DD school and horrific Ofsted report

[Specialmeasuresofgin]

This will completely out me so I am under a new name. Sorry it is long but I am desperate for advice.

We moved our child who is year nine to a different school last September. This followed a terrible time at her old school which included bullying, threats with a knife and a generally horrible time at her old school. DD has some learning needs which were also not being met and socially she was near enough always alone. She hated school and was beginning to refuse to go and was suffering from anxiety.

The only suitable other option with space was a UTC school. Socially she has thrived here, smaller environment, teachers know all the pupils and for the first time ever has proper consistent friends.

We have had issues with the teaching in Maths and I made a complaint about this as her maths teacher has been teaching at another place for the last six months consistently leaving them with supply teachers, her physics teacher has also been off months.
DD made a massive drop in learning in Maths (think B to a D)
The school did say they were dealing with it and that the teacher would be back properly by x date, he is back but has been missing several days again since. They arranged to work with dd to support her and did for a couple of weeks but this too seems to have veered off.

Apart from this dd is holding her own academically despite having sen. In certain lessons she has made amazing progress and some teaching in those areas seems very good.

I was really panicking that I had done the wrong thing but she is so happy so I decided to hold out on a decision.

Anyway Ofsted report came home tonight and it is VERY BAD.
They are now in special measures and every single area has received inadequate.

Failures in safe guarding, inadequate teaching, irretrievable damage to the now year 11s teaching, Top set year 11 covering primary level work, breakdown of relationship between senior staff and teachers,very weak teaching, high amount of parent complaints, racist and homophobic bullying.

Basically it is really bad.

I could cry. DD is so happy here but another UTC school linked this the same people has announced closure after none of them passed their GCSE exams.

If dd was year 11 in September I would possibly risk it but she will go into year 10. The school only officially takes at year 10 and a lot of the new starters for September are withdrawing their application meaning dropping numbers.

So we are faced with three scenarios.

1. The new team come in and kick it up the arse and it sorts it self out.
2. Numbers continue to drop and they close the school like they have with other UTC. Leaving dd possibly at the start of year 11 with no school.
3. The year 11 fail their GCSES, The school is closed like the other linked one was and dd is possibly left with no school for year 11.

AIBU to ask what the hell you would do?

Are student numbers very low already? How do they compare to the maximum number the school can take?

I often see it said on here that special measures mean a school will be turned around but that's really not the case. The high school I went to has been bouncing between inadequate and just doing enough to not be inadequate for at least the best part of 20 years.

The reality is that Ofsted inspections tell you how good the school is at Ofsted inspections and little more.......the difference between a school that is outstanding and a school that is failing can in reality be very little and amount to little more than different record keeping.

Oh, this attitude drives me mad. I've posted at length about it before and I'm not going to repeat myself here but:

• yes, it's perfectly possible for an individual child to do perfectly well at a school in SM
• no, it is NOT possible for a school to fluke its way into SM because they had a bad day or their paperwork is off. There are two categories of inadequate school. If the inspection team has confidence in the leadership of the school to make improvements then they will be graded 'inadequate' with 'serious weaknesses'. Inadequate and 'special measures' means that the leadership do not have the capacity to improve the school.

That doesn't mean that OP should necessarily move her child, but her brief summary of the issues raised in the report makes it perfectly clear that there are serious problems in the running of this school.

OP, I've been involved in / aware of several school closures and transitions. It is unheard of for y11 to be left with no school. Are you sure that this is what happened with the other UTC? Usually the KS4 students remain at the school with a skeleton staff while KS3 students are re-distributed to other local schools, and the school only officially closes after Y11 leave.

Usually the KS4 students remain at the school with a skeleton staff

This is what I would expect - also schools don't just close do they? I thought they have to go through consultation processes which presumably would take a while.

Ofsted is easy to understand it is all down to results. If they are bad OFSTED come in and invariably school is in one of the two lower categories.
The only important thing is how your daughter is and you say happy. Not all staff will leave but maths and sciences will struggle to recruit staff

I'd move her. The school sounds like it's falling apart at the seams and night not be turned around properly until after the current cohort have been failed (as happened to a school near us)

The school closures I have been involved with all had skeleton staff to allow the exam groups to finish before closing.

The awarding organisations (exam boards) will also have input into this to ensure that the students are not unfairly hindered.

If she's happy I would keep her there. Special Measures means the school should be actively trying to improve, will be under close scrutiny from ofsted, and will probably throw all its resources at getting next years year 11 to do the best they can. Could you potentially afford extra tuition in maths for your DD? I know in an ideal world you shouldn't have to, but if she's happy there and that's your main academic concern that might make the difference.

As well as the Governors find out which local councillor sits on Education and approach them with your concerns.

I would get her out of there asap if there are any other options whatsoever. It will take time to turn the school round, there will be staff turnover and a lot of unhappiness, morale will be poor for some time and your daughter is at a critical time in her education. If she were in year 7 you would have time to ride it out, as she isn't you need to get her into somewhere decent now because this is going to impact on her GCSE's.

I don't see how a local councillor could intervene in the school's business in a helpful way. If anything it will muddy the waters with too many cooks. Let OFSTED oversee the improvement plan without the distraction of external grandstanding.

If a councillor can release extra funding, that would be helpful.

I would be applying for a place at the school with a year 10 intake.

X246 we were told that the school would be oversubscribed for current year tens but Ofsted numbers show it isn't.

Dd is one of 30 year nines taken. She will go into year ten in September and be joined by any new joining year tens who don't now back out (I've seen posts from people saying they are now declining places)

Just to clarify I didn't mean I was worried it would close mid year for year eleven I meant I was worried it would close when my dd was at the end of year ten.

This has just happened with a linked UTC who have only been open a year longer than ours.

In that case they finished the year eleven children's exams and the year tens has to be distributed between local schools with spaces for their year eleven. The council helped but it was still difficult.

Be glad it's in Special Measures rather than a notice to improve. More help and funds will be thrown out it at a much more intense pace and they will have more leeway to push out non performing leadership team members, staff etc.

I would leave her there if she is is happy.

Could you afford a maths tutor as that is quite an important subject and one hour a week even could help her pass first time.

In that case they finished the year eleven children's exams and the year tens has to be distributed between local schools with spaces for their year eleven. The council helped but it was still difficult.

That is unusual but if there is precedent within the trust then you are right to be concerned. I would start actively looking for other options. Could you find the money for two years of private schooling for her?

I think the vital thing for posters who are perhaps not familiar with UTC's is that there are only 15 of these schools across the country. At least 4 have closed (only a couple of years after they first opened) & another is due to close this August. Most are hugely under subscribed (100 pupils in a 600 capacity school) & many have been rated inadequate.

With a few notable exceptions like JCB academy where parents are taking their children out of private schools to go there, it's a failed experiment.

S & D OP?

It's all very well saying she's happy. But the fact they're teaching primary level stuff to Year elevens is awful. Kids won't be happy if they leave school at the end of year eleven having failed every gcse.

I would be tempted to move now. Unless the school can really reassure you how they're going to change things very quickly. I would have no confidence in the staff who were teaching at such an incorrect level and no confidence in the senior leadership team who haven't picked this up. Problem is the school will struggle to attract new staff.

You don't want to get to the end of year ten and still realise there's a problem as it may well be too late to move by then. Even if you could find a place elsewhere if they have different exam boards then they could be learning different texts in English, etc.

Agree with previous poster about UTCs in general. There is one near me and they recently had to take all their year elevens on an English gcse residential at Easter as they'd realised there hadn't been enough English teaching during the previous eighteen months. Someone at work has a dc there and as she said it's all very good they got two weeks intensive English tuition paid for but it meant the kids couldn't revise other subjects in thatbtwo week break.

Ah, just looked at the local UTC ofsted and I suspect it's the same one....ofsted report out in 27th of march? You need to get your dd out of there.

Does what is written in the Ofsted report chime with you? Do you recognise what they are saying about the school?

I don't know what a UTC school is and may have suggested listening to your gut and sticking with it, but it appears there are few of these schools and they are not succeeding. That leads me to think that an alternative might be better. It wouldn't be ideal to change schools mid way through GCSE courses. My daughter's English teacher left the school at the end of year 10 and it made the difference of a predicted A* to an actual B. Multiply that by several subjects.

The other thing I would be concerned about is that teacher morale is described as low. The last date for resignations is 31st May, so you may find staff jumping ship by the end of the academic year

If you're worried about closure, other people will be too and low numbers/falling rolls is what caused the other UTC closures. Your main reason for keeping her there is happiness/friendships but some of her friends' parents might be having the same thoughts you're having about moving their kids to another school.

Foxy the maths and absent teachers absolutely.
I had heard through the rumour mill that the year 11s were doing badly.

The safeguarding and rest of it took me by surprise.

Possum, town beginning with B?
If so I'm shocked about the English thing as so called English is solid...

AIBU to ask what the hell you would do?

I would sit tight, as these measures are not always greatly accurate TBH

I moved DS from an allegedly Outstanding school, its was awful!

she is HAPPY that's the most important thing. and if needs be for the interim period get some extra help for where she is weak.

From your description OP I guessed which UTC (University Techical College for those who don't know).

For a million and one reasons, get her out if you can.