On academy status

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this subject. Quite the contrary, in fact! But my son's school is in the process of considering Academy status, and they're currently holding meetings with parents who want to learn more. I confess that, since my son is already in sixth form, I feel somewhat remote from the whole business and haven't given it too much thought. However, for parents with kids lower down the school, there are a lot of questions - particularly in the light of the fact that ours is a faith school.

I came across these materials on teachers.tv which I thought might shed some light for teachers and parents at schools considering going down this route.

I have heard positive reports from struggling schools that have switched to this model. But I have no idea what happens in the case of schools that are not struggling. I guess only time will tell. And my inner cynic (yes, even I have one) tells me that we will encounter problems no-one has thought of or catered for beforehand, some of which may prove to be showstoppers.

How free can a 'free school' be?

I haven't really paid too much attention to the recently introduced concept of 'free schools' in the UK, other than to be vaguely pleased that the opportunity now existed for a different educational model.

Then, last night I was talking to someone who heads up an organisation that is applying to establish one in his local town.

We were talking about what his leadership team had in mind for the school. What they envisioned. How they planned to tackle the concept. He had some great ideas, looking at working with the local business community, and calling upon the expertise of real, live working people to contribute regarding the sort of work they do, and the skills required to do it successully.

I was thinking: what an opportunity! After all, many of us in this space agree that the current education model is broken. That repeated tweaking is not going to fix it. That it ought to be scrapped and a new one developed from the ground up.

My contention is that we should start at the end. We should ask ourselves what the ideal school leaver looks like: what can s/he do, what does s/he know, how does s/he approach challenges... all that stuff. And we shouldn't just make up our minds in a vacuum on this point. We should engage with entrepreneurs, business leaders, community leaders, etc. We should ask them what school leavers need, and then work backwards from that point, figuring out how we're going to help them get there.

I thought my companion was ideally situated to exactly that. To come up with a model of education that actually prepares young people for life and for the workplace. In theory, the establishment of a Free School would enable his organisation, as a charity, to lead the school as they see fit while being completely funded by the government.

BUT... the practice isn't going to be that straightforward.

The school would have to meet the same standards set by the government for all schools in the UK and as such will receive the same OFSTED inspections.

And it's this bit that worries me.

How far are these free schools going to be able to stray from the government appointed model, if they still have to jump through the same hoops?

For example, I envisage a model of education that more closely reflect real life and the workplace. People working together on a project and the end result being, well, the end result. People working in teams with a mentor who serves as a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage. People being encouraged to explore and to share their learning with each other. The teacher being on the journey with the students. No-one ever being shut away in a room and subjected to sensory deprivation, being expected to rely entirely upon their own memory, seasoned with understanding, to demonstrate in the space of 90 minutes that they are conversant with material they have spent the last x number of years studying.

But, if they are going to have to meet the same KPIs as existing schools and sit the state exams at the end of it anyway, in order to be placed on a bell curve and evaluated via the same mechanism as the production line model... well, is this really going to be possible?

I sincerely hope that they give it a jolly good try, and am certainly willing to contribute if called upon to do so, but I wonder if the term 'free' is entirely accurate. It sounds a little tethered to me.

On irony

Regular readers may remember the trauma we experienced with the maths department in respect of our elder son. At the time that this was going on, I was venting to a friend (let's call her Rachel) with kids at the same school. She could relate to my situation, because her own experience of the maths department with one of her older sons (let's call him Tim) was not a happy one.

Tim, Rachel tells me, is one of those people who takes a little longer to grasp a new concept. But, once he's got it, he's got it good. Having done well at GCSE maths, he had opted to take the subject at A level. But things were not going well, and he was becoming steadily more discouraged. At the first progress meeting, Rachel was advised that Tim should give up maths because he was simply never going to get it.

This pushed Rachel's 'I'll show you' button. When it comes to her kids, the mild-mannered Rachel gives me a run for my money in the tigress stakes!

She found her son a private tutor and enlisted the support of the same Ms Verity I have mentioned before. Tim passed A level maths strongly and went on to study it at university.

He has just taken up his first post as a maths teacher... at the very same school he attended himself.

This means that Tim and the teacher who wrote him off will be colleagues... and this is not the first story of this kind I have heard.

Teachers please take care. I have personal experience that crow and humble pie don't taste very good and egg makes an uncomfortable facial accessory.

The same teacher who was so discouraging of Tim, recently advised my younger son - during 6th form induction - not to sign up for maths A levels. This after an impassioned speech to the whole group about how it was the most important subject in the curriculum and an absolute must, yadda yadda. What changed her tune was that she learned that my son and one other child present had been in set 5 of 9 for GCSE maths, and she felt that they would 'struggle'. She had apparently already advised all the kids in set 6 and below against attending the talk on maths at all.

The daft thing is that, 5th set or not, he sat exactly the same exam as the kids in the top set... and he got a solid B. What's wrong with that, I ask you?

He returned from the induction full of doubt, and started casting about for an alternative subject. I was livid, nay, apoplectic. Those of you who know me well can just imagine how this played out.

This is a kid who, since the age of 3, has wanted to be an explosives demolitionist. Never once has he wavered from this goal. If he is to realise this ambition, he will need to study structural engineering. One of the entrance requirements is a solid pass in maths at A level. He knows how hard he is going to have to work, and is prepared for the challenge.

As my husband said, "So, he may struggle. So what? Is there a rule against struggling somewhere? If he struggles, we'll find him some extra help. That's what parents do."

We get the impression that the department - or at least, this teacher - is only interested in kids who are going to sail through and score the sort of results that will keep the school in its lofty position on the local league tables. My mother in law has a sticker on her fridge that says, "The forest would be a quiet place if no birds sang but the best." Our kids may not be among the best, but, by 'eck, they're going to get to sing! To put a (slightly) more polite spin on a South Africanism, that woman does not get to urinate on our son's campfire! It may be that he changes his mind about what his career choice (our elder son did exactly that, shortly after starting 6th form) but it is to be his choice to make! It is not to be foisted upon him by someone with an agenda.

So, tomorrow, he goes into school to sign up for his A level subjects, and maths (with mechanics) will be one of them. He may well struggle, but (as the great Gretzky says) you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Not all parents are as determined, as resource-rich, as stubborn, as supportive, as teeth-clenchingly bloody-minded as my friend Rachel and me. My heart sinks as I wonder how many young people are giving up on their life's dreams because of what a teacher has said.

Let's be enablers, folks.

Those wretched hoops!

Our younger son is closing in on his final GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exams, and recently brought home his 'long report' which provides parents with the following information for each subject:

• How your child is performing in terms of his/her attitude/behaviour in class, effort and homework completion - these are subjective scores allocated by the teacher on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being poor and 5 being stellar
• Your child's target grade and how he/she is currently performing against that
  
• A paragraph of reflection by the teacher: areas for improvement and so on

The last few weeks have been frantic, as the unfinished parts of the syllabus in several subjects are crammed in. The entire form recently had to stay on for an extra two hours every day for a week, in order to complete the work in subject X. Some of them are still doing this. My son has had no lunch breaks for weeks on end as he tries to complete the units of the syllabus in subject Y that the rest of the form did the year before he joined the school.

I don't understand why this all has to be done now. Surely it was known from day one when he joined the school two years ago that he was going to need to make up the extra year in subject Y? Surely that work could have been spread across two years rather than being crammed into these last few weeks? Surely it was evident months ago that the entire form was falling behind on subject X? Why does it all have to be done now? Especially since they are also frantically trying to raise several thousand Pounds for a school trip to Ecuador (anyone got a small fortune going spare?) in the summer.

My son's tutor remarked that he appeared to be showing signs of the strain of the additional workload and needed to find ways to break it down into manageable chunks. I commend her for her insight into his character, but I'm not sure what the poor kid can do.

In the context of all of this, one particular piece of feedback had me reaching for my poison pen. In subject X, my son's predicted grade is a B. His scores for attitude, homework completion and effort are all 5s. His recently submitted coursework received an A grade. The short paragraph from the teacher started "Your coursework was disappointing..." Excuse me? This is a model student who is outperforming his predicted grade and you are disappointed?

My son is talking about taking the work back and tweaking it so that he can get a better A or an A*. My advice to him is to let it be. He has enough else on his plate right now, and that A is in the bank. But the school is encouraging him to try to up that grade.

I know of another school where several kids are being pressured to resit a maths exam in attempt to up their grades from A to A*.

I'm casting about for a word to describe this and I'm tempted to go with iniquitous. What are we doing to these kids?

An uplifting story

Yesterday's Evening Standard ran a story about a school called Robert Clack in Dagenham. This was a school in trouble, serving the kids from one of London's more deprived areas. The current head teacher, Paul Grant, presumably brought in to address the problems, suspended 300 of its 2000 pupils within his first week. For many of the kids, it was probably the first time in their lives that they were held accountable for their actions.

Last week, the school was awarded the Evening Standard's 'Best State School of the Year' award. The article was accompanied by a photo of some of the kids from the school. These are their ambitions, I have highlighted teaching ambitions for a reason, and will come back to that shortly:

• Rochelle Rhodes is just 16, and plays netball for the England U19 team. She is tipped to play for England at the Commonwealth Games in 2014 (netball is not an Olympic sport). She wants to be a sports psychologist.
• Ashton Russell (15) is playing the role of a young Michael Jackson in the West End production of Thriller Live! He hopes to make a career of singing and dancing.
• Tapfama Mawayo (16) wants to be a doctor
• Chris Lemmerman (18) wants to teach
• Tunde Sowande (16) wants to use the law as a springboard to politics and has his sights set on becoming mayor of London.
• Tina Imatitikua (17) also wants to be a doctor, hoping to follow this path at Oxford, and wants to take her skills back to Africa to work in a teaching hospital
• George Lovell (16) is still deciding between forensic science and teaching
• Margarete Riach (18) has been accepted to study economics at Cambridge but is first off on a short trip to Honduras to research tropical canopies
• Ben Thorne (16) is still deciding between photography and journalism
• Aarron Dinsdale (17) wants to build hardware or software systems and is determined not to be held back by his cerebral palsy
• Joshua Aderyeje (16) wants to be a barrister
• Mitchell Sinfield (16) is keen on drama and sport
• Michael Smith (15) is secretary of the school council and wants to teach
• Michelle Makunganya (15) wants a law degree but wants to work in the field of performing arts
• Jake Knowles (15) isn't sure what he wants to do yet, but is happy to be a drummer for now

Many of the kids and their parents acknowledge the role their teachers have played in their success.

Ashton's mother couldn't afford to send him to a stage school, so she enrolled him for dance lessons at the local studio where she works part time as a dresser. But the Clack school staff spotted and nurtured his talent.

Rochelle speaks of the passion and commitment of her PE teacher in helping her fulfill her potential. The school brought in a coach for her.

But let's look for a moment at our aspiring teachers.

• George may or may not teach, depending on the call of the forensic sciences on his life.
• Tina wants to go back to Africa and work at a teaching hospital. She has seen the empowering potential of teaching and the impact it can have on a community.
  
• Chris says "I can see looking at the teachers here how much satisfaction you can get from [teaching]"
• Michael says "I want a career in teaching and hopefully come back here one day."

Sadly, the field may lose George to Forensics because the pay is probably better and he may have to adopt a pragmatic approach. But what a testimony to the teachers at this school are the attitudes of Chris and Michael!

I will continue to say that I think that our current education system is flawed, and that it measures and rewards the wrong things. Nevertheless, this achievement should not be diminished by this view.

Well done to Paul Grant and his team at Robert Clack. And all the very, very best to the students there. May you fulfill your potential and come to look back on your life with contentment.

On being an encourager's encourager

If you've been coming here for a while, you'll know that I am committed to being an encourager, enabler, empowerer. It's why I do what I do.

You will also know that I am a complete tigress when it comes to my kids. My view is that, until they are in a position to fight their own battles, their parents are the bottom line, the people on whom they must be able to depend to fight their corner for them. We have fought our kids' corner against ludicrous odds. Sometimes we have won. Sometimes we have lost spectacularly.

The point is that I will take on anyone or anything when it comes to my boys. My husband is nowhere near as combative as I am, but he backs me to the hilt when I take on an opponent he believes to be in the wrong. I play offence. He plays defence. It works. There was even an occasion when he needed me to go to bat for him, when he was in hospital and a series of administrative inefficiencies meant that he was not being discharged. I got him out within two hours. You may not be able to fight city hall, but the day may well come when I die trying! Many people have vowed that the day they need someone to fight their corner, they will make a beeline for me.

Maybe I should have been a civil rights activist or something ;o)

Of course, the boys have to learn to assume the mantel themselves, so, as they grow older, we encourage them to handle more and more on their own. We also accept support and input from other quarters.

And there's a flip side to all of this, which is why I am posting about this today. If you're prepared to challenge any and everyone to a duel when they do your kids wrong, you have got to prepared to make mention of the positive input you get, too.

My beleaguered elder son feels he has one solitary ally at school in the form of one of his maths teachers. Ms Verity. I use her real name simply because I find it so touchingly apt. Ms Truth. She sees exactly what is going on. She is not blinded by the antics of his tormentors. She speaks encouragement into his life all the time. She provides him with targeted worksheets that address his particular weaknesses in the subject. She builds him up at every opportunity.

When the pastoral teacher tried to intervene in the victimisation, things got worse. His mentor nods and says he understands but, according to my son, he clearly doesn't. He has implored me not to phone the man, predicting that I will be fobbed off with platitudes. So it's just us and Ms Verity.

Yesterday, I phoned to thank her for being such a stalwart. We had a wonderful heart to heart. She asked what else she could do, but we decided that to do any more would be to make it obvious that she was doing something. That would probably be no good thing. We discussed potential courses of action. We discussed the primary tormentor's tactics and the best way for my son to deal with her.

So there a few things here: first of all , there is a partnership between school and home - open, frank communication about our shared interest in a hurting young man. Second, there is a tailored approach based on the specifics of the situation. Instead of following the step by step protocol in the manner of the failed attempts by the pastoral support teacher. Third, and most importantly, there is a teacher who is going the extra mile... and a parent who is prepared to commend her for it.

There are real human beings involved in this story. Each of whom has expectations, quirks, strengths and weaknesses. A procedural approach can only go so far before one of those factors causes it to fall apart.

Trying to do things by the book has its limits. I am deeply grateful that Ms Verity has the courage to look past the book, see the human beings involved, and address the situation based on that.

I hope that my phone call yesterday has been encouragement to her to keep on keeping on.

Who will you encourage today?

How do you make it right?

This post is not directly related to learning, but it has a lot to do with school and expectations and bullying and exclusion.

Nearly thirty years ago, I finished high school. I am still in touch with several of the girls who were in high school with me. Some have remained in touch ever since high school, others have regained contact with the advent of Facebook.

But there has been one girl I have been hunting for for over 10 years.

You see, I wasn't quite one of the 'beautiful people' in high school, but I wasn't far from it. I was bright, bubbly, pretty (if I say so myself), sporty. I was popular with the boys. I was in the first team for netball and atheletics (track). I was in debating team. I played significant roles in all the school plays. I sang in choir. I was on our version of an academic honour roll. In other words, I was your basic all-rounder. I don't say this to brag, simply to set the scene. The fact that I was riddled with insecurity and constantly in trouble with the teachers because I had no brakes on my tongue (still don't!) was beside the point.

When it came to playing rounders during PE classes, I wasn't the first one chosen, but I wasn't far down the list.

There was one girl who was always picked last. In fact, she wasn't 'picked' at all - she was simply allocated to the side that got second pick. She was a large, lumbering girl. While her weight was probably something she could have done something about, her lack of agility was no doubt genetic. I will call her Jenny.

Her face haunts me. Every PE lesson she knew the drill and she simply stood there, waiting for inevitable. To my shame I was always relieved that I wasn't like her, that I didn't have to deal with that ritual humiliation.

One week, it was my turn to choose, and I got first pick. I chose Jenny. I thought I had the chance to make her feel special just for once. I thought I was being so big-hearted and magnanimous, but everyone laughed, and her shame was worse than ever. Our team got soundly whipped and I was ridiculed for not knowing how to choose a side... in front of Jenny.

As clear as day I can still see her face, and the hurt that was written all over it still cuts me to the quick. Is there any group capable of greater cruelty to their peers than a bunch of teenage girls?

At our 20th reunion, I looked out for her. I hoped to hole up in a quiet corner with her and lay the ghosts to rest. She wasn't there. Why would she be? Why would she want to be reunited with us? For the ten intervening years I have hunted for her. Facebook. Friends reunited. Google. Naymz. LinkedIn. You name it. I have found people with the same name all over the place and contacted every single one of them, only to learn that this was not the person I was looking for.

Then, a couple of days ago, someone mentioned on a new FB group that she was in contact with Jenny's older sister. I asked if she knew how to get in touch with Jenny and was immediately provided with both her home number and her cell phone number (I have pointed out the risks to the person concerned, but that is another issue for another time).

Now I finally hold in my hot little hand the means to contact Jenny and... and... WHAT DO I SAY????

I never thought this far.

Maybe by phoning her and raking up the past, I will just make it all come flooding back - all the hurt and humiliation she thought she had finally left behind.

So tell me, those of you who were the Jenny of your year... how would you prefer the likes of me to handle this? By seeking exoneration from my own pain, would I selfishly be making hers worse?

Vicki, I think you have experience that could help, here. You have shared stories that resonate with this one.

Apologies for the even-more-personal-than-usual post, but perhaps it serves as a sobering reminder that two-thirds of a lifetime later, the foundations laid in high school still remain.

So what exactly constitutes failure, then?

Note: edited today 24 June 2008.

I have long been of the view that an assessment that passes everyone is less of an assessment and more of an attendance register. If you have to have an assessment, then it has to be possible for people to fail. Or don't bother. Don't waste their time and your resources.

Recently, we were greeted with the news that the Prime Minister has issued an ultimatum to the 1-in-5 bottom schools in the country: buck up or close down. These schools have been identified as falling short of the government targets that at least 30% of the pupils should achieve "five good GCSEs" which means that they should achieve a C grade or better in at least five subjects.

There is a third option. These schools may be converted into Labour's new pet project: academies. There are mixed feelings on the subject of academies and I am not really qualified to enter into the argument on one side or the other.

According to news reports, Gordon Brown stated very strongly that there was to be no tolerance of failure.

What was a little surprising was the news, a few days later, that many of the schools tarred with this 'failure' brush had received excellent Ofsted reports following their last inspection. In the light of the deprivation and circumstances of many of the children at these schools, the value that the schools added was judged to be outstanding at best and satisfactory at worst.

So how do you assess whether a school is failing or not? Is it an absolute? Schools which do not produce pupils of whom at least 30% achieve five good GCSEs are unsuccessful. Or is it relative? Schools which do not add x value to their pupils are seen to be failing.

Under the 'absolute' approach, many schools don't stand a chance. Think about areas where:

• parents have not completed high school education themselves
• education is not high on the list of priorities due to other deprivation
• English is not the first language of a large percentage of the population
• crime levels are high or where gang culture applies more pressure than the 'system'

Under the 'relative' approach, other schools are on the back foot. Think of schools where:

• the intake is already achieving high levels coming in to the school
• discipline is not a problem

I'm not sure that a one-size fits all approach is ever going to be able to identify the failing schools with any consistency.

I don't pretend to have the answers on this one, but I think it must be enormously frustrating for the heads of the schools facing the chop when they have been given sterling inspection reports, only to have the same government refer to them as failing and threaten to close them down.