Academisation failing to boost miserable standards in the North

As a head in a school in the North where progress was excellent but from such a low base that outcomes were still below floor standard said to me: "If nobody in your family has worked for 4 generations, because the last large local employer closed down long ago, then why should a child see getting good GCSEs as useful? There is nothing they can do even if they have those qualifications, and nobody from their family has ever lived anywhere else."

That head did wonders - the school got its first successful Oxbridge entrant as a result of their work - but the total lack o support for education from the vast majority of families made it impossible for the school to mend all of the town's ills.

They start by stopping the hemorrhaging of teachers currently leaving the profession. A lot of those are experienced teachers, being replaced by NQTs and in lots of academies unqualified teachers.

We are in a situation where good schools in Nice areas are struggling to retain staff, so some of these places have no chance. And despite what the government say, it isn't about money. Its never really been about money.

Its about workload and spending time with your own kids, over observation and scrutiny, paperwork for the sake of paperwork, behaviour that isn't dealt with, performance related pay (when you can't completely control all the outcomes).

viques Thanks for that. I googled it too. My article suggested 2 things: 1. The London Challenge has been cited by experts as a significant (and some suggest the most significant) factor in raising standards in London schools, beyond factors such as funding and gentrification. The key issue was good leadership. 2. A few experts have suggested that raised standards in Primary schools, coinciding with the National Literacy Strategy might be a factor.

I was familiar with the Beacon Schools initiative, which was similar, earlier, and aimed at Primaries - though I think it had less administrative back-up and organisational support at governmental and LA level.

It seems the London Challenge was rolled out beyond London - it became the City Challenge, in Greater Manchester and the Black Country. I wonder if it's had an effect there?

I have to say, my experience, in London, is that schools are still organised into hubs, sharing good/best practice. I assumed that was the case across the country. Is that not so?

Doncaster is a Metropolitan Borough which has jobs. It has the NHS which has jobs. It has schools which clearly have jobs. It has pleasant villages in which to live. If people wanted to make a difference in Doncaster, they could live pretty well on a government salary.

We do have to get away from our industrial history and move on. The mines have been closed for 25/30 years. It’s gone and the idea it’s coming back post Brexit is fanciful. However I do think excellent people can make a difference in other fields. Some companies won’t move to an area without a decent workforce and places like Doncaster needs to enthuse children. Not only that, if Sheffield and Leeds are more bouyant, it’s not far to get a job in those cities. But children won’t if they haven’t got the qualifications and the enthusiasm to do it.

Loads of working young people in London just rent a room. Obviously buying in most areas, even outer Boroughs, is expensive.

some 2 bed flats are £1m in London! There are opportunities for a good standard of living in the North

Every time I visit one of my children in a northern university I ask myself why he needs to come south on graduation. As you say, London house prices are obscene now.

A lot of these schools mentioned though aren't in areas where even those jobs exist. They are in ex industrial or mining communities that have been decimated by the closure of pits, car plants, aerospace factories.

Doncaster as an example has high levels of unemployment, there isn't any big industry that employs people. The nearest places to work in government or finance are a considerable commute away. So those people love to Leeds or Sheffield and then problem in Doncaster persists.

Abra: some 2 bed flats are £1m in London! There are opportunities for a good standard of living in the North. Working for local government, teaching, or for the government isn’t a bad option when housing is cheap. If there were people who demanded more from the schools and put more into them, there might be change.

The Ofsted report is also really saying that there are not enough good practitioners to go round and change the 52 schools that haven’t been good in 13 years. In London there was expertise and it was harnessed. Why don’t people in the North manage to get these skills and use them to bring about sustained improvement in these schools? Surely skills and expertise isn’t just the preserve of people in London? There are huge opportunities for Governors to change schools with Heads. Why aren’t there decent Governors? There are many retired people who have superb skills and could help. Why don’t the more highly educated in society become Governors? London got to grips with their problems and there are other areas that could do the same if they really wanted it.

It's not about individual good teachers. It's about systems and, as viques said, honest and open analysis and challenge. Forced academisation can in fact work against that I think. I work on an area where all secondarirs are academies. So are autonomous and some are part of MATs, but there are lots of local level partnerships which work to the benefit of all the schools. The outcomes in the region have risen considerably.

Yes yes to Talkin's comments with bells on.

The difference is away from London there are hoards without glue and IT to do homework too. Sadly due to budget unfairness which London doesn't see there are serious shortages of the basics e.g. glue and IT in schools on top. Libraries have also closed down so no joy there and with crap broadband, £7 a bus ticket every hour at best to your nearest city or anywhere,limited education and aspirations many families in poverty and just above are disadvantaged in a far greater way.

But still the focus will be on London. This has been said over and again,it never changes.

@thecatfromjapan. I have googled, it was called The London Challenge.

Of course the fact that academisation is not an educational philosophy but an economic and political policy might have something to do with it. By which I only mean that there is no reason turning a school into an academy should have any effect on performance at all, since there is no educational justification for it. In the early days, when LAs were failing to improve certain schools, the original academy model was an outside cash boost and an external impetus for change. Now it is simply a way of removing control from the LA and, as a result, some schools will do better, some the same and some worse. So the problems, such as they are, in schools in 'the North' (which sounds like a very big area to squeeze into two words) won't necessarily be alleviated by a shift of managerial control or less LA oversight of funds.

I think the latest Ofsted Annual report (16/17) the first by the new Head of Ofsted, highlights all the problems faced by the worst performing schools. They have identified 50 secondary schools that have never been “good” since 2005. Continual RI or Inadequate.

The main barriers to improvement are discussed in detail. Briefly, improvements are not maintained because of high turnover of leadership and teachers. MATs are, on average, 5 schools and don’t have enough expertise for the problem schools and improvements are too slow. Governors are not good enough. Leadership is weak and over generous on self assessment of the school. Leadership doesn’t tackle ineffective teaching; performance management is under developed and there is no accountability for weak pupil progress. There is deprivation. There is poor attendance and poor behavuour. There is plenty more, but I suggest everyone should read it.

Now the analysis has been done, it will be interesting to see if anyone comes up with the solution as to how to improve these schools that can be sustained. It seems pretty obvious that it’s Governors and Leadership that count together with the MATs having enough expertise to drive up standards. However teachers have a massive role to play and issues such as assessment, lesson planning and accountability are all discussed.

Viques Was it Beacon schools? Or was that earlier?

I understand though that there are some towns and cities where immigration is below national average? Redcar and Cleveland, for example.

But yes, I’d have thought the standard of living for a doctor or nurse would be higher in terms of house affordability for example.

Some friends we have live in gorgeous properties that would be almost millionaire residences in London.

Perhaps we need to attract some of those high-ambition immigrants to northern cities so their children can help boost results and lift aspirations. But I suppose if there so job opportunities that won’t work.

Plenty of high ambition 3rd generation immigrants in the Northern towns. They're the ones who usually go into training as doctors, so yes there are jobs for them, as there are for nurses, teachers, emergency services, etc, in the North as you have to have them where they are needed. Their wages also go a lot further in cheaper Northern areas, eg nurses and teachers are well over local average wages in my city.

You don’t necessarily need brilliant transport links in rural areas.

We're not asking for "brilliant" transport links, but we do NEED a system where it's feasible to actually travel. Due to crap public transport, it takes just as long to get 90 miles from my city to another by train, as it takes to get 250 miles to London by train. 3 hours to travel just 90 miles between cities is simply not acceptable. Not to mention that most of that 90 mile journey is on drafty uncomfortable 40 year old trains usually without heating nor a working toilet (and don't even think about asking if it has catering facilities or Wifi). 3 hours in a cattle truck basically!

My son has to leave home to get to school in the city just 5 miles away at 7.15 in the morning. Due to a hourly bus service and long walks at each end of the journey. We don't live on a hill top, we live on a major A road which used to be the main North/South road before the motorway was built, on the direct route from a major town to the city.

We're not talking sleepy villages in the middle of nowhere. We're talking high population areas. There's simply no excuse for such poor public transport, and then you get the usual suspects whinging about people causing congestion by driving! They havn't a clue about the reality of life outside the South and major cities.

the reason that London schools are blooming is also in no small part due to the initiative that many london head teachers pushed for and promoted some 10/15 years ago, I can't remember what it was called , something like London Schools initiative. Yes it was funded, but it involved a huge amount of work by teachers , governors ,local authorities and head teachers, working in clusters of schools examining what worked in their schools, being honest about what didn't , sharing good practice, observing in other schools, planning together, putting in training both in school and encouraging teachers to develop their knowledge by further study. Looking at issues like mobility of pupils, teacher retention etc. It was very hard work, required huge levels of commitment but has paid dividends both in the schools themselves and by the way it improved relationships between schools.I have always been surprised that it has not been adapted and used for other regions.

Perhaps we need to attract some of those high-ambition immigrants to northern cities so their children can help boost results and lift aspirations. But I suppose if there so job opportunities that won’t work.

It would be in be interest of the whole country for the north to be given some kind of boost. No way can teachers fill the role of parents and social workers as well as their own jobs and I think it’s the parents who are the issue in some cases. For reasons that aren’t necessarily their fault and are to do with post industrialisation and loss of local pride.

I don't think I believe that teachers in London/SE are better than those in the North. I can well believe that there are areas in the North where retention/recruitment are an issue - but is that the case here? I don't know the figures on that. And I suspect the reasons for retention/recruitment (if that is a thing and if that is even a factor in pupil outcomes) will be complex.

I continue to suspect the answers will be found in factors lying outside the schools.

The report doesn't at all indicate that the teachers outside London/SE are not as good though does it? There may well be other reasons for lower attainment and progress in particular geographical areas. It would be surprising if there was a difference in quality of teachers.

Agree about the need to teach young people the skills we're going to need though. That is not easy though - for instance the difficulty in recruiting stem teachers eg computer science. You would require a massive increase in salaries to compete with what they can earn elsewhere. How do other countries produce their computer scientists, I wonder?

Housing in many areas in the North and Midlands cost significantly less than London. So why don’t good teachers want to work in areas where houses are better value? Their salaries would go a lot further. One can only assume that the schools in the SE are better run. They are more attractive. They are better places to work. So the other LAs and MATs need to up their game and get better teachers into the schools.

Aspiration is a difficult one to crack. I get the distinct impression that if you are born in the North, you stay in the North if you go to university. There are great jobs all over this country but you cannot live at home and expect to get them! The difficulty is the young people who have few options due to lack of educational attainment so this group in particular need to upskill. However we keep hearing how we need certain skills for the future of this country but are these young people going to be good enough to fill the gaps? History tells us they are not. They don’t want the available jobs and they don’t have the skills for something better. It all very gloomy!

I don’t think the improvement of schools in London has wholly been down to money. It’s partly down to wanting it more. Getting the best people into the schools and being aspirational.

I always feel the “North” is defeatist. Let’s get rid of HS2 and get the North connected. People sleepwalk into accepting what is offered to them without thinking what might be better. No-one now is putting forward a coherent argument for the North and Newcastle didn’t even want a Mayor when asked. There is no coherent policy and if Brexit leads to a greater loss of GDP, these areas need to think how they will cope - they voted for it after all.

You don’t necessarily need brilliant transport links in rural areas. People I know love Cornwall because it’s not connected to anywhere else. They cannot have it both ways. It cannot be remote and connected! It is perfectly possible to have great schools and be rural. Again, it’s down to leadership and high quality teaching. It’s how we get that everywhere is the great challenge.

Sorry yes. What I also meant to say is the pupils at my school in the main be classed as deprived. But their aspirations were low. So it isn't just about deprivation.

Please can we move away from the anti-London thing?

It's depressing, it's divisive, and it gets us nowhere.

It's facilitated a massive underfunding of all schools - which was in no-one's interests - rather than an increase of funding to schools that needed more investment.

I think it leaves us in a poor place to be unified in fighting the further cutbacks that are surely coming as the UK's GDP falls post-Brexit.