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.

and choccy they AREN'T faith schools - hence the term Trojan Horse!

RS lessons are rarely mentioned in any report apart from when they are split boy:girl in one school. Cultural education seems to be the issue and again - crap governance.

If you want to comment please, DO read the reports!!

concern over family members not mentioned in the reports that I could see?

Just a quick word re: governance - I agree that this is key, but speaking as a governor at a primary school, I don't actually think we are fully equipped to handle issues like this.

Most of our governors work, often with little background of education. At a primary level, when we are often in school anyway, we can keep a track of what happens on the ground, but I would imagine it is very hard in a large secondary.

No notice ofsted visits are all very well, but we simply cannot rearrange work diaries around them.

I think the control and support simply has to be back at local authority level.

Is there a constant stream of new muslims joining the region because otherwise the existing muslims would learn English, RE, British way of life and their children would be more liberal, then the cycle would repeat and those children's children would be more westernized.

With arranged marriages, possibly to foreign born people, I don't think that happens.

What do you mean? I remember girls disappearing from a school I taught at. At the time it was seen as one of those things. Attitudes chsnge

Whoever was asking how many pupils aren't entered for exams - impossible to tell. However, the 75% who get 5 A*-C including English and Maths means 75% of the whole year group. You can't just not enter pupils and get good whole cohort results - these figures relate to all pupils of the age to take GCSEs on roll at the school. No getting away from it, the school's results are excellent. As to the rest...if OFSTED's findings are correct, it is terrible. I wouldn't trust an OFSTED report as far as I could comfortably spit a rat, though.

The bit that struck me in the Park View OFSTED was
"Staff have received training on how to manage students’ behaviour
, including how they should react to girls and boys mixing.
However, girls who spoke with inspectors say that some staff over-react or actively discourage them from speaking to boys and from participating in extra-curricular activities, both on and off the academy site."

I think the entire issue has been extremely poorly handled.

I also can't believe that not having raffles is seen as somehow extremist. Are people seriously suggesting that a school where 99% of the pupils and parents disagree with gambling, should be made to have a tombola? Is not having a pig roast at a school fair extremism too?

As for the idea that the schools aren't preparing children for life in the UK, these schools are in the inner city, not some cloistered fairyland, the children know about life in the UK very well.

Tackling issues of financial mismanagement, poor governance and nepotism are one thing, holding schools with a majority Muslim intake to a different standard is another.

I await Ofsted reports where small town white British children will be grilled to ascertain how "correct" their values are.

You're wrong. Inner cities can be very very cloistered into communities

Raffles are seen as normal in the UK. To ban them for religious reasons in a non faith school is wrong.

'I wouldn't trust an ofsted report as far as I could comfortably spit a rat'

why troy? It would be a bit pointless having a tombola if no one entered

Funny how people don't trust bad ones yet exalt in good ones ;)

isn't it just troy? I imagine your dc go to one of those schools with a 'good' report, which is clearly right Yes?

Methodists don't agree with raffles either. I feel its non issue that the PTA of a school chooses not to have a raffle.

Troy - not really. Regardless of what language people speak at home, or what religion people have, they have a lot of the same issues in life to deal with and I say that, having worked with the general public in inner city Birmingham for many years.

Again, rural communities can be extremely cloistered, but I don't see any suggestion that the children in these communities need special monitoring by Ofsted.

I don't trust good ones, either, tobysmum. I have seen a HT praised when I know they are drunk at school (sacked shortly after by Governors, who knew at the time). OFSTED reports are fiction, and worse, politically motivated fiction. Any truth in them is purely coincidental in my experience. They may be right about these schools - however, more than one of them had outstanding inspections within the last year. Which inspection is right?

None of the Birmingham Schools involved in the 'Trojan Horse' deserve praise. Exam results are not everyhing. No child should attend schools where they are taught the views and treated in the appalling ways these children have been. 'White women are prostitutes' they teach children and you would like to praise these schools.
Read what is going on in these schools- the extremism and underhand behaviour of governors and senior staff. It is frightening how they behave and what their agenda is.
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10700041/Muslim-extremists-and-a-worrying-lesson-for-us-all.html

GoshAnneGorilla Good attempt at minimising, but this is about a great deal more than a raffle or a hog roast, as I imagine you realise

I agree that small schools in leafy villages also have issues, but so far they don't seem to include aggressive takeovers by radical governors, wilful removal of a balanced curriculum and suppression of female rights among much else

What did OFSTED do differently this time?

As far as I can see, it's more that some schools have changed radically since the recent takeover by governors with extreme agendas

After all, not every school inspected has been criticized - it seems to be mainly those who've had an upheaval like this

yes - ditto working in Bham

I disagree

Recently OFSTED have made judgments purely on pupil data. Often schools have been regarded as failing before an inspector has stepped foot in the building. Conversely "outstanding" schools have not been looked at closely enough.

I feel that Trojan horse shows flaws in the present OFSTED regrime where progress is the only thing considered important. Other aspects of childhood have been ignored which is why Trojan horse happened.