What a sad thread. I am sure the Michaela school is providing an environment that works well for some pupils. The sad thing is that too many people in positions of power in education are the ones a system like that works well for. Of course if your success was defined by a system based on measuring the absorbing and regurgitating of facts in timed conditions then you will support it’s continuation.
For many of us school was a never ending series of blows to self esteem as we were set tests that we could not succeed at. It was bewildering to me and my teachers that I had scored highly in my 11+ results (VR and NVR only), had ideas and could enjoy applying logic and analysing texts and problems, loved reading and literature (though reading had come slowly and spelling never really at all ) I could never show that ability in test conditions. Their and my conclusion was that I must be stupid or lazy or both. I just did not understand that some people can memorise a page of facts and be able to serve it up in the right format in the time given in a test or exam. In the same way I am sure some people do not comprehend that somebody can be able but not show it in those conditions, even though they may have put far more time and effort into revision. I had thought we had an education system that has moved on from defining pupils by that weakness. Indeed we have in the best schools, I take the pint that private schools have the resources to do that more effectively. However does that mean that state schools have to revert to a system that does so badly by a significant proportion of its pupils (1 in 10 will have a significant Specific Learning Difficulty regardless of ability but I believe that separating pupils out into those who have a SpLD and those who haven’t is a false dichotomy, many pupils will share aspects of the profiles of pupils with SpLDs.) The recently revamped English Language and Literature GCSEs that have returned to more emphasis on rote learning have resulted in a downturn in pupils wanting to study English at a higher level. I can well believe it, it was only my love of literature, not the studying of it, and the not spectacular exam results, that have given me a lifelong gift of not just enjoyment but the discovery when studying the literature of another culture that at Masters level I had enough ability to get over 70% in an exam and get a distinction. Not because I was cured and had learned to pass exams but because the examiner was marking me on my analysis and ideas.
In real life I have worked with both the Board Members of some large companies in manufacturing, the media, logistics and finance facilitating strategy and planning and it is incredibly common that senior managers who are good at analysing their resources and markets and developing a strategy to exploit them effectively and a plan to implement that strategy can’t spell or do simple arithmetic. And it doesn’t matter because they have those strengths. Indeed the MOD are open about recruiting people who are neurodivergent because their skills in analysis and spotting patterns make them good spies.
How sad that the Michaela would put a Richard Branson (whatever you think of his ethics and personality) Sir Paul Nurse or any of the other shapers in our society who did not do well in school exams into their bottom stream and just fail to get them. Thank goodness I got my DDs through the system before it went backwards......