Proposed Harris Primary School

[intexasatthe moment]

londonmix - I'm sure you're very capable of putting forward an argument that my objections are unreasonable without any further detail .

I'm just expressing my views .

Which are that I have reservations about Academies - for instance I'm not reassured by being told that the DfE will be assessing the curriculum when a sponsor opens a new primary school .

The current political intervention in the curriculum by Gove seems uninformed by teachers and people with expertise in schools and education . He has appointed an education minister - John Nash - whose only qualification seems to be the fact he is a sponsor of an Academy .http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jan/10/gove-appoints-john-nash-education-minister

If you look at the link I posted earlier to the curriculum think tank you will get a flavour of Nash's ( or his wife 's ) thinking on curriculum .

You may be completely in harmony with his approach but I am unhappy that the curriculum at an Academy ( Pimlico ) and the new primary he is opening is now shaped by his idea of a curriculum .

It is obvious that the government shares his approach .

I appreciate that I am referring to a different sponsor and a different Academy - but the point is that Academies do have this freedom .I feel that they are unaccountable and that as chains like Harris get bigger that their freedoms and power will increase .

The alternative Academy preferred by the Roke primary is indicated in the link I posted as Riddlesdown Collegiate

http://www.riddlesdown.org/ .

I'm sorry I can't be more articulate than this - my excuse today is that I'm still recovering from being caught up in the Vauxhall nightmare this morning .

But the truth is I'm pretty inarticulate at the best of times !

[Fuschia]

LondonMix Wrote:

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

> That seems good, no? The school was failing and

> scheduled to become an academy. They launched a

> campaign to argue that the school had turned

> itself around since its previous inspection.

> Ofstead are reinspecting the school (potentially

> as a direct result of the campaign). The dispute

> you refer to seems to be with the Department of

> Education's perhaps too hasty decision rather than

> Harris as such.

Or

A historically outstanding school has a dip and before even being reinspected and deemed to need external intervention, is frogmarched to academy status and a Harris Academy at that ...against the wishes of the school community

The same Harris who is a major sponsor of the Tory party

When Gove realises he has been caught breaking his own rules, ofsted are hastily scrambled to rubber stamp the school's status as 'failing' and ensure the deal is pushed through

[LondonMix]

Ofsted might agree with the governors and the Tory councils assessment that the school has improved. This might be a mistake by the DofE that will be reversed.

[LondonMix]

Intex, thanks for the links. I'll have a read.

[sedm]

The fact that Lord Harris has donated to David Cameron is, I feel, a red herring.

He set up his first academies under Labour with their backing. It's pretty clear that the reason the Gvt is supportive of Harris academy chain is that they are bloody successful - often in tough areas.

[intexasatthe moment]

The first Academies were given funding over and above that available to equivalent community schools .

Some of their success was attributable to that . Success starts the ball rolling and improves intake .

Succesful schools are what we want but I want them to be run by local authorities and I don't want an education system that is fragmented by a myriad of opague admissions criteria and where schools are fighting to corner the best intake and improving exam results by any means at the expense of education and teachers health .

Feeder primary schools and all through schools will ( IMO ) further complicate and divide the system .

I don't want an education system where we return to Victorian values of philanthropy where power ,money and politics have an ever increasing influence .

Harris may well be a" good " philanthropist but that doesn't make the system acceptable to me .

And although he has built a huge machine to run his schools what will happen if he becomes ill or infirm and can no longer provide leadership and input ?

[Scruffy Mummy]

One question I have is that there are other academy chains - for example Ark and also something called the Cooperative Academy which runs three schools http://www.co-operativeacademy.coop/ and, if this is the way things are going to go, why is the process of schools becoming academies not being widely tendered out to other academies?

For example, it appears in the case mentioned above, the local secondary school which is a academy offered to sponsor the primary school and Gove said no, it had to be Harris. Surely, it would be better to have a tendering process to open up to a number of potential canditates? I know that if you are a charity and you get a grant from any statutory funder over a nominal amount of a few thousand pounds - i.e. the Department of Health you have to show how you have put a tender out to at least 3 bidders or you lose the grant!

From a purely commerical perspective, surely it isn't right that one supplier is given complete preferriential treatment in the market place?

[LondonMix]

I agree it?s troubling that the DfE appear to have refused to allow a different academy that already has well established links to the primary school and area to become the sponsor. It would be interesting to learn more: i.e. was the secondary school prepared and willing to take over Rove etc and what justification (if any) the DfE provided.

Regarding tendering, the academy process doesn't work that way as there are not traditional costs to bid on. The DfE provides the funding to build academies to independent contractors (under the new laws) and the operational funding academies obtain is the same as LA schools (i.e. determined by number of pupils attending + the costs to cover services previously covered by the LA centrally). Therefore, there is no real objective way to set up a tender. Instead if a school wants to be created, it needs to prove to the DfE that there is objective demand for what its offering and it convinces parents to support it based on many factors (track record, proposed head teachers, specialist curriculum like the Judith Kerr bilingual primary etc). When a new school is being set up, what parents want is gauged by signing a petition in support of a particular school proposal. The idea being that if the school can fill a two-form evidenced by signatures from parents with children in the appropriate age group, then there is sufficient demand for it to apply to open at which point it will be assessed by the DfE on a whole host of other criteria.

For failing schools, it less clear how the DfE determine who will take the school over and how the DfE consult with the parents in the community. It appears, if the allegations are true, that there might be some serious failings in the process.

Intex, I share quite a few of your general concerns about the way Michael Gove is implementing the academies program.

Edited to add: Those arguing that the DfE isn't implementing its policy as it outlined isn't correct though. In the summer of last year, Michael Gove announced that all primaries given a notice to improve by Ofsted would be converted (rather than just those with a long history of failure or in special measures).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/academy-move-for-failing-primary-schools-7888545.html

[intexasatthe moment]

The "tendering" need not be entirely related to cost .

The system with the old style original Academies where sponsors were taking over existing buildings and school communities was that they put forward an expression of interest to the LA setting out their suitability as sponsor and outlining proposals for admissions criteria ,curriculum ,SEN policy etc etc .

The LA would then decide which sponsor they wanted to go with .

Probably irrelevant in this case as Southwark would no doubt go with Harris because of its size and track record .

I doubt there would be any consideration of accountabilty ,monopolies ,eggs and baskets .

[LondonMix]

I think the decision being with parents- ie they not the LA decide who to support- is better, no? Afterall, how is the LA supposed to know if there is demand for bilingual education for example. All of the other criteria you mentioned is still part of the approval process of an Academy application except it now rests with the DfE.

I say all of this but I do not totally support Gove's plan. I don't think all academies are good or that they are the only solution that should be available. With that said, I do think Harris are exceptionally good and have fair policies.

[intexasatthe moment]

Perfectly possible for the LA to consult parents and take their views into account .

Though whether the outcome of any consultation would actually reflect parents/carers views is another matter .

[LadyDeliah]

Thought this might be interesting to anyone who wants to know why businesses are lining up to take over our schools:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/IBIS.pdf

[bemusED]

"The full extent of Michael Gove's plans to revolutionise education are revealed today in a secret memo showing he is considering outright privatisation of academies and free schools. All academies and free schools in England, which are the Education Secretary's personal obsession, would be free to become profit-making for the first time, and be entirely decoupled from Whitehall control."

read more here...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/secret-memo-shows-michael-goves-plan-for-privatisation-of-academies-8488552.html

[LondonMix]

Wow! Gove has lost the plot. The admin burden of of monitoring academies (since it is with the DfE rather than the Local Authority) is too onerous so his solution is the remove oversight and make them private!

I can see the some of the benefits of free schools etc but his approach is totally ideologically driven and bad policy.

[James Barber]

Clearly Gove have a philisophy to push that it out there on the tory right wing fringes. He gets away with his daft views partly because he represents an extremely safe tory seat. Fortunately much of what he;s proposed has been blocked or watered down by the coalition.

But an existing charity wouldn't find it easy to change from being a registered charity.

Lord Harris the Ark founders, etc have never shown anything other than philanthropic inclinations towards education however much I diasgree with his politics.

[Penguin68]

Interestingly, Gove is actually using as an exemplar what happens in (pretty socialist and right-on) Scandinavia, particularly I believe Sweden. And of course private schools making a profit are the ones historically in the UK with startling good results. These ones being suggested by Gove would be non-selective and those choosing to be educated there would not be able to make those choices through their incomes or wealth.

Rather like the (always private and for-profit) GP practices which provide services to the NHS - which are free to us (as these schools would be) at the point of use, and paid for out of general taxation.

We only have to look at what has happened in numbers of hospital trusts (which are directly part of the NHS unlike GP practices) to know that state-run doesn't either mean well, or well-meaningly run, as a matter of course.

[LondonMix]

Agree, but not-state run does not mean better either. Oversight for academies was centralised with the DfE rather than left with the LA. Now the DfE realised continued expansion plans are too much for centralised monitoring. The record of academies has been very patchy so I cannot understand how the conintued expansion without gov't oversight can make sense.

With that said, Harris is the exception to the rule performance-wise.

[Fuschia]

Few sobering views re the Swedish situation

http://m.thelocal.se/45628/20130116/

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/11/mixed-messages-from-sweden/

[Fuschia]

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/03/why-always-the-harris-federation-who-decides-and-is-this-monopoly-legitimate/

[James Barber]

The Roke Manor situation gives me concern. The Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove is pushing beyond what I understand the legislation to allow. I suspect its hard for any educaiton charity wanting his favour to resist requests to takeover a school.

But what we're proposing locally in East Dulwich is two new Harris Primary schools. The vision we've agreed is that they will in the top 10% for attainment and individual pupil progress. The admissions being distance based. That Ofsted would rate them outstanding.

Yes, I can imagine reaching these standard makes such schools driven with teacher performance. The whole national teacher career path doesnt allow for that intensity for 40+ years - talking to a Canadian teacher they have sabbaticals to recharge batteries. So yes Harris quite possibly try and attract the best possible teachers - I'd hope all schools do. And yes being a Harris employee probably wont be for everyone.

[eberg]

This may be of interest to you all. Personally I think that the Academies Project is a major building block in the foundation of a new right wing order. But hey, what do I know.

http://antiacademies.org.uk/2012/03/harris-federation-spotlight-on-sponsors/

It's worth a read but I guess that it's important to keep in mind that this site is probably run by people with a socialist agenda. Remember socialism?

[eberg]

This letter was circulated on the net by Upworthy.

"I'm feeling low and a little bit helpless at the really horrible struggle my mum is currently going through. Hopefully she won't mind me posting about this - but I want to put it out there as it's something I really think people should know about.

My mum is a primary school teacher in a state school in Yorkshire, and has been for 20 years. She is a wonderful teacher: caring, committed, enthusiastic, her pupils love her, she has produced countless concerts, plays and choirs that have won national competitions, and has never received anything but very good / outstanding reports from Ofsted inspectors.

Her school is now, it would appear, in the midst of being systematically forced to become an 'academy school'. Academies have been around for a while - originally the stillborn brainchild of the Blair government, they are now being ruthlessly implemented by the self-important imbecile - sorry, 'moderniser' - Michael Gove; a representative of an even more clueless government obsessed with results tables and change for its own sake. But what is most disturbing about the whole pointless affair is not so much the staggering waste of time and resources, as the shockingly corrupt way it is being implemented.

For the first time in the entire history that my mum has worked at her school (which is 10+ years), the school was judged in an Ofsted report as having 'serious weaknesses' (having only ever been judged as good / outstanding prior to this). The headteacher was let go, and an 'executive head' was drafted in by the local authority, a woman who apparently has a reputation for supposedly 'turning around' failing schools (and by this I mean that she clearly deliberately fails them so that she can be seen to have 'turned them around' six months later).

The teachers were all subject to impromptu lesson inspections, and almost EVERY SINGLE teacher in the school, individuals my mum described as 'some of the best teachers I have ever known' were failed. My mum was failed for the first time in her career (Although on receiving this news she rather wonderfully told the inspectors "I don't give a monkey's"). The school has now been given six weeks to 'improve', before the government will come in to inspect them again. The teachers are doing 16 hour days in an attempt to do an impossible amount of work so that they don't fail this second inspection. My mum hasn't had an evening or a weekend off for weeks. She worked all through her supposed holiday last week. She is getting chest pains. One teacher collapsed from stress.

My mum had been planning to retire at the end of this year - this will be her final year as a teacher - what a way to thank her for 20 years of hard work and dedication to the state school system. She has always been an incredibly strong, cheerful, optimistic person, and whenever I speak to her now she talks of her life being a 'living hell' and 'just making it through the next five months'. I have never in my life heard her talk like this.

And all this in spite of the fact that the teachers at her school have been made perfectly aware that when the government come in to 'inspect' the school, they will be doing so with an agenda. That agenda being to turn the school into an academy - as they have done with several other schools in the area.

Essentially, all the work the teachers are putting in will most likely be for nothing, because the government have every intention to fail the school so that they can be seen to 'turn it around' and make it into an academy. It seems to me to be the most ridiculous scam - a con on a national scale which must be happening in countless more schools and which is abusing the time and resources of already desperately over-stretched, underpaid and under-appreciated teachers.

I feel very frustrated at not being able to make more people aware of what seems to me to be a total outrage. I am going to make this post public - please share, and if anyone I know is interested in the story or has any suggestions about how to increase awareness of this please get in touch. Thanks."

Gives some alternative perspective on what is going on. I guess your feelings about this will be coloured by your personal politics. If you think that it's OK to hand over the education of your children to an openly right wing business man, fair enough. But if, like me, you feel that education should remain in the hands of the state (whoever the incumbent government is) and should not in any way be linked to business, I would be terrified.

[LondonMix]

Do you have the original link? It would be interesting to know the name of the school in Yorkshire in question. These are some very serious allegations of corruption involving multiple institutions and should be taken very seriously if true.

Your 2nd link has been discussed on another thread in the family room before in great detail. I won't go over old ground again but there is absolutely no basis to suggest that Harris isn't operating as a charity and when analysing its performance, the value add scores of its schools (which are the best measure of individual pupil progress) stand up to scrutiny and are not able to be 9influenced by any of the tactics the link suggests are being used to manipulate its performance.

[Worker]

Re. high staff turnover.

I am a big supporter of state education but this is notwithstanding that the majority of my teachers were 8.30-3 box tickers. You shouldn't discount the possibility that improved results are to some extent a result of staff turnover i.e. rubbish teachers being replaced by good teachers.

[eberg]

Well, the person who posted it wanted to remain anonymous because she feared possible recriminations. Names haven't been mentioned, of the school or otherwise. And I have been clear that it's about personal political attitude. I am obviously a socialist with some years to me and my personal experiences of 50+ years have strengthened my socialist conviction. I do have a big problem with wealthy people muscling in on state education. If you want your kids to have strong right wing attitudes send them to public school. I still have 2 children in education and I don't expect their schools to indoctrinate them politically. My son attends an academy school and it's his experience that colours my attitude. The school works for him because he's academic and enjoys learning, he keeps his head down and gets on with it. But he despises the regime with a vengeance. It's very corporate, at the top of the hierarchy is a CEO and my son has only ever seen him at a distance when he's come to the school to address an assembly or hand out prizes. My son also says that despite his academic achievements, his head of year "wouldn't even know my name". There is no evidence that there is a deliberate project to indoctrinate the students with right wing views but it is in the culture of the school. In the bones of it. We recently received a letter from the school telling us that because of his academic excellence our son had been chosen to be included as one of the 'Principles Elite'. Without prompting he said 'sod that' and threw the letter in the bin. I also know quite a number of teachers who work at the school and many of them hate it. Many teachers who have worked at the school for decades have recently left because they have no confidence in what they describe as a cold, impersonal regime. And although the school is right on our doorstep we will not be sending our youngest child there.

My partner and I try and offer a variety of views to our children but inevitably they adopt similar attitudes to us, my eldest daughter is currently working with kids in Sierra Leone and has developed very strong socialist principles. Having said that I try to offer a balanced view on things I can't help yelling at the TV every time Cameron, Osbourne, Gove or Ian Duncan Smith hove in to view.