they've been given any reason at all.

I'm also saying that there's been a wider word around the block that this is they way to behave and that unless you proactively demonstrate your loyalty you won't get work.

Did you not notice Gove doing things like shutting down QCDA and setting up bodies full of people who he thought would tell him what he wanted to hear Ricky?

From my point of view I suddenly found that the experts I was used to discussing issues with (and finding out whether my concerns were relevant or not and if so how they could be taken on board in policy) were all gone and had been replaced with people who weren't capable of operating at this level.

There are ways of making people take voluntary redundancies Ricky and I don't see that expressing the number of people made redundant at the DFE as a fraction of the total number of people made redundant in the public sector is a coherent thing to do.

148 people made redundant is quite a lot when the actual number of employees has grown.

agov's picture
Tue, 02/10/2012 - 10:18

Ah, Serco.

"Serco Learning has a dedicated Academies and Free Schools team that has developed strong and expanding partnerships with leading groups such as ARK Schools, Harris Federation and Oasis Community Learning."


So does it make more money by

a) Inspecting schools for Ofsted

OR

b) Inspecting schools for Ofsted AND those schools being part of Academy chains with which it has 'developed strong and expanding partnerships'

agov's picture
Tue, 02/10/2012 - 10:22

Not to mention the interesting factors of Gove, trashing school meal nutritional standards, Domino's Pizza, the chair of Gove's constituency party, donations to Gove's constituency party.

Nothing in any way illegal naturally.

Katherine Laweson's picture
Tue, 02/10/2012 - 16:41

"Ricky"- if you re-read my headline you will see that it includes far more than SATs results- of course results are important- but I also talk about diversity and inclusion, parental engagement, staff commitment...none of which are really recognised by Ofsted and certainly not by the big academy sponsors- who allow 1 parent and one member of teaching + one member of non-teaching staff onto the governing board.

I can only reiterate that my experience of the school has not been what Ofsted would suggest- I have always felt I was part of a team in the education of my children, always known how they are doing academically, socially, have had my children stretched by homework and projects done in class, know they and other children have been encouraged to contribute to lessons and identify those who don't- there are lots of resources in the school to help these children and I would say we have kept and nurtured children who may have been "written off" ion many other schools. From my experience of helping in classes teachers and TAs alike are committed and focussed on the needs of the children and I simply do not recognise this description.

I think it is quite bold of you to feel able comment on a school that you are not involved in- I would not feel equipped to do this based on a few written notes from a 2-day observation. I'm sure the "other team" (who is that? I assume you mean people who want the best for their kids and teachers...oh, that's me then!) appreciate your cheers. Maybe they even know who you are....

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 08:58

Katharine

If it were just one, possibly 'rogue' Ofsted report, then I would be extremely sympathetic to your case.

However, having read three Ofsted reports in which the same problems crop up time and again without the school taking the trouble to correct them, I feel Ofsted are right to take tough action. Why have the problems not been addressed over a prolonged period of years? The LA has, according to the latest report, had the good grace to acknowledge it was asleep at the wheel. Perhaps others should too?

I have also looked at the other data available. It is clear that substantial numbers of pupils at Salusbury have been failing to make the expected levels of progress. This is particularly the case among the more disadvantaged pupils. I think there is a real danger that articulate, middle-class parents whose children are doing well at the school are championing a system that is failing the more vulnerable and disadvantaged.

As for diversity and the other things you mention - well lots of other schools are like that too in inner city areas. If you took the time to follow this link, you would find a school in a challenging area that doing right the things that Salusbury is doing wrong.

Whereas Salusbury's Value Added score is negative, Vauxhall's is positive.

Where Salusbury manages to get only 46% of its disadvantaged (FSM) pupils to level 4, Vauxhall gets 100%. Yes, 100% for the DISADVANTAGED. Every single one of its pupils, irrespective of background, makes the expected level of progress in English and Maths.

This isn't because the school has any social advantage to start. It is more challenged than Salusbury. Vauxhall has 53.6% eligible for FSM (Salusbury only 20.1%). Vauxhall has 70.4% with English as a second language (Salusbury 36.9%). Vauxhall has 21.4% SEN/SAP (Salusbury only 10.9%).

On every measure of social and economic disadvantage, Vauxhall is more challenged. Yet the kids there progress so much better. The councils are similar (Lambeth/Brent). Both are community schools.

In the end it comes down to the will to fix things that have been found problematic in the past. Vauxhall has fixed them. Salusbury did not. Why not? Perhaps because there was an unhealthy number of complacent middle-class cheerleaders whose kids were not affected by the school's shortcomings.

http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=10...

Nicki's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 10:54

Here's an example of low expectations of pupils. My daughter has trouble with the difference between there, they're and their and had made a bookmark about protecting animals which she entitled: "There in danger of becoming extinct" Not only did the teacher not correct the spelling, she actually laminated the bookmark, which I still have. And my daughter, not in secondary school and actually doing extremely well in English and maths, still does not know the difference between they're and there.
We must have higher expectations of pupils.

Allan Beavis's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 11:18

Nicki -

I agree that we must have high expectations of ALL pupils. This is down to excellent leadership and governance. Academies do not have the magic wand, despite the much flaunted success of some Academies. Mossbourne it seems were prejudiced against a number of children with special educational needs and has lost a legal challenge over its refusal to admit a number of them. The DfE's own satistics show that Academies do not outperform maintained schools by any measure http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/06/dfe-confirms-lsn-analysis-...

It would be helpful if you would provide some evidence that Academy status - rather than leadership - provides the magic bullet.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 01/10/2012 - 21:10

"And my daughter, not in secondary school and actually doing extremely well in English and maths, still does not know the difference between they’re and there.
We must have higher expectations of pupils."

Make here do this: http://www.better-english.com/easier/theyre.htm
Then show her her bookmark and have a laugh about the fact that she was once little.
Keep it as a souvenir. Give it to her when she graduates. She'll be made up.

She'll stop making childish mistakes soon enough. Has she just started secondary school? They grow up so fast in this next year. I really hope it goes well for her.

"We must have higher expectations of pupils."
Teachers do this with children's work, even if it not perfect, because it's matters to the children that what they do is cherished and valued some of the time.

We should have high expectations of pupils but this should not be translated into our being always critical of them. It's important to focus also on giving them role models they feel they can aspire to be like, giving the opportunities which are the right ladders for them to climb, being there for them, teaching them how to cope when thing go wrong, how to be independent and resourceful, how to work cooperatively and making sure they always have the self confidence to try in a system where they will often face failure.

Salusbury Parent's picture
Tue, 02/10/2012 - 21:36

I’m not involved with the school and I’m cheering for the other team.

I find that comment so distasteful. You're not involved with the school, you know absolutely nothing about it except what you can download from Ofsted reports, and you set yourself up as someone who can tell me what is best for our kids at our school.

There is no "other team" among Salusbury parents - all are sickened by the bullying we are experiencing.

You're a troll, Ricky Tarr, and I shan't feed you again. If you had any self-respect you'd stay away from this thread from now on.

and you have

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 09:08

I refer you to my comment at 03/10/12 at 8:58 am.

What I find distasteful (apart from your aggressive bad manners) is the sickening way that complacent middle-class parents so often are willing to sacrifice the futures of their disadvantaged neighbours just so they can feel good about themselves, even morally superior to the rest of the human race, by being part of some fashionable right-on campaign.

Yes, I'm cheering for those - whether in government, Ofsted or in the general community - who are determined to make our schools better for kids of all backgrounds.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 12:55

Salusbury Parent,

I've never thought Ricky Tarr is a troll. He seems sincere to me.

Before I was a teacher I worked as a business analyst in London and learned for myself about the culture of 'bright young things' who can analyse anything but understand nothing. For people like me who think about the wider consequences of what I'm doing it's a horrible culture. People think only in a very narrow way and about short term gain for themselves and their employer. But there are quite a lot of people inside it who have actually love being there because don't have the ability to think any further than that and think that that's actually the right way to think. They tend to promote each other and talk only to each other and aggressively straw-man and attack anybody who thinks things should be otherwise.

This book gives a great analysis of this kind of culture and how it created the financial crash:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Masters-Nothing-happen-unless-understand/dp/1849...

Like it or not Salusbury parent this is what we have at the heart of Westminster and at the heart of education policy. The people who are there are not deliberately trying to wind people up - they are just profoundly ignorant about people, organisations and society and are equally profoundly unaware or their own lack or ability - or that to most of society the kind of personal attributes the call 'right wing ideology' such as believing that society will be better if we punish 'the baddies' harder and more often or if we get rid of established wisdom and authority are better know as 'extreme emotional immaturity' or 'vandalism'.

It's up to you whether you want to change that or not. If you do they you need to get involved in mainstream politics. Join a party. Kick up a fuss. Scrutinise who's being appointed into key positions and the policies they are promoting.

It's always tempting to blame those who are involved in politics and to hate them but this is our country, our society and our responsibility. You can either do something about it or you can carry on name calling, which will not get you or anyone else anywhere. All it will do is degrade your own credibility.

Katherine Laweson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 09:56

"Ricky", why do you think we are middle class? Not sure what in my post leads you to make that assumption...If you knew me, and most of the other parents at the school, you would know that I/we are absloutely committed to NOT sacrificing our "disadvantaged neighbours" and I certainly don't do this to make myself feel or appear "superior". (I'm not sure I could achieve that even if I wanted to!)
We are all determined to make our school better but may disagree on how that can be best achieved. Isn't the academy route the fashionable, right-on campaign nowadays?
One of the great things that happens, that you wouldn't know about, is the astonishing levels of support and help for some of the most "disadvantaged"- children who have been excluded from other schools but are welcomed into ours as people deserving of a chance to work through their problems and come out the other side- and I have seen that on many occasions. So please don't start throwing wild accusations around about what we are or are not- you only read the reports, which tell a part but not all of the story.you don't know the school.

Mariuspodolski's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 12:04

What is distasteful and bad manners is your continuing to use this site, under cover of a pseudonym, to spread government propaganda and discredit people who question Gove's policies. Sock puppetry trolling is about the worst kind of internet pond life and that is from where you spew up your regurgitated crap.


Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 10:15

Fair enough, Katherine... I can't know whether you are middle-class. I can only make a shrewd guess based on past experience.

But once again, you dodge the issue.

If I were the head or one of the governors of a school that got a bad Ofsted report pointing to teachers teaching kids the wrong sounds in phonics class, then I'd make damn sure that all phonics teachers got refresher training within a fortnight of the report's arrival. I certainly wouldn't let the matter drift such that the wrong sounds were still being taught when Ofsted came back for a follow-up inspection.

The same goes for all the other specifics Ofsted pointed to.

If the garage guy tells you your brake pads are worn out, you change them. You don't wait 'til you either crash or fail an MoT.

Nor have you even begun to acknowledge the question why other community schools - like the one in Vauxhall I cited - are doing so much better in much more challenging circumstances.

I deliberately cited Vauxhall because it too is a community school, proving that the academy route is not being held out as some 'magic bullet'.

Ofsted has been very detailed and specific in its criticisms. Why do you blame them when their suggestions are ignored and the problems they identify are allowed to persist without even an attempt at remedy?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 12:17

Quite a few people who regularly post on this site use pseudonyms or shortenings of their full name.

Agov, I'm guessing is something else on the dotted line. Sarah, Nicki and so on cannot be identified either.

If you don't like Ricky Tarr, just call me Rick. That's my name.

You see, some of us aren't such self-publicists as you are Marius, with not just your name but your picture on every social media site going. What are you selling? Yourself?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:11

Or..... on second thoughts, given that the real Marius is a theatre director living in Oslo, whose interests, though wide, ranging from exotic fish to Georgian Ballet, appear not to include the politics of English education, should I really be addressing myself to the person who frequently posts here, presumably pseudonomously, under the name of the failed theatrical agent "Allan Beavis"?


Katherine Laweson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:38

Ricky, I'm not dodging any issues and as you accept you don't know the school you can't know anything about the huge changes that have gone on in the last few months. I just think you can't assume that an Ofsted report tells you everything about a school- just like a shiny website can tell you enverything about an academy group!
I wonder what your past experience is that makes you think everyone who believes there are other ways of improving schools than going down the academy route must be middle class and self-serving. I have read the Ofsted report many times and am aware of the criticisms, thank you. It is a shame there was not more made of hte very many positive aspects of the school.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 21:17

"If the garage guy tells you your brake pads are worn out, you change them. You don’t wait ’til you either crash or fail an MoT."

Oh here's the chestnut which came through while I was waiting for the fifth linked diagnosis on my car's brakes this 'summer', with each of the previous fixed seeming to have triggered another problem.

Do you really have so little life experience that you think sorting out literacy at a school with many challenges to face in a nightmare policy environment of ludicrous interventions and mismanagement from all sorts of external sources is as easy as getting your brake pads changed or that your analogy is in any way appropriate Ricky?

I know you are against people having masters level education but FFS.

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 03:33

Thank you for the link Rebecca. However, I believe in some cases teachers are too quick to praise and not fast enough to correct. If I explain it this way: when banks start printing money, the amount of money in the economy goes up, and the value of that currency is devalued because there's too much of it and it has been obtained too easily.
In the same way, if teachers praise children for any old bit of work, children start to value the praise less because it is so easily got.
In my younger daughter's primary class chldren get a sticker just for sitting quietly on the mat. They don't value those stickers because they know they can just get them for anything.
I believe in correcting children, and not patronising them.

agov's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 08:19

The school however appears to believe in improvement if the Ofsted reports are to be believed. Certainly Ofsted does say that improvement has not occurred quickly enough in the six months allowed but it also confesses that, due to a reorganisation, the local authority did not provide the proper level of support for a school in the circumstances. Have you actually read the report?


Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 08:28

Nicki -

Again you have described good teaching supported by excellent senior leadership made easier by coherent government policy. Since Education policy at the moment is divisive and chaotic, the government is making it more difficult for teachers to teach well. We would still be interested to know why you think that a change to Academy status is going to automatically improve schools.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 08:31

I'm not suggesting teachers praise children for all their work Nicki.

However I don't think you're seeing the difference between adults working one-to-one one-to-thirty. If this teacher was laminating everyone's bookmarks her deliberately leaving your daughter's out because it had a spelling mistake on has a much larger level of criticism associate with it and if she's working one-to-one. It also sets a precedent that every child who made a spelling mistake would not get their bookmark laminated and there would be some children in the mix who were not so near to getting it completely right as your daughter and who really did need some positive feedback.

It's just not the case that teachers can check every bit of every child's work.

Nicki if it's any consolation I had nearly a year out of first school when the caretaker's strike was on and we just got worksheets from a church hall twice a week. Then I had another year and a bit being taught out of school because our first school had been torched. Then I had a year in a sink school where I really didn't learn anything except a few songs. It's not ideal but if your daughter enjoys school and is happy and motivated she will get past much worse things than the bookmark incident.

My nieces have just finished at a big primary in London where their education has been significantly less than perfect. But I'm really glad that their friends have been Congolese and Albanian refugees and that they've seen London life as it is. I wouldn't want them to have been kept apart from it. They've learned a great deal that matters. Their teachers have struggled because of all the language and social issues. But they've still been good teachers.

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 12:54

Rebecca, if it's any consolation, I went to a primary school in Oxfordshire run by George Baines where children were allowed to do whatever they liked ... which for most of them meant as little as possible.
And I am not even going to comment on your patronising: "I am really glad that their friends have been Congolese and Albanian refugees" FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!!

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:06

Er - up Nicki. You seem to have extreme issues with the values your parents held and believe absolutely the opposite to them.

I've genuinely loved getting to know my nieces friends and have been glad of the opportunities to meet all sorts of people in London who I would not otherwise have met, just as I'm very grateful I saw society as it was in the 1980s myself. I like meeting interesting people.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:30

Rebecca

There you go again with your 'soft bigotry of low expectations'.

Just because someone is from the DRC or Albania doesn't mean they should expect an education 'significantly less than perfect'. What you call the 'language and social issues' are challenges, not excuses.

The school in Vauxhall I've cited above has all the challenges a vengeful and angry god could throw at it, but it delivers for the kids.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:48

Where you have many languages being spoken, mobile populations and all the social issues associated with refugees education is rarely as organised and coherent as it would be if these issues did not exist.

I'm not making excuses or supporting low expectations. I'm just talking about reality.

Was the school in Vauxhall a seriously failing primary which because a huge success overnight because Michael Gove waved his 'academies' wand at it or put it into special measures Ricky?

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:13

Allan, since you keep asking, here is why I support my local primary school being transformed into an Academy:
The school, once a popular school, has in recent years been failing, in particular, failing the poorest students.
Local Authorities have proved themselves to be consistently bad at running schools.
Education in England is still far too weak an engine for social mobility.Change needs to come because the current system is failing too many children, particularly the poorer ones.
I absolutely support Mossbourne Academy's right to exclude children, because one disruptive child can so easily ruin the education of many.
Academies enjoy greater autonomy and therefore have much more institutional self-confidence.
If I am going to put my child in a school, I hope to have every confidence in the headteacher and every confidence that he or she is able to appoint suitable governors, rather than the bizarre system in place at the moment, as I described above.
Under the old system, headteachers and governing bodies are subservient to local councillors and council bureaucracies. Who wants these people running schools? Not me, certainly.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:53

In other words you're spouting Govian garbage.

I accept your points below though. I was just trying to guess why balance, pragmatism and reality don't seem to be part of your thinking but the above point would also explain it.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 14:34

Correct in every particular (except the bit about heads appointing governors, which is arsy versy). Otherwise, spot on.


Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 15:02

Nicki -

Academies do not enjoy greater autonomy - they are entirely beholden to the Secretary for Education and there is no middle tier of local supervision and you as a parent have even less say over how a school is run or if you feel that you or your child has been treated unfairly, over admissions procedures for example. Essentially, power has become centralised - with no local accountability, the whole community loses out, particularly the more vulnerable.

On the one hand you express concern that the present system is failing poorer children but you don't appear to give a damn about children with special needs. Your comments confusing "disruptive" with "special education needs" is extremely revealiing about attitudes which make a distinction between the deserving vulnerable and the undeserving vulnerable. This creates an environment whereby the more sharp elbowed are able to dictate the type of education they want their own offspring or their own sort and the rest - the "disruptive" and the "SENs" can rot elsewhere so long as the minority of more able students can benefit from a system which pretends to include the more needy but in actual fact excludes them.

It is bizarre that you under the impression that head teachers appoint governors. You spoke of democracy, but it is not democratic for headteachers to appoint governors, nor is it democratic when central government imposes Academy status and govenors from the Academy chain onto the governing body.

It is a myth that teachers and governors are subservient to local councillors (I think you surely mean the local authority?). The LA is there to support all schools within its stewardship. I would rather LAs supervised local education, but then I genuinely believe that excellent education should be achievable for ALL people regardless of ability or background. Your centralised, exclusive model benefits the most vocal and selfish

Katherine Laweson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 15:43

Nicki, there have been so many changes in education that EVERYONE is struggling to keep up.
Would you support and academy's right to exclude YOUR child if they were deemed "disruptive"? What do you think should happen to those children who by being excluded from school are on the road to being excluded by society..
What about academies who only allow one parent onto their governing body? Where do you think we will have any say in what goes on there? There are no simple solutions and academy status is not a magic wand.

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:15

Actually Rebecca, my mother hated George Baines's school and got me out of there as quickly as she could. She grew up on a council estate and when to Grammar school, which changed her life.
Don't make assumptions about people, when you don't have all the evidence before you.

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 13:16

*went


Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 14:06

Rebecca, I came to primary school straight from Africa, although I am not African, I am British. I expects the parents there were "really glad" to have me sitting alongside their children, to help them expand their horizons!
I am not a particular fan of Michael Gove, I just want a better education for all chlldren in this country and for our expectations of them to be raised.
The education in my school in Africa was excellent by the way. We could learn a lot about education from Africa.
Funnily enough, at my older daughter's secondary school, the pupils were raising money for a school in the Caribbean and I said to her: "Do you realise that those children are probably getting a better education than you?"
In the old days, people used to send their children from the Caribbean to Britain to get a better education. Now Caribbean people are sending their children from Britain to the Carribean to get a better education.
The UK seriously needs to up its game.

Adrian Elliott's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 14:11

'Under the old system, headteachers and governing bodies are subservient to local councillors and council bureaucracies'.

Absolute, ill-informed drivel. I was a headteacher for eighteen years by the way.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 14:28

You were at a VA school, Adrian, where the relationships are different.

Any progress on sourcing that 'urban myth' on Cameron, by the way?

Adrian Elliott's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 14:40

I know what my colleagues thought (and still think). The 'urban myth' is sourced on the appropriate page.


Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 15:04

Just to let you know, my daughter has today just returned from her community secondary school:

Me: did you get any homework today?

Her: No

She is supposed to get an hour a day. ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

Katherine Laweson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 15:45

When my son came home from Primary school complaining that he didn't get as much homework as his sister at secondary (long may THAT last!) we gave him some extra homework! Have a chat with her about work she is already doing and see if you can expand her thoughts...it's all learning!


Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 17:34

My daughter does have a child who has autism in her class. He is very bright and is therefore in the top sets for English and maths. How nice, I thought at the beginning of term. Now my heart sinks every time I hear his name as he continually disrupts the class and prevents the other children from learning. He has a support worker with him, but she is not always there. His parents are very wealthy and have sent their children to the local girls' school which is very over-subscribed and their son to us, which is a school with a less well-off demographic.
In one incident, he told the teacher that she was "boring him" so she sent him out. The children told him "But he's autistic Miss," and she said, "I don't care if he is autistic, he is not going to talk to me like that."
I wish these parents would send him to a private school, because there are a lot of very poor children in my daughter's class who need their education and they only get one chance at it.
Yes, I fully support Mossbourne Academy's absolute to exclude a disruptive child who is preventing other children from getting on with their education.

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 21:20

Can you give us some examples of where Mossbourne have excluded "disruptive" children? I had no idea they were so open about it. Can you provide a link?

So are you saying that the reason you support Academies is that they can discriminate against students you don't wish to see have equal access to a good education? Maintained schools have to abide by legislation. What about the absolute rights of vulnerable children? It will be interesting to see what the outcome of the legal challenge to Mossbourne's alleged discrimination will be. If you replace "SEN child" with "black child", does the discrimination become more or less palatable?

Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 17:36

*absolute right


Rebecca Hanson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 20:33

Nicki Mossbourne is repeatedly used as a stick to beat other schools with.

It has:
1) Awesome buildings
2) About 60% more staff than normal schools
3) Vastly more money than normal schools
4) Lots of highly motivated immigrant families who may be on free schools meals but are highly educated and ambitious for their children
5) The ability to cherry pick the very best teachers from across London - for example the ability demand that a mainscale maths teacher must already have proven high attainment records at KS3, 4 and 5.
6) The ability to cherry pick the very best students form across London for it's sixth form through its elite rowing program.

Mossbourne, unsurprisingly, has very high attainment levels. I'm not surprised you would like to send your daughter there. I'm sure she would thrive.

If you want to believe that the reasons most schools don't achieve the same standards as Mossbourne is because they need to be put into special measures and forced to become academies and that all their staff are stupid and lazy and deserve a kicking and/or that there are magic wand solutions then read the Tory press - not a discussion forum where people who actually understand education hang out.

By the way - when the children with language difficulties, emotional difficulties and issues due to their disrupted education interrupt my children's education I don't wish they would disappear. And when, as a teacher, the other children in their class filled me in on what worked for those children (which they often knew - because they were with them for all subjects and I was only with them for one) I listened. That's how we turned such situations around - again and again and again. Everybody works together, everybody learns together. It's a key reason why comprehensive school children generally have good skills for getting along with everyone in society - because they've learned them.

My children's school has lots of children with autism. At mum's (and teachers and teaching assistants) book club we read 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' together and talked about all the issues. It was great - I learned so much.

Katherine Laweson's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 20:47

I couldn't agree more Rachel! A huge amount of a child's "education" is in how to negotiate difficult situatioms- whether you are the person in the difficult situation or the person observing it. Academic achievemnent is only part of the story...at our school the kids who have the extra help just need someone to help them and tha';s that- not an issue. Isn't this David Cameron's Big Society in embryonic form?


Nicki's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 21:45

Katherine, what I want to know is why the parents of the child with SEN because of his autism don't send their daughter to the school as well. I will tell you why, because the Girls' School as people round here call it obtains a pass rate of 80 per cent (GCSEs A-C including English and maths) while my daughter's school obtains a pass rate of 51 per cent. She couldn't get into the Girls' school because we don't live in one of the half a million pound houses around that catchment area. What is actually happening is SEN children are predominantly being put in low achievement, low income-family based schools. I feel these children should be put in private schools and grammar schools as well as community comprehensives.
The idea that my daughter is somehow "learning" something by being put in a class where a boy is able to disrupt her education is the sort of nonsense being spoken in schools which I am opposed to.
What Mossbourne is doing is providing excellence in education for poor children, something the comprehensive system in this country has so far failed to do.

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 03/10/2012 - 22:24

Academies do not outperform maintained schools especially in areas of high deprivation and in London. The DFE stats show this. So where is your evidence that "comprehensives" have failed poor children? There are failing Academies just as there are outstanding maintained schools. And please provide evidence that SEN children are being placed in schools with high FSM students, which you automatically equate with low achievement. No wonder a few Academies do well if Gove's new world makes ot easier for them to reject or exclude students that would drag down their results.

You talk of nonsense, but can you explain what is rational about your statement that autistic children be placed in community comprehensives, private schools or grammar schools? So that would be anywhere where your own children don't have to mix with them? This is surely proof that Academies pander to the fears and prejudices of parents and encourage division and a two tier system? Parental choice is widened but only at the cost of excluding the less vocal, less sharp elbowed and the most needy.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Thu, 04/10/2012 - 11:16

I don't think state schools should be partially segregated by sex. It seems to have lots of counterproductive consequences. If you're going to segregate you should segregate completely.


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