To think Park View Academy, must be doing something right ( looking at their statistics)

[smokepole]

I have just looked at the Park View Academy's statistics and have been amazed. I expected to see appalling statistics, yet the statistics are fantastic!

92.5% of pupils English as a second language 59.8% of pupils on FSM yet achieves 75% 5 A*-C Maths and English.

There might be a problem with some religious zealots there, but clearly the school is achieving fantastic results. The school is giving its pupils an education far beyond, what the raw statistics say it should be doing.

The problems should have been dealt with in an efficient and quiet way, it should not have come to the media attention. The school deserves to be looked on as beacon of excellence for its outstanding results.

Evil. The school has 29% (34) low ,56%(65)Middle, 15%(17) High. The average achieved GCSE grades are: low D+ Middle B- High A- so clearly when taken in context the levels of progress achieved are good.

I have known Dave Hughes (Park View Vice-chair of governors) for over 15 years. He is a man of integrity, he lead an excellent governor support team at the LA, and was an advisor before that. If he says OFSTED have the wrong picture about what happens in Park View, then I am afraid I am inclined to believe him. IME he is a man of sound judgement.

I also know a teacher there who is the nephew of another teacher that is HoD, a true case of nepotism!

There are quite possibly practices that should not be encouraged, but that does not make the school a hotbed of extremism. I have also ben on the receiving end of an OFSTED team coming in with their minds already made-up about the judgement

I am strongly against faith schools of any denomination, and very much want state funding of faith-based education to end. (not that any of these schools are faith-based btw!).
The other Birmingham school (that is faith-based, Al Hijrah) making headlines is doing a fantastic job of destroying the cause of faith schools (that school has always been crap, seriously bad, it took them years to get approved by DfE to become a state school, and it looks as though they're on the verge of being closed down).

Oh, and DfE have been after an excuse to eliminate Birmingham LEA for 20 years or so! It's one of the reasons Tim Brighouse stepped down. I imagine Gove is loving this...

However, the school has good points once the 'serious' problems, can be sorted out and hopefully it can become at least a good school

You'd hope so, yes - but for progress to be made, those actully in the schools need to take responsibility for the problems as well as the successes

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening yet; instead the usual cries of "islamophobia" and "unfairness" are dragged out, along with total rejection of the findings in some cases. At Al Hijrah, staff and parents are actually refusing to accept the new governing body - since it's reported that nearly £1 million went missing under the old regime, on top of everything else, you have to wonder what their motivation is

Personlly I believe this could rseul in an end of ALL religious instruction in schools ... which may be no bad thing

I still find all of this rather puzzling, not least because everyone seems to be acknowledging that, despite looking very closely, Ofsted hasn''t found the so-called Trojan Horse or, to mix metaphors, anything resembling a smoking gun.

I heard an interesting comment on the radio to the effect that a number of these schools are in pretty rough areas, and the emphasis on religion has been a reaction to that: parents support this because they hope that, if their children are encouraged to adhere to Muslim values, they will have a strong sense of morality imbued in them and be deterred from joining gangs, experimenting with drugs, and getting led astray generally.

the things at Oldknow academy look appalling

Catholic schools can and do employ non-catholics. And teach about all religions. And allow the boys and girls to mix and to do PE and swim together.

I think OFSTED should go in unannounced to schools.

As a teacher, I would be fine with OFSTED making unannounced visits, as long as they don't then expect me to have sheets of data for them to look at, and accept that, if they happen to show up on a day when I'm doing an assessment lesson then that is what they will see. Part of the problem with "no notice" is that the inspectors expect to see certain things that wouldn't usually be there.

catholic schools will NOT appoint non catholic heads

disgraceful

agree, this is nothing to do with RS lessons

Its about governance

indeed it shows all the more need for RS lessons. And if you are about to opine about RS lessons and havent been in one for over ten years then, with respect, please dont

i have never had the experience of it. In 7 years

Prob depends on the school
But hey - you cant win every battle

thats a good point. But if the numbers are so low...
Good RS teaching does not advertise a faith

In mine - fine!Outstanding even

It helps when the teachers are pretty much atheists

I feel a big problem with OFSTED has been its very narrow focus on "progress". The inspectors were dazzled by the exam results and did not look deeper.

There is no doult that Park View got good GCSE results. Park view has quite rightly been rated as "good" for results and "good" for teaching.
The school has failed on "leadership" and "safeguarding".

I feel that religion in community schools is not an islamic problem. For example my daughter's community school now has an overdose of christiantiy because we have a new head. Many parents are unhappy that their children are being taken to church and taught christianity as fact.

My impression is that Park View was turned into an islamic faith school. I don't believe that Park View is a hotbed for Al-Qaeda.

The school is hugely oversubscribed and has a catchment of 350 metres, it is clearly providing what local parents want.

The Ofsted report indicates:

• single sex RE and sex education lessons
• not enough combating of extremism (I'm not clear why the school needs to combat this?), also forced marriage
• girls discouraged from mixing with boys and similar issues.

It appears that Ofsted believes that the Pakistani/Bangladeshi community in the area presents many social problems in relation to the rest of our secular society, and it expects the school to actively combat this with things like modern sex education. Clearly the local population does not want this, but I'm not quite clear where this drive has come from within Ofsted.

You will find the self same issues in every Pakistani and Bangladeshi community in Britain -the extent to which state schools will indulge the issues is rather unclear, but I can't imagine any of this is new, it see,s more that Ofsted has suddenly decided that well-behaved, high-achieving Islamic students are not the be all and end all, and secularism is more important.

The school has not gone from 'Outstanding' to 'Inadequate', my guess is it is as good as it ever was, but Ofsted have suddenly decided that Islamist edcation is a problem for society. This does make a lot of sense given the problems Islamic extremism is known to present to Britain, but it must come as a shock to the schools that have gone down the Islamist road with the full approval of British institutions. I expect more schools to be subject to the same peremptory turnabout in the coming months.

In my opinion this reaction is in the response to things like the Rotherham child abuse cover-up - at one time 'community relations' were seen as the most important thing, so Islamic parents could choose sexist and backward education for their children with the approval of the institutions of the British state, and moreover some of those institutions would turn a blind eye to medieval practices in the name of community relations, even to the extent of rape and child abuse. Now in a volte-face Ofsted and others have decided that actually none of this should be allowed in Britain, and basically those who want this can fuck right off.

I don't think these schools have changed, it is more the way they are looked at, suddenly all of those 'aspects of multiculturalism' are now instead being regarded as medieval bigotry.

And not before time.

Ofsted has a bit of a track record of finding what its political masters want to find. A year or two ago it endorsed a special school as outstanding, only to put it it special measures a few months later after the school had lost a high profile discrimination case in which it was severely criticised by the tribunal.

I'm not saying that they were wrong to enter adverse reports in that case or the Birmingham ones, but when they do such massive turnarounds as a result of outside pressure it does nothing whatsoever for their credibility.

Dont know which of the bunch it was, but this morning's news reported that they had dropped all arts and music.

Reform or close them down.

92% of pupils English as a second language?! Forgive me my ignorance but does that mean that 92% of pupils speak English as an afterthought, and have their own mother tongue at the forefront of their language?
If it does, which I suspect it does, then I don't see how that is not a concem. That's not 'something they're doing right' at all if that's the case.
I fail to see how that's not detrimental to the learning of others if the majority of class members can't even speak the same language.