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

I have just read a report and this was one of the headline results:

Subject highlights: 99% 9-4 MFL, 98% RE, 93% 9-4 Double Science, 100% 8+ Triple Science, 86% EBacc Entry,

I don't really understand Ebacc, and google hasn't been much help - but (correct me if I am wrong) is it is a narrower definition of the '5 passes including Maths and English? If so does this mean that 14% (16 pupils) didn't get entered for all the exams? Wonder what that means for them.

I just hope that KB is reading this thread.

My niece goes to a school like this, it only opened last September. Pupils have no individuality, they all have identical uniform, bags, pencil cases & coats. There is no choice of school meals, it is take it or leave it, no packed lunches, the school day starts at 8.00am & finishes at 5.00pm. The prospectus states "if you don't agree with our ethos, then don't send your children here" The pupils are even banned from entering shops in their uniform, getting caught results in a week's detention, including Saturday morning. I can imagine that when these pupils leave school they wont be capable of thinking for themselves. Yes to schools being tough on discipline but no to turning out rows of little robots.

I wonder why they don't want them going in shops in their uniform.

They hand picked all the first intake, my niece got in because she is a talented musician. No SEN pupils were admitted, since starting my niece has been diagnosed with ASD, anxiety, depression & is self harming, I honestly wonder what support, if any she will get or if she will be managed out.

I am old enough to have been to a Grammar School in the olden days. This was a standard way of education and it worked well
While the encouraging of individuality the comprehensive system espouses sounds good, education has been in a race to the bottom since its introduction

I love the no shops rule. Having seen the crap that kids buy at break times.

"I can imagine that when these pupils leave school they wont be capable of thinking for themselves."

There are plenty of those already being churned out by the current system, why not try something else to see if it works?

education has been in a race to the bottom since its introduction

Oh please -and that's why we have league tables and constant articles about pupil anxiety....

I am no advocate of grammar schools, but I am sure many, many grammar schools would baulk at much of this. And grammars are selective , so they are choosing the most able. Michaela has a comprehensive intake and has now set up a definitely highly selective sixth form. I wonder how it feels to be reasonably able in that school, have jumped through al the hoops (who knows in that school, perhaps literally!), and then be told you need to go somewhere else for sixth form study. It is a clear sign they are massaging future A Level performance data to me.

"if you don't agree with our ethos, then don't send your children here" : this is also a variant of the message in their teacher recruitment.

Perhaps some posters should watch the excellent German film, The Wave which shows what could happen if conformity became they key goal.

If we agree that robots are being churned out by the current system (I don't FWIW but agree it's a threat) then Michaela is an extreme end of that spectrum, surely? It's a school like St Christopher's in Letchworth you'd want to look at for excellent standards whilst being less restrictive and more free thinking. Or what Stantonbury in MK used to be like in the 80s pre academies and league tables.

unicorn the Ebacc is Eng, ma, science , plus and MFL and a humanity. Comp Sci , I believe got shoehorned in there.
Schools are measured on % not just doing this but achieving grades 4 and above in the entire suite of subjects. Some schools care more about this measure than others. My high performing school ahs a figure of, I think, 14%. So, Michaela's figure is astonishingly high : but does also reveal the lack of curriculum choice as I imagine nigh on 100% are entered for those subjects. This is why the school doesn't have DT, media, much in the way of the arts ,and on a wider national scale why this measure has been gradually killing off the arts subjects and, by accident, DT

I guess, though, in a school where everyone does it, there must be much less anxiety or complaints around option time!

I think when I was at school (and many of Gove's ideas are based on Scottish private schools) we were allowed in shops in uniform but we were not allowed to eat in uniform while on our way to or from school.

This was all to preserve the idea of us being 'naicer' than the plebs. I am sure you could dress it up as being anti junk food but, as it is an old fashioned rule, harking back to olden days, it is more about not doing what what the commoners do.

Those results are not dissimilar to my local comprehensive school, which adopts the exact opposite approach, having a relationships policy not a behaviour policy and not offering detentions or demerits etc. I wonder if the difference is having a very passionate and engaged leadership team?

I don’t agree with stopping children having snacks or going to the shop. BUT there are practical reasons that this helps with the aim of educating them effectively. Going to the shop before school tempts children to be late. It divides the children who can afford armfuls of snacks from those who can’t. It allows children to start or finish the day full of sugar. It increases the chances of them dropping litter. It encourages them to congregate outside shops and behave in silly or anti-social ways.

Like I said, I don’t agree with it, but I can imagine why it works.

caroloro

Where is your local comprehensive school?

LavenderAndBeeswax

I read the battle hymn of the tiger mother and it was quite upsetting in places. The poor girls being dragged out of school playtime for another music lesson, the three hours of music practice every night, not letting dc spend time with their sick grandmother who lived in the house so they could do their hours of music practice and homework. I think she stole part of their childhood and it was verging on abuse.
Just the fact they named their book after Tiger mother puts me off the whole concept. I can see some good things in it but I won't get over this prejudice that there something wrong with it.

Not in London, admittedly

London schools do still get more funding per pupil than other schools, bear in mind (as I keep saying, we'll see how Michaela fares in underfunded Stevenage). There are other schools in deprived areas of London that have massively improved. The last two governments seem to be now focusing on the stellar achievements of their pet (free) schools and saying less about the schools which are showing huge improvements over time, of which there are many in London Boroughs. (I believe the school next to Grenfell is one?)

One of the government's new things is T Levels : you'd think they'd want one of their pet schools to take these up?

Piggywaspushed

There is definitely a backdrop here of schools that have improved due to some gentrification and the impact of Challenge Partners. There are some very high-performing schools in Brent, not just Michaela. I am not of the view that their whole ethos needs to be transplanted in order for children to do well, but I think there are definitely some lessons to be learnt there.

Having worked in two notorious and quite well known comprehensive schools, both within three miles of Michaela, I can absolutely see how their system works and how it is successful.

The majority of students will be on free school meals, many will have chaotic home lives and little supervision outside the school gates. By setting up school as a separate space from all this, with rigid expectations, the school are simply giving a lot of students the stability they crave (whether they know it or not). Strict behaviour policies = high pass rates. That is fact. They are giving these children choice and freedom as adults, and playing the o

HOWEVER, and it's a big however,

Sorry, hit reply too soon.

My big HOWEVER regards SEN. Because you can bet that at least half of those kids at Michaela started in year 7 on the SEN register.

I don't know how they would deal with ASD, or ADHD. And very little is ever revealed about it. I would definitely want to sniff around that a bit more if I was a parent sending my kid there.

I don't know how they would deal with ASD, or ADHD.

My feeling is that they are arguing that the structures and certainties of the environment are better for most students with those conditions. I don’t know about that. I can see how it would be true for lots of students I have taught (and wholly disagree with the reductive certainties expresses earlier on the thread, that a child with X can’t do Y... ever. Regardless of the child and their exact difficulties). But I can also see that other students I have taught wouldn’t have coped.

But then my central conflict is this: if a child can not cope in a quiet and purposeful learning environment, what do we change?

It would depend entirely on the individual child @herculepoirot2 so is impossible to say

It would depend entirely on the individual child @herculepoirot2 so is impossible to say

Well, yes. And if you have 10% of children who need the environment to be louder, less structured, less rule-led and more flexible? What do you do then?

Personally I am sceptical that every child whose parents claim they can’t cope with structure actually can’t. Sometimes I think they have never been given it. But I am fully prepared to accept that some children can’t.

So do you change an entire, working school system for that child?

I can’t see how it isn’t as black and white as their needs conflicting with everyone else’s, and I don’t know what we should do about it.