Michaela School and behaviour - AIBU

[herculepoirot2]

AIBU to think that you might read this behaviour policy and think it is authoritarian and unnecessary, but to also think that, with results four times better than the national average, these people might have a point about the benefits to young people of being expected to work hard and behave well?

mcsbrent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Behaviour-Policy-11.02.19.pdf

Oops the order got a bit messed up there.

Any of these sound familiar? To teachers?

You missed my favourite ones.

They can't take your phone, that's stealing.
They can't make you do detention, just leave at the end of the day.

drspouse ok you do have a valid point! I think this attitude where it exists, (and I didn't experience it in my own teaching career) is the result of a permissive, child entitled society though and needs to be reversed. How many threads are there on Mumsnet about teenagers' poor behaviour? I cannot help thinking that much of it is down to a lack of discipline and boundaries in early years. Far too many parents willing to give in to their children for a quiet life and then finding that the resulting teenager is unmanageable, disrespectful and aggressive. I cannot imagine a Michaela child ever behaving like this at home!

Small point of order.

54% of all exams being 7-9 is not the same as 54% of children getting 7-9. Earlier I referred to the Michaela 6th form criteria of 7+ at 7-9. If the 54% is evenly distributed and the students are all doing 10 GCSEs then in fact none of them would meet their own school's 6th form entry (they would have 5.4 exams each at 7-9).

Therefore I am back to asking what percentage actually meet the school's own academic selection criteria? I haven't seen it published anywhere? I am also not sure how it compares with National averages? (Ofqal quotes 832 out of total cohort with at least 7 9s but I couldn't find stats for 7+).

I would also be interested to know what Michaela's support strategy is for pupils who don't meet their 6th form criteria? Again I have not seen this discussed?

I would also be interested to know what Michaela's support strategy is for pupils who don't meet their 6th form criteria? Again I have not seen this discussed?

I don’t know the answers to this.

Why do we think their support strategies are worse than those at any other state school?

Our catchment comp is of a similar size, a naice area commutable to London and the results are not a patch on Michaela’s.

If the 54% is evenly distributed and the students are all doing 10 GCSEs then in fact none of them would meet their own school's 6th form entry (they would have 5.4 exams each at 7-9)

That’s highly unlikely, though! Don’t know what the entry criteria are generally for A level. Although 7-9 would seem reasonable to study a particular subject, 7 subjects at 7-9 seems quite demanding for a comprehensive school,

I think there was a post on one of the education boards when the school first opened where the poster had looked at the 4 nearest primary schools to Michaela and found them all to be high achieving. Of course any secondary will have a much wider catchment.

I’ve got a feeling that was me. And I think we were trying to disentangle a mess of statements that the school had put out about the on entry attainment of the first two cohorts. I still don’t think that the statements about the very low attainment of the first cohort on entry and the one about them mostly being from the area immediately round the school can both be completely true.

I still don’t think that the statements about the very low attainment of the first cohort on entry and the one about them mostly being from the area immediately round the school can both be completely true.

Their Progress 8 will be interesting then - all relative to prior attainment then compared to other children with similar attainment at KS2.

Molto I don't necessarily think their support strategies are worse. However with a highly selective 6th form this is far more important. In a comprehensive environment the assumption is that DC at least have the option to continue their 6th form schooling where they are.

Nicolamarlow you must be being disingenuous if you don't claim to know how schools in the recent past managed students with SEN that could potentially disrupt a class. In my secondary school I could have imagined there were actually no such pupils - we were streamed and they were at the bottom, in a small class doing a smaller range of subjects. I hope this was a nurturing environment for them but I suspect it was a dumping ground. I have read accounts of too many (then unaware) dyslexic students, now in their 60s and above, who would be belted at school and written off for what they couldn't do, before leaving at the earliest possible age. This would not happen now.
There are certainly things about my own education that I prefer to what I see in schools today; but to pretend that it was not without its own major flaws is madness.
Michaela works for parents and students who want that system, we can in no way extrapolate that it would have the same impact if forced on the unwilling.

I’m sure it will be. And I’m sure it will be positive with the lower bound of the CI falling above zero. I’m just not convinced it’ll be high enough to suggest that they took a cohort that was below average attainment and turned it into one that got above average GCSE results.

I don’t think that in any way diminishes the hard work that went in to getting those results.

Cecily completely agree my illustration is highly unlikely - I was extrapolating the extreme to make the point. However I also agree with you that 7+ at 7-9 seems demanding if the ambition is to be a comprehensive.

I suppose the danger for Michaela would be that if they didn't have stringent 6th form criteria and were competing against super-selectives they would lose all their top students and be left with the rest?

I think it was, Rafals! I’m sure the school are doing many positive things, but there seemed to be a lot of spin regarding deprivation to make any achievements seem even more impressive.

’m just not convinced it’ll be high enough to suggest that they took a cohort that was below average attainment and turned it into one that got above average GCSE results

When do Progress 8 figures get published?

You can’t really argue with the success of this school

Define "success". It's more than exam results: it's retention rates, inclusivity, results achieved by people who leave the school, as well. Low EHCP rates, in particular, are seriously worrying.

I will be keeping a weather eye on how Michaela goes down in white working class Stevenage. For all it us used as a by word for inner city turmoil, London achieves more highly than the rest of the country, receives higher levels of funding, has greater cultural and employment opportunities and communities which tend to be generalised as aspirational. This is not a description of Stevenage.

I can’t find any figures re numbers of EHCPs - is that in the public domain?

Department of Education statistics.

fewer pupils leaving part-way through their education than at other schools.

Well, yes. When Ofsted came in they only had three year groups. It stands to reason that a school with 300 or so children in will have fewer leaving part way through than a school with 2000. Even if Ofsted was talking about percentages - which, interestingly, is not what it says - you have to look at the high staff/pupil ratios at that point, the availability of much more teaching space, the quieter environment etc etc.

When Ofsted came in they only had three year groups. It stands to reason that a school with 300 or so children in will have fewer leaving part way through than a school with 2000. Even if Ofsted was talking about percentages - which, interestingly, is not what it says - you have to look at the high staff/pupil ratios at that point, the availability of much more teaching space, the quieter environment etc etc.

I believe they meant at similar stages, so how many left Y7, Y8, etc., otherwise it would hardly be worth pointing out.

But yes, I suspect the quieter environment helps enormously to keep the children happy. It is an immense achievement.

Oct I think, although full league table results in Jan. I think they’re predicting it’s around 1.5

For another take on schools with zero tolerance policies, it's worth looking up Outwood Academies, referenced above, particularly with regard to its "flattening the grass practices". Teachers describe rolling assemblies where senior managers go into schools and pick out certain children and scream into their faces and humiliate them publicly. Of the 45 schools in England which excluded over 20% of their pupils in the 2017-18 academic year, 9 were run by Outwood, with one of them excluding 41%. Disabled pupils were found to be particularly at risk of exclusion. A few months ago the Academy Trust announced that pupils will have to repeat a year, and be separated from their peer group, if their behaviour is deemed inadequate, but didn't apparently propose to look at other measures such as putting in extra support for such pupils.

To be honest I think most brand new schools fare pretty well when they can set up their ethos from scratch, have a set of super supportive parents and fewer children than the space is designed for. Add in Birbalsinghs direct access to beady eyed Teach First recruits ( she wants them all to be Oxbridge or RG) and the government support she gets and there you have it.

A Michaelaesque free school near me set itself up just before. It has til end corridors etc. When it first set up the head said every child would get a C or above in maths and English. This was clearly not going to work. They now trumpet their excellent results ( which are good) but I think they are hoping we have forgotten their original pledge.

On their third set of GCSE results now, each year has seen a slight drop as the school reaches capacity.

I don't think it's just behaviour. That us a key factor. But it us also economies of scale and size. My school has year groups nearly twice the size of the population of Michaela.

I don't see how you can describe it as an "immense achievement" for a school big enough for seven year groups but only 360 children on roll to have a quieter environment than a school with 1500 or more children on roll.

Teachers describe rolling assemblies where senior managers go into schools and pick out certain children and scream into their faces and humiliate them publicly.

If true, that is disgraceful, but to link it to Michaela is a slur.

I don't see how you can describe it as an "immense achievement" for a school big enough for seven year groups but only 360 children on roll to have a quieter environment than a school with 1500 or more children on roll.

Because it isn’t happenstance that the school is the way it is. They have policies they enforce to keep it calm and quiet. Other schools don’t.