Goodrich: Academy proposals

[barts]

DaveR Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

>

> barts, why do you think that your child is less

> likely to be happy if the school were a bit more

> rigorous about raising standards of attainment?

> That's the implication of your post, and I've

> already alluded to the fact that this almost

> subconscious attitude seems to be prevalent with

> Goodrich.

I was not implying that my child would be less happy if the school was more rigorous! What a bizarre deduction! I trust the teachers to do what they are paid to do. If I wasn't satisfied that my child was learning and progressing to the best of her ability then of course I would discuss this with the school. Just because we differ in outlook doesn't mean that either of us are wrong.If you perceive this to be a 'subconscious attitude' at Goodrich it isn't something I have noticed when conversing with other parents or staff. We're all entitled to our own opinions.

As far as Academy Status goes, I agree that all of us need to do our own research and come to the next meeting better informed. It is true that you can federate with a school without becoming an academy incidentally, it's the financial implications that need to be made clearer so hopefully the private consultant's report will clarify that.

Perhaps we should find out if other parents felt inhibited by the presence of teachers? I didn't and it was a lengthy meeting with no awkward silences but it could be suggested to the governors / senior team to canvas parental views.

>

>

[Fuschia]

With a major review of the system fir funding schools imminent, any initiAl financial calculations would only apply to a couple of years

Opting out of the local education authority and coordinated Admissions, along with teachers pay and conditions, will be forever

[dulwichbloke]

Here's the point I was referring to in only general terms last night (as it was too late and I was too tired to go into detail)...

DaveR - you say that Goodrich would have more money... I don't blame you - this is something said to the meeting by the finance governor during the first 5 minutes. But, on a proper analysis it is far from clear that there will be more money available and there could well be less. The realities of Goodrich must be looked at as follows (what is set out below is from the BBC website but is also reflected in the DFE website and others and the figures are from the DFE website):-

"How do schools benefit from becoming academies?

Converting schools receive more money. To start with, the Department for Education pays ?25,000 towards conversion costs.

Once operating as an academy, the school receives the same per pupil funding as other state schools. However, it also gains control of a portion - up to 10% - of its budget which would previously have been held back by the local authority and used to provide services, such as special needs support, across the borough.

If the school is able to buy in the services it needs more cheaply, or has proportionally less need of those services than other schools in the area, it might benefit financially from becoming an academy."

Pausing there for a moment - the key is "or has proportionally less need of those services than other schools in its area". Goodrich appears to be a heavy user of Southwark's central services and therefore presently benefits from receiving services which may in reality be subsidised by other schools who are lower users of central services. For example, looking at Goodrich v Dulwich Village's figures from the DFE website the huge difference can be seen:

(These figures from the DFE website:- http://www.education.gov.uk/inyourarea/schools)

Goodrich: Pupils with special needs without statements - 95 = 13.3% of the total pupils

Dulwich Village: Pupils with special needs without statements - 11 = 4.1% of the total pupils

THe key thing to bear in mind is that the extra 10% which will no longer be held back by the council is calculated (as the BBC and others including DFE, point out) by reference to the total number of pupils NOT the number of children with special needs. Therefore, using the figures above, Dulwich Village would receive their 'extra' 10%, which would probably mean they have more money, because they would no longer be paying for services not used by them (which they were effectively paying on behalf of Goodrich and other heavy users). They would only have to pay the costs of 4.1% of the school population with special needs.

Goodrich on the other hand would get their 10% based on the number of total pupils, but will then need to pay themselves for (very costly) provision for the 13.3% of pupils with special needs. That may well work out as being a loss over the present situation where other schools subsidise Goodrich's 10%.

There are 2 consequences of this, apart from the fact that in reality Goodrich may end up with less, not more, money (neither of which are, in my view, good)...

Firstly, provision for special needs may decline and those children's needs may not be met in the same way they are now as a non academy school and secondly, in order to balance the books, the school may have to reduce provision for special needs and/or reduce the number of children with special needs who are admitted to the school in future. Otherwise the school would operate at a loss, which it just could not do.

Now, I am not saying for sure that these are in reality the outcomes/figures - because I do not know. However, this was not addressed last night and I suspect, based on the apparent lack of real analysis/understanding by the governors, that they had not taken this fundamental point into account properly or at all. They appeared to be saying that they hadn't done any detailed number crunching and that the 'consultant' would do that later. These are crucial issues and the devil is in the detail (as always) and I did not think it was good enough for general statements to the effect that there would be more money were at all appropriate unless and until the proper analysis has been done and the reality established - otherwise the governors may be misleading all concerned and misdirecting themselves in their decision making process.

Another special needs factor to be condsidered is that upon conversion to an academy, the right to appeal any failure to provide for any child to the SENDIST Tribunal on the part of a parent would be lost - no such appeal would exist (unless the law is changed). When combined with the inherent pressure on resources outlined above and the possibility of reduction in special needs provision, this may or may not be a concern to parents (it is to me).

Finally, I was rather surprised when the meeting was told (again by the finance governor) that Goodrich would save money by not having to pay theLEA's 'overheads' when buying in services directly. I'm afraid that is naieve and misleading (I am not saying deliberately so, but nontheless it is misleading). Overheads do not just disappear because a school is buying services directly! Who will actually recruit the staff for special needs/other services?? They won't just magically appear - a manager or administrator (ie an additional overhead) will have to be engaged by Goodrich to carry out this function and to manage invoices, make payments, check the provision has been delivered, etc etc. All contractors will need to be checked for CRB compliance etc. Who will do that? In most cases, schools appear to contract with the local authority to source some of the exact same services as they were receiving directly - is it seriously suggested the LEA won't charge for an element of their overhead?!

I know this is all a bit long, but I didn't want to appear to be unfairly making generalised criticism of the 'finance' guy without actually explaining what I was referring to.

[Fuschia]

DB, I think your post is spot on.

I think many schools are very ignorant of many aspects of commissioning services on their own behalf and underestimate the time (cost) of purchasing and monitoring contracts at school level.

Not quite the same thing, but a good example nontheless, is running cleaning services at school level rather than buying in an external contractor. The cost p/h of the actual cleaners might be considerably less than the contracted out service. However, the school would need to factor in purchase and depreciation of equipment, training, sickness cover, maternity entitlements, payroll costs, health and safety responsibilities (risk assessments, inspections, COSHH paperwork) and no doubt many more things I haven't even thought of. Put a price on the management time required to provide cleaning inhouse and the overall cost begins to look a lot less attractive than at first glance.

This sort of consideration will apply to every individual service that the LA probably provides at present from central funds, as well as those which schools pay for already from delegated funds (but probably are subsidised at present)

The amount schools receive as the 'top up' is under review anyway

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13736501

[Fuschia]

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/06/is-the-government-about-to-claw-back-money-from-academies-to-stop-cuts-in-public-services/

[Gubodge]

Dulwichbloke, very well put. I do hope you're going to next week's meeting as well to see if you can get a response from the governors on that issue.

[Coach Beth]

Another cost that should be considered is insurance. Academy schools will have to cover and sort out their own insurance - this can be very costly indeed.

[lucky]

I was at the meeting and I was not impressed by the parent governors. Their presentation was very poor and they could not or did not want to answer some of the questions. Parents need to be well infomed of the implications not treated like children.

Also, I don't know why it is but there are a bunch of parents around Goodrich that want to make the school excellent no matter what. Maybe is because they are aspirational or perhaps because they are a little jealouse of their friends with children in Fairlawn or Heber. Once again, you can't compare those schools to Goodrich, those schools have less pupils and less SENs. Goodrich is the largest primary school in Southwark with 713 pupils! I don't understand this obssession with becoming excellent. Please can you explain, anybody?

Sorry back to Academies and the meeting. At the meeting I felt totally patronised and let down by the parent governors but happy to see so many committed and learned parents. Back to the presentation the parent governors had ready to us I just thought they were having us on...

Thank you to dulwichbloke and Fuschia for making this debate more palatable.

[catgirl]

I have to say I don't really understand why any parent wouldn't want their child's school to be outstanding or at least 'good'. An outstanding school is one which enables all pupils, of all abilities, to achieve their full potential and do as well as they can do which is surely what we all want for our children. We're not just talking about the clever ones doing better here - in fact the recent southwark review of GOodrich concluded that Goodrich deals well with the brighter pupils at present - it is the less able ones who are not served well by the school, which is a concern.

I've been to Fairlawn and the atmosphere there is just as warm and friendly as GOodrich, with equally happy and balanced pupils so it's not as though educational excellence has to come at the expense of this.

[lucky]

I wasn't for a moment suggesting that students with SENs should not be catered for but what some people are not thinking of is that some SENs work at lower attainment levels because they find it difficult even with the best of help due to sometimes genetic causes. This is why sometimes the results of a particular school in the league tables of schools are a little lower than they should be and comparing schools just on the grounds of ACADEMIC RESULTS is very unfair to some schools.

SENs children have a right to be educated in state mantained schools alongside their peers and a right to be challenged to the top of their abilities. That is what the NC states and I wholeheartedly agree.

The parents I talk about are not thinking on these grounds. The fact is that league table results based solely on ACADEMIC RESULTS which at the end of the day only measure how well a student does in an exam situation are most unfair for the schools who cater for large numbers of SENS and for the students and staff in these schools!!!

[DaveR]

Ofsted ratings (satisfactory, good, outstanding etc.) are not just based on academic results; Goodrich is rated satisfactory and other local, comparable schools are rated better. Measured attainment is below the Southwark average. Goodrich's proportion of pupils with SEN is also below the Southwark average. There's no getting away from the fact that the school in underperforming, and that's what the school and the LEA told parents earlier this year.

As for this:

"Also, I don't know why it is but there are a bunch of parents around Goodrich that want to make the school excellent no matter what"

if you take out the words 'no matter what', your statement becomes just ridiculous. So what do you mean by 'no matter what'?

[Fuschia]

If you think a school had to become an academy to improve then you are probably reading the wrong newspaper!

[James Barber]

The Academy tide is very strong. The powers governors have as an academy are stronger.

So the key is probably how well respected the governors of this school are.

Do you trust the governors to no longer have local authority oversight of them but instead invisible civil servants in Whitehall?

If you do trust them then sadly suspect its only a matter of time before all schools are strong armed into becoming academies. When that happens local authorities are unlikely to offer any support services.

If you feel the governors patronise you now then that wouldn't bode well for them running the school as an academy.

And I can confirm Kingsdale did ask Goodrich and two other schools earlier this year whether they would like to federate with them - the other two schools had emergency governor meeings within 24hours and fed back their responses within 24hours. Goodrich governors did not treat this offer with urgency and I'd be amazed if they didn't burn of some goodwill in the process.

[lucky]

Hi,

To DaveR:

Sorry if my statement sounds ridiculous to you.

By no matter what I meant regardless of any issues that affect the school such as large number of pupils, SENs numbers, pupil's socio-economic background, teacher retention and training etc.

Can you tell us where you saw the statistics you mention in your post? you are not quoting any official documents and we have to take your word for it.

I will add that the move by the parent governors has made a lot of parents angy mainly because of the way it has been communicated to the school/parents (poor presentation and poor information on Academies and the pros and cons). On teacher retention, if things continue like this, some teacher may be thinking of leaving. Is anyone thinking about the hard work the teachers do for the school??? They didn't look too happy in that meeting.

[DaveR]

Data for Southwark schools is here:

School data

Southwark school Ofsted reports are here:

Ofsted

I don't think that any of the issues that you mention should stop parents wanting the school their children to attend to be excellent. As I've already said, Goodrich has fewer than the Southwark average SEN pupils, and I suspect has a distinct socio-economic advantage over many schools in the borough.

I have some sympathy for the teachers. As I've already said, I thought the parent meeting was handled badly and it sounds like the staff meeting was no better. But, that having been said, if it is accepted that Goodrich needs to improve then that is the collective responsibility of the governors and all staff, and I would be more likely to be concerned about retention etc. if I was persuaded that the staff really did accept that improvement is needed, and that they are committed to doing their bit.

[LynP]

Well Dave R. perhaps you should remove your child if you are unhappy with Goodrich,or are you wanting a private education without paying for it? EVERY school in this country could improve but you know what? Goodrich is pretty damn good.My grandchild attends Goodrich and thanks to a certain dedicated teacher who,more often than not is in school before 7a.m....yes 7a.m. has enhanced,encouraged and EDUCATED with her total conviction that every child is special. Yes an Academy by it's very nature can provide the equipment that makes it very attractive but what good is that without fantastic teachers? Without interested parents? Without a COMMUNITY? One without the rest is impotent. A room full of state of the art computers does not make an outstanding school.

I don't pretend to know the politic behind this Academy 'push' but I rather fear that it is an underhand and rather clever way of outing Mrs. Patterson???

When and if this Academy is pushed through against,I suspect, the majority and all the dedicated,outstanding teachers have their salary reduced(as an Academy rule can do) and leave,where will tha leave your child????

Dulwichbloke...I applaud you

[*Bob*]

Speaking of The Head.. was there a reason she wasn't there?

A proper reason, I mean.

[Fuschia]

I don't think it would be considered professional for the head to involve herself in the debate at a meeting between governors and parents

[*Bob*]

That's what I meant.. is she meant to stay out of it, sort-of thing.

[bawdy-nan]

lucky Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I wasn't for a moment suggesting that students

> with SENs should not be catered for but what some

> people are not thinking of is that some SENs work

> at lower attainment levels because they find it

> difficult even with the best of help due to

> sometimes genetic causes. This is why sometimes

> the results of a particular school in the league

> tables of schools are a little lower than they

> should be and comparing schools just on the

> grounds of ACADEMIC RESULTS is very unfair to some

> schools.

> SENs children have a right to be educated in state

> mantained schools alongside their peers and a

> right to be challenged to the top of their

> abilities. That is what the NC states and I

> wholeheartedly agree.

> The parents I talk about are not thinking on these

> grounds. The fact is that league table results

> based solely on ACADEMIC RESULTS which at the end

> of the day only measure how well a student does in

> an exam situation are most unfair for the schools

> who cater for large numbers of SENS and for the

> students and staff in these schools!!!

Hmmm - SEN doesn't necessarily mean low attainment. I have a child with SEN (statemented) who is currently meeting national expectations in literacy and exceeding them in maths. Perhaps if he didn't have SEN he might be doing even better but I'm more than happy with that for now.

Incidentally I would be deeply concerned about the impact on SEN of moving to academy status.

[Fuschia]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> That's what I meant.. is she meant to stay out of

> it, sort-of thing.

I don't think there is a rule but I think it would bD usual practice/ advised by the professional associations

The head will need to implement whatever thd governors decide, after all

[lucky]

To Bawdy-nan

I am awarare of the fact that some SENs students do well academically that is why I wrote some SENs work at lower attainment levels.

To Dave-R judging by the stats. Goodrich is average compare to the national average and borough average by tests results and is much larger in numbers than any other schools in Southwark and has large numbers of SENs pupils.

I think the school is a good community school is in the independents where you will find excellent academic results but too expensive for 95% of the population in this country...

[barts]

Bob/Fushia

The Head teacher was at the Performance of the Year 6 play 'My School Musical'at Harris boys which had probably been arranged long before these meetings were. I believe the Chair of Governors did say that.

[DaveR]

Thinking that an average school might want to improve = trying to get a private education without paying for it.

Words fail me.

[barts]

I've followed Dave R's link to see Performance tables for Key Stage 2 2010 and found that Goodrich stats for Average Point Scores are higher than local and national averages and % achieving Level 4+ in English and Maths is just 2% lower than local and national which is hardly significant. In terms of Contextual Value Added between KS1 and 2 Goodrich also scores well at 100.8 which is pretty much in the middle of their confidence interval. This isn't the doom and gloom picture you paint Dave R. There is room for improvement - of course - but maybe try supporting your community school rather than undermining it with a barrage of critical comments. I have seen nothing but dedication from the teachers I have had contact with. The notion that any teacher worth their salt wouldn't want to improve their performance or give their best to the kids they teach is patronizing at the very least. Maybe ask your childs teacher what hours they work, I bet it isn't close to what you might think.

Dulwich Bloke and Lynn P I applaud you both. Thank you Mr Barber for the interesting info about the Kingsdale cold shoulder by governors.I wonder if the staff were consulted about that one because the parents weren't.