Proposed Michaela Community School in Tooting

Sorry not to get to this forum on Friday, but just to let you know that the full statement is up on the website www.proposedmcstooting.co.uk

Shambolic in my opinion. It would have been a massive leap of faith anyway, so this goes to show it was the wrong team in the first place.

Guardian is subtly putting the boot in about her presiding over chaos after accusing other head teachers of doing the same. Fair enough, I guess.

gazzalw Here's hoping you have good news on 1 March.

It would have required a massive leap of faith though to commit to a school without a site that appears to be making it up as it goes along. I understand that it might have seemed like a good option in the face of other choices but I would have been very nervous about having my children take part in that particular experiment.

Anyway, I haven't had to consider it from a prospective parents' point of view but I have to confess to being absolutely delighted that my business isn't going to be turfed out of the Trident centre just yet.

Looking on the bright side, it's undoubtedly better to find out now that it's not happening as opposed to four months down the line when you had thought that was where your child would be going in September.

There's a press release on the school's website today saying the school won't be opening this September. They haven't secured the site, they'll try to get it going for 2013 but they are no longer accepting admissions for this year.

They must be feeling a bit stupid, having circulated leaflets stating they will be at Trident from 2012 etc. I don't think they can have had much support from parents or even the council. I believe there was a council meeting about it on Wednesday and the paper circulated beforehand didn't seem particularly in favour or demonstrative of a need for the school.

Guess we wait and see what happens next.

somebloke Unconvinced by degrees of anonymity for children, but agree with you in that she's likely to be much less cavalier about it now she's running her own school.

And despite myself I found myself agreeing with her comments last week on holidays in term time.

She's certainly a divisive character.

KandyBarr I guess in my case it would depend on just how anonymised they were. A pupil can be anonymised by a name change, so not identifiable by the wider public, and yet still be identifiable by parents and pupils at the same school. I certainly wouldn't want that.

I don't think I would have a particular issue with Ms B right now since she is no longer anonymous and she will have to be much more careful about sharing details of her pupils with the world at large - and she will certainly not want to put the future reputation of her new school at risk.

I still think it's valuable to get the contributions of people in the thick of the everyday stresses of these socially sensitive jobs. And if they never refer to individual cases and even individual conversations we may be missing something. We then have to rely for our information on personal anecdotes and gossip, abstract argument, Ofsted inspection reports, school presss releases etc.

An example - not from education - that springs to mind is the doctor/psychologist/essayist Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels) who served as a prison doctor and has given accounts of conversations with some of the prisoners he treated ("I had to kill her doctor, or I don't know what I'd have done").

I suppose there is always going to be a tension, and a balance to be drawn, between "telling it like it is" with specific examples, and maintaining confidentialty. A bit of a tightrope I think and probably no cut and dried answers.

madgirl I was going by your report of a tiny turnout at the public meeting

You're right - I'm sure interest will pick up after 1 March.

Do we know that she is struggling to attract interest for sure? I agree with whoever posted above that the level of interest will surely rise on 1st March when hundreds of parents don't get their "choice" of secondary school in Wandsworth.

somebloke Neither would I want my child appearing 'anonymised' or as a 'composite' in one of her blogs/novels/presentations/whatever. I'm not sure I know any parent who would want it, regardless of how noble the claimed intention of exposing life at the coal face.

It's very, very hard for parents to get past that, and perhaps that's why she's struggling to attract interest in her school.

But I agree, there does appear to be hostility from vested interests.

I do think some of the comments about Ms Birbalsinghe are somewhat harsh.

I never saw her original (anonymous) blog but my understanding was that the children referred to were suitably anonymised and the examples in her book were not necessarily literal accounts but composites. I'd accept though that it was perhaps sailing close to the wind to show pictures of some of her pupils at the Tory Party conference, though she did claim that she had only done so with permission.

There have been a number of anonymous blogs by teachers, policemen, social workers etc etc giving an account of what life in life at the "coal face". Such people put themselves at some risk if they are outed but I think they provide a useful corrective to what we read in the mainstream media.

She expressed the view that our secondary education system is broken and went into some detail about why. As a result of this she was forced out of her job, dropped like a ton of hot bricks by her union (who are supposed to fight their members' case and would have surely taken her up as a cause celebre had she made a rabble rousing left wing speech at a a Labour or NUT Conference) and informed by recruitment agencies that no state school would ever touch her again with a bargepole.

Rather than just roll over and accept the destruction of her career she decided to step up to the plate and accept the challenge of setting up her own school.

She may have an ego and flair for publicity, but that isn't exactly unusual in a head teacher, and can be turned to advantage. I wish her luck.

I think quite a bit of the hostility towards her is from vested interests in the educational establishment. As John Prescott so memorably put it, "If you let people set up schools and they turn out to be good schools the problem is that everyone will want to go to them." Quelle horreur!

Incidentally I have no connection with her or the people setting up her school, nor do I have any personal interest since my own children are getting to the end of their secondary school careers.

I remember the stress of secondary admission and am glad I won't have to go through it again - also sympathise with those who are going through it right now.

I have no idea what became of my post in that middle paragraph! the sentence decends into nonsense.

I rather agree, Blu. I'd never trust her or her school because I don't want my DC in one of her blogs/novels/presentations/other self-promoting vehicles. To do that is unethical, vain and just rude, frankly.

But I do have some sympathy with her arguments about limitations imposed on poor children because of how some teachers perceive them. Perhaps she's right in some respects, that some problems can only be tackled with a radical overhaul.

I had thought that she said that the 'fictional' events in her book were based on real events in the real schools she had taught in - which I thought included Dunraven in Streatham.

The article from the person with a different view of some of the pupils she worked with is here

However I see that she has said that her experiences in the last school she was at were a contrast to that in other schools. Other state schools....that she would presumably be admiting of, then.

But I find it unethical to write about young people in the way she does, from her position, and when it is in pursuit of self-iinterest as a novelist / careerist.

Even with the prospect of Bolingbroke, there was a woeful shortage of secondary places in Wandsworth. There are certainly enough children in the area to fill both, and the reduction in children having to go out of borough will surely be welcomed.

Blu: there's something in your first post I don't understand. The school that she criticised - St Michael and All Angels - closed. It can't have had any results; good, bad or anything in 2011.

Does anyone have any news on the Michaela School? I note they are holding a third parents information meeting on 8th March- I wonder if that means that they are struggling to attract admissions? There's been nothing in the local paper or online....

Did you have a packed house proposed? I heard a very different tale, but I'm sure you're right.

Thanks to everyone who came to our Parent Information Meeting yesterday.
We had a packed house with standing room only.

I hope everyone had a chance to speak to the team and get their questions answered but if not please do email
[email protected]
and we'll answer you directly.

Good to see the discussion that's going on here. So here's an INVITATION for
* TODAY 8th Feb *
Tooting Leisure Centre, Greaves Place, SW17 18.00 - 20.00
Michaela Community School - Meeting for prospective parents.
Come and meet the team and get all your questions answered.
Hope to see you there
www.proposedmcstooting.co.uk