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

Or hire tutors....

Informal exclusions are illegal, and their job is to educate all pupils placed with them, not just the ones who "fit" their environment and don't need help and support to do so. Breaking the law is hardly setting the best disciplinary example to their pupils, is it?

Actually, by your own admission, no it isn’t. If they cannot meet that pupil’s needs in their environment without it interfering with the education of the rest, they can say so. “Reasonable adjustments” does not mean “any adjustments needed, including changing your whole set-up.”

Not the same thing at all. I haven't "admitted" anything, I've simply referred to the undoubted fact that, if mainstream schools can show that they fit the legal criteria, they are very occasionally entitled to say no to a child with an EHCP - although that could not conceivably account for an EHCP rate that is 10% of that of other schools in the area. If you doubt the legal requirements involved, have a look at this Upper Tribunal decision for an example of what is expected.

However, issues about admitting children with SEN self-evidently have nothing whatsoever to do with so-called "informal exclusions" of children already in the school, and which are unquestionably unlawful. Schools are entitled to say they can't meet children's needs, but that does not in itself entitle them to exclude them illegally.

And well done, you've clocked what the term "reasonable" means in the phrase "reasonable adjustments". I've never once suggested that schools should make any adjustments over and above what the law expects. The law does however require schools to go to some effort to give effect to parental preference for mainstream education, and if that is going to be incur costs, e.g. in extra 1:1 support, it requires local authorities to provide those costs. If it means the school applying its ultra-rigid discipline and uniform rules in a non-discriminatory manner, the law absolutely expects that.

My visit to two schools modelled on Michaela also featured no discussion and no paired work ( it's banned except in drama and MFL) .

Chloe , did you pay to visit??

Did you implement anything you saw or learnt?

I'm happy to admit that what I know about Michaela applies to Michaela only, not to "schools modelled on Michaela". I prefer not to generalise about schools I know nothing about.

But kesstrel you base everything you believe on observing zero lessons! I watched 15 if that helps, at two schools mentored in part by Michaela . I work with someone that was trained there and am a friend of a friend if someone who left Michaela.

You don't seem very critical of your own source material but are of Chloe's first hand experience.

Unless you are a Michaela plant? I have heard they do that...

But not apparently well enough to get EHC needs assessments and EHC Plans where they may be necessary.

May be necessary. May not be necessary. If the children are coping, they don’t need an EHCP.

Oh dear, if only you knew the number of children who have been failed by schools quoting that mantra.

Unless you seek proper assessments when children meet the criteria set out by law, you don't know whether pupils are coping or not. The phenomenon of masking in school by children with, for instance, ASD, is extremely well known, yet still time after time schools refuse to put them forward for EHC needs assessment because they're "fine in school" so there can't be a problem. And time slips by with every opportunity to help being rejected by the school, till the child can't cope any longer, the mask starts slipping in school, the child is punished more and more because they can't have SEN as they were "fine in school" previously, and so the descent into disaster continues. Far too often, the response by such schools is a combination of blaming the parent, threatening prosecution if their children become so school-phobic that they can't get in, and informal and formal exclusions - anything to shunt the problem elsewhere.

Regarding "paying to visit", I would say that £5 to cover the cost of lunch and organising the visit doesn't seem unreasonable to me, given how many visitors they have:

We are delighted that you would like to visit Michaela. We get lots of visitors every day, and we love having you. But as you can imagine, it is difficult to administer this. It also costs the school. On top of your lunch that costs £2.50, we have to spend in excess of £15,000 per year on administrative costs to accommodate our visitors.

We need your help!

We kindly ask that in order to visit the school you make a donation to cover your lunch and administrative costs. We will use your donation to keep the school open to visitors. Budgets at schools are tight and we want to continue to keep Michaela open for all to see. Donations tend to range from £5 to £50 per person.

mcsbrent.co.uk/visit-us/

Tonnerre

You are obviously well-informed about the law and I am not. I will let you have that one because I don’t know enough about either Michaela’s practices or how they are ensuring they are compliant with the law (or indeed whether they are) to argue with you.

What I do know is that they appear to be doing a very good job of teaching their students. This raises questions for me about the best way to balance the rights of students who need the environment to be like A and those who need it to be like B. It isn’t enough to say “This is the law” if the law isn’t helping.

£5 minimum andif you look at the donations, lots of them are coming from supporters who haven't visited. I do wonder what they do with those donations.

Only TSAs normally impose charges for expert help, but not for visits.

I was just curious as I have never seen a non fee paying school with a Donate tab on its website.

I would tell my students that copying and pasting from clearly biased sources is not enough evidence.

I find the idea of star charts and chocolate rewards for staff members a bit nauseating

Unless you are a Michaela plant? I have heard they do that...

Ah, we're back to that again, are we? Because it's impossible for someone simply to be interested, to have read lots of blogs by visitors, to have read their book, and to feel that what they are doing is worth presenting as fairly as possible, rather than with unfounded and sometimes malicious speculation.

I have posted my "source material" for other people to judge for themselves. There is plenty more of it out there if people wish to read it. Dozens of people have written blogs about the school after visiting it, criticising some aspects and praising others. Hopefully people who are genuinely interested and open-minded will have a look for themselves.

Ooh Piggy can you say which you visited.. I live near one and have an (un)healthy interest as ex teacher and with kids of my own.

I have read it all, too kesstrel as I did say before!

I have engaged with both sides...

Hercule

It isn’t enough to say “This is the law” if the law isn’t helping.

And of course, there are question marks over whether current approaches to SEN are even all that effective for SEN students themselves. I think there was some research a while ago that the widely-promoted policy of assigning TAs one-to-one to SEN students was actually having a negative impact on learning, because it was promoting a kind of learned helplessness. That's one reason I find Michaela's very different approach, and the fact that it seems to be effective at least for the types of SEN students they have, so interesting.

Not sure I can pink. Noble definitely knows one of them!

Isn't it great that a bunch of teachers are so passionately debating the hows and wherefore of teaching?

Dani Quinn, the head of maths at Michaela was interviewed by Mr Barton of mrbartonmaths (maths teachers will know him!) in a very lengthy podcast about how they teach maths at Michaela.

Fascinating, and it’s clear that they’ve definitely given a lot of thought to the hows and wherefores.

Thinking about my own department, we don’t give anything like this sort of scrutiny to what and how we’re teaching. There just isn’t enough time when you have a full timetable of classes and endless admin. I don’t think Michaela would have been able to achieve what they have achieved if they’d started with a full school.

www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/dani-quinn-part-1-michaela-school-planning-lessons-low-stakes-tests/

Isn't the Shanghai teaching method a good example of something being embraced by some very in favour schools and then found not to work? I think Michaela's methods work for Michaela with a charismatic leader at the helm and a particular set of circumstances. What concerns me is the encouragement, by the government, of other schools to take it all on pretty uncritically, and then the reaction against this which has created this dialectic of high five giving and hugs vs zero tolerance and rote learning call and response vs scribe at the side, as if there should be no in between

Yes noble which is why a lot of schools are now just copying, I feel.

And of course, there are question marks over whether current approaches to SEN are even all that effective for SEN students themselves. I think there was some research a while ago that the widely-promoted policy of assigning TAs one-to-one to SEN students was actually having a negative impact on learning, because it was promoting a kind of learned helplessness.

In some cases I can imagine that to be true. We had kids who were just followed round by TAs all day who (to their credit - they did exactly what they had been asked to do) just sat with them, chased them about and listened to the teacher. Sometimes they did the work. That was it. Very little learning support because the child wasn’t doing anything.

Yes the what and why of teaching is, quite rightly, coming back to the forefront.

Partly it's the new Ofsted framework but equally I think teachers are definitely engaging more with research and self improvement. The death of the crappy 1 day CPD courses had meant we've looked elsewhere for it. I found it via twitter and the marvellous bunch of people teaching my subject. We share ideas, resources, SoW etc. It's made my teaching better. I actually enjoy the research and reading.

Not sure how I feel about Michaela and the donations for visits. I get that it costs money to set up visits but a suggested donation of anywhere from £5-£50 implies that they haven’t quite done their sums and may well be turning a profit.

Isn’t there some sort of government pot where they could set themselves up as a teaching school and do it more openly? And share their resources?

Michaela are almost certainly turning a profit. But children are clearly benefitting along the way. I would be interested to hear from those (few) parents that withdrew their children from the school.

I think Michaela's methods work for Michaela with a charismatic leader at the helm and a particular set of circumstances.

One wonders what will happen when she leaves. She is very much integral to their set-up and Stevenage may suffer from a lack.

I agree that their teaching methods need to be backed up by their behaviour management system. You can’t expect students to self-quiz and do nightly maths homework with a Pivotal behaviour management system.

I think kesstral’s been on MN too long to be a Michaela plant.

chloe’s question is interesting though. Comp Sci is given such an emphasis in the new curriculum that I suspect basic programming skills are going to be the sort of thing every employee will have. They really should have an answer as to why they don’t think it’s important enough to teach. Also I don’t think it’s a given that it wouldn’t fit into their curriculum style. They manage it with art. It would have been an interesting answer.

I get the impression from one of Chloe’s posts that it wasn’t that they didn’t give a good answer but KB dodges the question then ended the session in order to avoid answering it. It speaks volumes.