Remember that free school with ultra strict behaviour policies in a deprived area - it has fantastic GCSE results

[chomalungma]

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/aug/22/controversial-michaela-free-school-delights-in-gcse-success

"More than half (54%) of all grades were level 7 or above (equivalent to the old-style A and A*), which was more than twice the national average of 22%. Nearly one in five (18%) of all grades were 9s, compared with 4.5% nationally, and in maths, one in four results were level 9."

Impressive. Congratulations to them. Only wish DS's school did as well.

I wonder what it is really like to study there and to teach there.

That's amazing! I'm so happy for them

They’ve provided limited information on their results.

What were the schools English and maths results separately and combined?

Are the English and maths results inline with national?

One out of 4 might have achieved a grade 9 in maths but what did the rest achieve?

What is the process 8 figure? Even based on last years measures?

There are plenty of other schools in deprived areas in London that have achieved great results without such strict behaviour policies.

Just FYI

Incredible

Ok so they have ‘great results’ (according to the limited information they provide). They sound as if they crushed the children’s souls and spirits to get them.

They do seem to be amazing results. I wonder what their cohort size is, and how many children they initially took who were on the SEN register.
I don’t know enough about Free Schools but I bet their teachers work a LOT of hours.

I would be interested to know how many children been 'off rolled' or only allowed to do lower level papers in some subjects.
Because that is what goes on at the "we are so amazing" academy chain where I live.
Allegedly.

Well done on the results, but I don't agree with this. If it's true, the lunch aspect makes me feel very sad indeed.

'Pupils are given demerits or detention for forgetting to bring a pencil or pen, or for talking in corridors when moving between lessons. The school hit the headlines again when it was reported that children whose parents had failed to pay for their lunches were made to eat separately from their classmates.'

Lots of interesting questions about Progress 8, off rolling, general grades and the raw data.

I also don't agree with the strictness and the attitudes towards pupils such as the lunch policy.

However - those look like good results. When I hear about some of the behaviour in DS's school, I wish they would take things a bit more seriously and have higher expectations.

I just can't get excited about this. I've learned that there's an awful lot of smoke and mirrors with school exam results. You get a tad cynical after a while.

It’s about their intake. Self selecting driven parents who are very focussed on education. It would be a surprise if they didn’t get good results.

P8 will be interesting to see. I Suspect it will be pretty good to be honest.

I can see that that sort of environment and ethos gets good academic results. I wouldn't want it for my children because it is like something out of a george orwell novel but it does what it says on the tin.

Check out their behaviour policy. It is absolutely freaky. All about tracking and following. Very Handmaid's Tale.

She wanted to start her school in my neighbourhood at around the time my children were going up to secondary school. For reasons that I forget now, it didn't materialise. I don't feel the loss!

They're expecting P8 of +1.5

Which is huge.

1.5 is massive. I worked near that school until last year. Isn’t it their first gcse results? A colleague who visited said the way they taught was amazing and students in French were talking reasonably fluently in Key Stage 3, which is amazing if correct.

9-4:

91% Maths
90% English
85% E & M

Very impressive. Many congratulations to them.

@CherryPavlova Where did you get that info about their intake? I know Brent vaguely enough from passing through and it's a pretty deprived area - huge amounts of ESOL and pupil premium kids. I'd be really surprised if that wasn't their intake too - from my understanding the school was full of little shits with behaviour problems whose parents were at the end of the line and no other schools could do anything with their kids, and somehow this school turned them around.

Hugely impressive school, I was delighted to see these results.

I'd be interested to know if pupils with SEN left and pupils with pushy parents joined.

However, I hope it really is down to teaching and hard work, without any of the pupils cracking under pressure. Time will tell.

Pupils whose first language is not English - National average 16.5%, Michaela 56%

Pupils eligible for free school meals at any time during the past 6 years - National average 28.6%, Michaela 46.8%

In view of that, their results aren't just incredible, they're bloody miraculous. Huge huge respect to all the staff and kids who achieved that.

91% Maths
90% English
85% E & M

Wow.

New Ofsted framework is focussing more on how schools get results, not the results themselves. So, trying to eliminate the off rolling that goes on in these “amazing” free schools. Our local one is notorious for this - but no one can touch them as they are a free school.

This makes me sad as our local fabulous comp ends up with all the kids off rolled from the amazing free school, works miracles to get them within a sniffing distance of a 4 and is then seen as under performing whilst the free school crows about all its 9s.

Maybe it’s back to the good old days. What does a school look like with strict discipline, clear rules and no disruption permitted. Where education in the curriculum is prioritised.
Parents are free to choose somewhere else if they aren’t happy.

If they truly have a P8 of 1.5 then Ofsted will leave them to it.

They sound like good results but I would genuinely be worried about the children's mental health being in this kind of environment. It's not what I would want for my children as there should be much more to school than exam results and rules.
It would be interesting to know the rate of pupil turnover and if all pupils are allowed to stay and sit all exams, even if they may not be good for the statistics.

Unless those children are very resilient, they will do very badly in the workplace. Rigidity, lack of initiative, an inability to exercise authority with compassion or to accept it gracefully. Those were my problems after 7 years of being repressed.