The on-line brochure for IES Breckland used to say the free school “is recognised by all as the outstanding local secondary school.”
No longer. The Advertising Standards Authority (
ASA) objected to the use of the word “outstanding” which implies the school had been judged by Ofsted to be in the Outstanding category. IES Breckland has not yet been inspected.
The brochure has now been
changed to “It is recognised by all as the academic local secondary school.”
The Cambridge Meridian Trust (CMAT) has also been
censured for using “outstanding” in a press advertisement for the proposed Stamford Free School. CMAT also claimed it ran “one of the highest achieving schools in the country”. Although this claim could be upheld by evidence from Ofsted’s RaiseOnline entry which put the CMAT academy, Swavesey Village College, in the top 10% of all schools for performance in their best 8 subjects, the academy was not one of the “highest-achieving” when judged solely on GCSE results. CMAT acknowledged the claim might confuse readers.
It’s not the first time the ASA has censured a school for using “Outstanding” when it shouldn’t. The
Seckford Foundation Free Schools Trust had two complaints upheld about marketing on a third-party website in 2012. Beccles Free School, which is a Seckford Foundation school, used the word “outstanding” in its marketing before it had even opened.
In a ruling dated October 2013, the ASA censured the
United Church Schools Trust for misleading readers by using “outstanding” in adverts for Sunderland High School, an independent school in Tyne and Wear. The United Church Schools Trust is part of United Learning (
ULT) which operates a chain of private schools and academies. Schools minister, Lord Nash, sent a
pre-warning letter to ULT about Sheffield Springs Academy in November 2013. Lord Nash said he was “convinced that there has been a serious breakdown in the way that the Academies are managed and governed”*. ULT was temporarily banned from taking on more academies by the Labour government because of poor performance.
Michael Gove lifted the veto when he became Education Secretary and praised ULT for “doing an amazing job on the ground.” It appears the Trust is so amazing it doesn’t know when it’s not entitled to use the word “outstanding”.
The proposed Phoenix Free School in Oldham has also been
censured by ASA. Its website said its educational adviser, Tom Burkard, was “Professor of Educational Policy at Derby University”. But Burkard was not employed by Derby University. He’s a “Visiting Professor” and holds
no formal post there. The school’s website has now been
amended.
*Lord Nash’s letter referred only to one academy. But the quote refers to “academies”. It’s unclear whether Lord Nash meant other ULT academies or whether “academies” was a typo.
Comments
Does this make sense? Are there other local secondary schools which are not academic? Or is this school the only local secondary school in which case it's a strange claim.
Perhaps the ASA should look at that claim.
Several other local secondary schools. Unfortunately, if parents wish to send their children elsewhere they have to fund the transport costs (just under £200 per term). In an area such as this, not many parents can afford this, and frankly, why should they have to pay? They were promised an outstanding school with world-class teachers....not what's being delivered. Glad to see ASA on the case. Now could someone proof-read the IES web-site and policies? Lol!
Actually IES Breckland was inspected over 5 weeks ago. The eagerly-anticipated Ofsted report is stuck in limbo and yet to be published. Conspiracy theories abound.
This situation is dire; a whole cohort of pupils being let down by IES and Sabres Educational Trust (who no longer appear to have a web-site and cannot be contacted!). Behaviour is shocking in lots of lessons (reported by my child), no continuity in teaching, recent interim head fobbing off requests to contact parents. And just where IS that Ofsted report? More to the point, if it is graded 3 or 4 (and heaven only knows how it could possibly be anything other than that) who will be responsible for supporting them to improve....presumably not the LEA as they are a Free School. This is a prime example of the glaringly obvious failings of Mr Gove's Free School policy and an even worse advertisement for involving Swedish-based providers to run an English school. By the looks of it they couldn't organise the proverbial knees-up in a brewery. Shame on all those involved.
No acknowledgement from Gove, of course. He just continues to knock local authorities and do his utmost to get schools away from LA "control".
Thanks for that. My next question is: who funds that LA support then? Free schools are directly funded, they do not come under the LA remit. Does this mean that some funding paid to LA for LA schools is used for the free school? In effect, that would mean they are getting two lots of funding? Or maybe the free school would "buy in " LA support. Just another example of how totally stupid this arrangement is. I can't see how anyone (least of all the pupils) benefit from this. Don't even get me started on the other Gove policies! Time for Mr G and his policies to go!
Your question about funding the school improvement is an important one. The LA may feel it has a moral duty to help out - it may wish to do so. But it's not receiving funding from the DfE to do this.
As I understand it , maintained schools purchase a set number of days via a service level agreement for the school improvement team. LA provision would not be my first choice for consultancy as they can tend to lack a strategic approach and tend to concentrate on asking for action plans and discrete piecemeal advice rather than robust strategic development plan definition , management development and leader support.
While not disagreeing with your experience Dave it's a bit sweeping to describe LA support in the way you do. Why would consultancy from LA advisory teams have that negative characteristic when other consultancy doesn't?
I accept that not all LA's may have been the same.
Expect the OFSTED report for IES to be published very soon on the back of that.
Shameful to delay ths report 6 weeks for political damage limitation whilst our childrens education is being ignored.
http://engelska.se/en/posts/internationella-engelska-skolan-expanding-fu...
Did you know the principal received £86,710 in 2013? That's what it says in Sabres Educational Trust accounts (see page 37).
http://sabrestrust.com/documents/2013%20Signed%20financial%20statements.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/10665313/Free-sc...
However, I've done it and was able to leave some comments (see Elkins).
I was quite a long way into the article before I got to 'at the last count there were 350 council-run schools judged inadequate by Ofsted'. Ah, the good old days of Empire, endless summer, servants who knew their place and councils running schools.
… http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2014/02/asa-censures-ies-breckland... …
Nelson's written another article in the Spectator re IES Breckland complete with picture of two IES "alumni": two very attractive young girls in fields of flowers. Apparently, this is supposed to show the excellence of the IES chain.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/free-schools-will-stumb...
http://www.sabrestrust.com/
The list of governors is also different to those published on the Schools website!
Very helpful.
The former headteacher's annual salary was £86,710. Not sure if this is excessive for a teacher with no relevant experience in a fairly small school?
SCOFS' submission mentions IES Breckland. It also mentions the chaos caused to Suffolk's school transport by the Suffolk free schools, gives concerns about lack of transparency, costs, misleading advertising, and the difficulty in providing a full range of curriculum subjects when the secondary sector comprises a larger number of small secondaries instead of a fewer number of large secondaries (that last concern was shared by David Wolfe QC in his submission).
It appears it wasn't just IES Breckland which lost its head since opening. SCOFS said "The original head teacher recruited for Saxmundham pulled out immediately and a replacement wasn’t recruited until a year after opening".
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/ies_breckland_free_school_rated_as...
Will there be more Ch4 News exposes of Free Schools?
"Special Measures"
http://www.everythingfreeschools.co.uk/2014/03/12/news-round-up-ies-brec...
(Which gives me a chance to introduce the "everythingfreeschools" site, which is a useful source of information, run, I understand, by journalism students.)
I want to read what Ofsted had to say about IES and about Sabres Educational Trust.
But it does look as if Janet will be left pining for another few hours:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/11/free-school-ies-breckla...
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2014/03/ies-breckland-run-by-for-p...
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