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

But not doing IT and having such a limited curriculum is slamming doors shut not opening them.

I doubt there are a great many doors slammed shut against students with 9-10 excellent GCSEs. Maybe they aren’t going to be professors of Spanish. Maybe they will have to take up a different route in IT. But they are - in the main - better qualified to make choices than children with strings of 2s and 3s, aren’t they?

I doubt there are a great many doors slammed shut against students with 9-10 excellent GCSEs

Depends on what those GCSEs are and what they want to do later....

Got to admit you are putting up a good argument for this school - and can't see any flaws at all.

Obviously something very odd is going on in relation to children with EHCPs.

My DC school has 21% SEN (10%) and 1% EHCP (4.4%). I think this is a reflection of how notoriously difficult it is to get an EHCP in the area.

in these cash strapped times, many schools are only offering one MFL, I wouldn't particularly criticise Michaela for that.

Our school gets a slightly below average number of students with an EHCP apply, mainly due to deprivation and parents/primary schools not applying for them.

Interesting point. My sister-in-law had to fight really hard to get one, and it took huge amounts of effort, research, self-confidence and time: does that mean they are more of a middle-class thing?

My DC school only offers French.

My DN (different lea) they have more than one language but she has been put on a single language pathway.

Depends on what those GCSEs are and what they want to do later....

Of course, but the reformed courses are so packed full of content that doing 11/12 of them isn’t going to work. Schools have to make choices about what they offer. I don’t think this is just Michaela.

I don't see how that reconciles with the valid point made on here that, for some children with SEN, the Michaela régime would be attractive. It would also normally have been quite attractive to such parents that it's a new school and therefore small.

Because not all parents of children with SEN are the same.

Statement of the blindingly obvious. However, that simply cannot be the explanation for the extremely low numbers of children with EHCPs. It would be extraordinary if parents of 90% of pupils of secondary age with EHCPs are avoiding naming Michaela as their preference even when on the face of it a quiet, disciplined régime in a small school would be exactly what their child needs. Can you at least accept the possibility that the school is being named as first preference by at least some parents of children with EHCPs but is resisting accepting them?

Which sounds - for some reason - quite damning, but my last school was a mainstream comprehensive with 1,400 kids and only about six or seven ECHPs. They are very hard to get.

The proportion of children of secondary age with EHCPs is 3.2%, rising to 3.8% by age 16. Given the percentage nationally, obviously they aren't anything like as hard to get as the statistic produced by this one school implies.

Schools have to make choices about what they offer

It will be interesting to see their results when they get bigger and offer more choices.

Because once you're at the top of your game, results can only go down.

Let me stop you there: I have seen it. I am not lying.

Please don't misrepresent what I am saying. I didn't say you were lying. I think you may be mistaken about what people responding on this thread are saying about the use of rigid discipline policies.

However, that simply cannot be the explanation for the extremely low numbers of children with EHCPs. It would be extraordinary if parents of 90% of pupils of secondary age with EHCPs are avoiding naming Michaela as their preference even when on the face of it a quiet, disciplined régime in a small school would be exactly what their child needs. Can you at least accept the possibility that the school is being named as first preference by at least some parents of children with EHCPs but is resisting accepting them?

Of course I can accept that it is a possibility. It seems to me that you are the one unable to accept any explanation other than the one you have decided upon.

We aren’t actually talking about that many people. If a few hundred parents consider sending their children to Michaela each year, it only takes a few either way to skew the statistics in quite dramatic directions, but it isn’t statistically significant.

You don't need an IT gcse to go on to study computer science, either at Uni or at a further education college. Just like you don't need an engineering GCSE to go on to do engineering. Etc. A good set of results in GCSEs in general is far more important.

Please don't misrepresent what I am saying. I didn't say you were lying. I think you may be mistaken about what people responding on this thread are saying about the use of rigid discipline policies.

Fair enough. I don’t think I am. And I have seen it frequently on MN. It is a very real phenomenon.

I read a really interesting interview with the Head on Friday. She said that she gets a lot of abuse for being a black woman who is a Tory. She also said that often black pupils are failed by not being disciplined. She asks parents not to let their children have smartphones until they are at least 16.

It does sound really strict. However, there were times (basically when I was being bullied quite badly) when this would have been paradise. I wonder whether it is actually relaxing for the children? They get to school and there’s enough headspace to actually work hard.

She asks parents not to let their children have smartphones until they are at least 16.

Which seems like common sense to me.

There’s going to be a second Michaela school in Stevenage and the Head wants to open a chain of schools.

they are - in the main - better qualified to make choices than children with strings of 2s and 3s, aren’t they

This is my children with a string of 2s and 3s (actually ds had worse).

ATM DD 19 has just bought her first flat (no where near where we live and needs a lot of work but was very very cheap) and ds is doing an Apprentice for his nvq and supplementing his income with jobs he likes doing.

They are doing exactly what they want to do and being very successful.

Ds struggled with school. He was last in his class by a long margin. At college he finished with an average score for all his tests and assessments of 97.5% which was the top score in his class. He was also the youngest by nearly a year.

Having a string of 2s and 3s has not stopped them

I wonder if the opportunities of studying a practical course in school as a viable alternative to academia would there be so much problems in school.

I wonder if this narrowing of the curriculum and the getting rid of wood work or plumbing type courses and everything being turned into an academic lesson has had a negative impact on behaviour.

But they have a system that minimises excessive sensory input. A system that keeps the child on track. Why doesn’t that count as the necessary support in your eyes?

What a very selective response to a list of examples where support may avert behaviour that is perceived as disruptive - and where that list by definition did not claim to be comprehensive. The fact that the evidence doesn't give cause for argument in relation to all the other areas is in itself very revealing.

In relation to this particular one, how do you know that the system minimises sensory input? It minimises one input, auditory, but that won't help children with such high auditory sensitivity that they hear and are distracted by even minimal noise. How about visual and tactile input, sensitivity to crowds, busy environments and the like? Rigid uniform rules can be absolute hell for children with tactile difficulties. And how about children who need sensory input by way of use of fidget toys, movement breaks etc?

So far as being "on track" is concerned, that needs to be defined. How about the children who may be in line academically but falling apart mentally, or the children who get managed out because they aren't on track, or who get excluded due to what their parents have done?

Oliversmumsarmy

Your children are very lucky. I know many, many people without basic qualifications who feel that they are - not to put too fine a point on it - fucked. Why do you think Open University qualifications are becoming so popular? I have friends in their thirties who were allowed to piss around and truant school who would, now, as adults with children of their own, KILL for a quiet environment filled with people who just want to help them learn and reach their potential.

Good for your boys, but please stop denigrating learning. Not everyone is the same.

Tonnerre

Fidget toys are a load of faddy bollocks, so let’s dispense with that. Children with such heightened sensitivity to crowd and busy environments are only going to benefit from straight lines and corridor silence.

I see no evidence that they aren’t providing things like movement breaks, where justified by a child’s medical diagnosis.

I am in agreement with you that this needs further exploration. I said that earlier. But my question stands: if this environment is working for 90% of children, is it the ethical thing to do to change it for the 10%?

How does that work if they don't offer IT or any language other than French?

There is a point at which you have to choose what you are going to have on your curriculum, especially when you have 600 students rather than 1,200, and are funded accordingly.

Again a very selective response in relation to a post querying a suggestion that the Michaela curriculum opens doors to whatever careers their pupils want to pursue. How about IT, DT, drama?

Again a very selective response in relation to a post querying a suggestion that the Michaela curriculum opens doors to whatever careers their pupils want to pursue. How about IT, DT, drama?

Same response. Yes, they have narrowed their curriculum. They think it is worth it for the better results that give access to the more prestigious courses and don’t, in general, close doors to the others. You can study Drama at one uni I just looked up with 80 UCAS points in anything you like, as far as I can see. You can’t be a doctor if you don’t have Chemistry.

I said leafy Hertfordshire although tbf Stevenage is quite leafy, like all new towns it was built in the countryside. Lots of parks and open space. Mixed demographic as it’s now more of a commuter town than previously and the house prices, whilst still lower than neighbouring towns have been increasing steadily. Like all large towns there are all sorts of people living there

An account of one SEN pupil's progress by Michaela's SEN coordinator:

Kamron arrived at Michaela in our first cohort with a statement of Special Educational Needs outlining extreme learning difficulties. His statement expressed his inability to consistently count beyond 10, form sentences or behave in an appropriate manner around other children – at times physically lashing out. Kamron had a reading age of 7 years and 9 months on entering the school. Since joining Michaela, he has gone from strength to strength. His behaviour is exemplary and he gets on perfectly well with all of his peers. His reading age improved by over four years in his first two years at the school and is now almost in line with his chronological age. He enthusiastically contributes to every lesson.

Another one:

Fabrizio arrived in September 2014 with a reading age of 8 years and 4 months and a hatred of reading. In primary school, he was a frequent absentee and struggled with his confidence in reading, writing and arithmetic. His English level was a 3b and his Maths was below a level 2. He could barely construct a sentence in writing and became extremely frustrated and demotivated whenever he came across numbers. He would cry when asked to practise single-digit addition or multiplication sums in one-to-one sessions with his form tutor. In two years, he has made dramatic progress: his reading age reached a staggering 15 years and 10 months in July 2016. He can multiply and divide fractions confidently and is working on complex algebraic sums in Maths. He can write accurately and regularly makes profound contributions in English lessons, most recently commenting on how Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice ‘offers a challenge to the hypocrisy of the Christian church.’ He is no longer on the SEN register and now loves to read.

Another one:

Hudson arrived at Michaela in September 2015 with a statement of Special Educational Needs outlining myriad behavioural and cognitive difficulties. He had particular trouble communicating with adults and his peers and would break down in tears regularly. Since joining Michaela, Hudson has transformed. He is receiving far fewer sanctions for incomplete homework and lack of concentration. June of year 7 saw Hudson take a trip to an educational conference at Oxford University to talk about the key to his success in Maths. In the same month he set a new record and was the outright winner of a national Maths competition. His academic success has had a positive impact on other areas for Hudson. He is much happier and more confident communicating with his peers and adults now than ever before.

@Oliversmumsarmy - plenty of tiger parenting in Far East where in the past century places have been transformed from 2/3rd ‘world’ places to 1st. Part of it is due to education, emphasis on continued practice and belief that by doing so you improve. Flip side is high suicide rate and certain types of mental health issues as expectation is to achieve well. Lots of 1st gen immigrants in this country do succeed in education which helps in their life.

I’m glad I received tiger parenting. Does it work for everyone? - no. What would I do with my kids? - I’d take from it the expectation of hard work, self-discipline, being involved in their learning. I’d change expectation of achieving, probably do less activities as we don’t have the time/money.