To not understand why Katharine Birbalsingh is so controversial

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Just that. Am I being unreasonable in thinking the results she achieves at her school and start in life her students get which they likely otherwise wouldn't - is something to be celebrated and perhaps we should look to what's going wrong in schools which face the the same socioeconomic challenges but get far poorer results. Surely I'm not being unreasonable to wonder this.

I like her and her school seems to get amazing results. Be great if we had more schools like hers.

If more than enough apply some selection happens, but I rather meant that she may have to accept any child, but she doesn’t have to keep them. She can exclude anyone she likes.

She follows the same rules as other schools - so she has to prioritise looked after children or formerly looked after children, and if children have EHCPs naming Michaela they have to be prioritised. Sh can suspend or exclude in the same basis - under the same rules as any other maintained school.

She is controversial because she makes it work and my goodness does a woman of colour suggesting that hard work and discipline pay off scare some people. Notably lefties like Bridget Phillipson.

FWIW I have just gone to the Michaela website, specifically the Uniquely Challenging section.

It sure is. I have a Maths intensive STEM PhD. Granted I am not British, but I cannot make sense of the sentence, discussing Maths progression, that ends ‘over 60’. Can someone help?

This is followed by an implication that other schools give only part of a week to working with algebraic fractions, which I find difficult to believe. Oh @noblegiraffe I would be grateful for your opinion, even if to be told I’ve had too much wine this evening. Also othet MumsNetters of course

"many pupils go from 10 times tables or division calculations in a minute to over 60."

Means, "we use Times Tables Rockstars where our Y7 pupils do timed times tables calculations. They start being able to do 10 in a minute and end doing more than 1 per second"

No school spends half a week on algebraic fractions. My school has topics that last 2-3 weeks. 6 weeks per topic sounds quite dull, but it depends on how much you include in a topic.

The children only do 7 GCSEs. This is very limiting in my opinion

Mercia has no catchment, parents have to apply for a place. My niece was one of the first pupils when the school opened. I know of several parents who had to remove their children & move them to other schools as the pressure they were put under to work was too much. It was good for very able kids, but the less able were expected to work 3 times as hard to catch up with them. 2 ended up under CAMHS as their mental health was shot. Less than 2 miles away, there is High Storrs School, no uniform, less rules but happy well balanced kids & still getting good results without the pressure. Schools shouldn't be exam factories turning out robots with a file of exam certificates, part of school is learning social skills, learning to work alongside others, having the choice to be different & finding your own tribe. OFSTED & the Government have got education completely wrong, the system we have now for education doesn't work for too many children, but they are just expected to be square pegs stuffed into round holes with no consideration for their ability, aspirations & wishes. Kids who are wanting to do vocational work or have little hope to pass GCSE's should be able to leave at 14 to start their training, let the ones who can do basics like Maths, English & Science GCSE but combine it with training for what they want to do, building & construction, health & social care, hair & beauty are all perfect examples. They can finish their education with something that will actually mean they are ready for the jobs market instead of a pile of meaningless low grade certificates & no hope.

Schools can exclude if they don’t care (or need to care) what Ofsted have to say.
It’s nothing to do with her colour or political persuasion, and all to do with my 35 years of experience in education. How many years do you have?
Mind you, calling someone who has made it into government a ‘nobody’ does illustrate who it is that dislikes someone just in the basis of their political persuasion…

Thanks very much, @noblegiraffe

I am sure I’ve read about similar learning methods for multiplication elsewhere. The Michaela website actually sounds misleading concerning the algebraic fractions.

I asked this above. 8 GCSEs needed to get into Sixth Form, so do they exclude their own kids? Or does this apply to external candidates only?

This report gives a really detailed account of the Michaela school, its methods and a typical day. Someone posted it a few weeks ago on another thread (page 9 onwards):

AC-2023-LON-001570 Final Judgment

Interestingly, there's another thread running at the moment asking teachers what they don't like about teaching at the moment. No 1 issue coming out is kids behaviour. There's quite a few ex teachers who cite leaving the profession because of kids appalling behaviour.

KB at Michaela has really got this issue in hand with her strict methods that some are railing at. Surely, she should be congratulated for that at least.

Totally agree

@waltzingparrot

KB at Michaela has really got this issue in hand with her strict methods that some are railing at.

Yes I agree with you too - apparently behaviour is brilliant at Michaela School.

Michaela seems to use a model of strict behaviour rules that works well for a majority of, but not all, children. It's outside the state system and therefore no child is forced to go there, so there's an element of self-selection with children who can't sit up straight and face the teacher not being enrolled.

I was impressed with Birbalsingh's response to a legal challenge last year from a parent of a child who wanted a prayer room to be provided - the child had been disciplined for praying in the playground and encouraging others to do so. She argued that the school was founded as secular and did not provide any prayer facilities for any religion, and won the case. I think this was really important - if no child is forced to go there, why shouldn't the school be secular? The position of the parent was ludicrous and provocative in my opinion - analogous with demanding a meat dish in a vegan restaurant.

It looks like they are being selective at 6th form. But for lower school it just mentions living within 5 miles. Priority is given to looked after children.

If the Number on Roll is 750 for years 7 - 13, that's a little more than 100 per year group.

The school is in a densely populated urban area taking applications from families within five(!) - yes, five miles.

Do you really think as few as 100 families wish to send their kid there each year? C'monnnn. It's likely to be between one and two thousand.

Research is unanimous that white working-class kids (especially boys) do worst at secondary. Look at the school's photos. The white kids are hard to spot.

She keeps numbers low and selects the kids of motivated, aspirational families. Little wonder that behaviour is head-and-shoulders above the bigger, more racially mixed neighbouring schools.

The admissions are through Brent like the state secondary schools in the borough. They simply offer places on allocation criteria and Brent publish all their admissions information on their applications portal

How could she (or any headteacher) select?

@AquaPeer

The admissions are through Brent like the state secondary schools in the borough. They simply offer places on allocation criteria and Brent publish all their admissions information on their applications portal

How could she (or any headteacher) select?

By running a 'free school', which as the name suggests is 'free' of the rubric and control of the local education authority (LEA).

Brent council’s website defeated me.
The figures I could find say that there were 245 applications listing Michaela as first choice. Full breakdown here. Scroll down.

That’s not very high.

Percentage of white British kids on roll? 1.1%

This stat alone tells you all you need to know.

Do you think 1.1% of the 245 applicants (for 120 available places) were white British?

The 245 applicants (which I agree is surprisingly low) for 120 Year 7 places still means that first-choice applicants are almost exactly double the available places. And this ignores the significant numbers of second- and third-choice applications.

This stat alone tells you all you need to know.

Could you explain what you mean?

The website states the average class size is only 24, which obviously means a lot of classes have even fewer students than that.

Small class sizes; tiny numbers of white kids; small year groups; a small outside area to patrol. It'd be odd if behaviour were not outstanding.

I already have, at some length, on pages 7,8,9 of the thread. I'm not typing it out again you'd have to scroll backwards.

The LA manage the admissions and set the criteria, the school has no say. KB has been very clear about this time and again.

The intake will represent the local area.

It's quite something when we've reached the phase of 'the results are so high because there are so few white kids...'

White working class boys are among the lowest performers though. There are a few groups that are lower.

She does the game the system, but not in the way others mention. The lower number of subjects. Much great curriculum time on core than many.

They are very strong on value added. That is undeniable. It’s also true that until they invent grades higher than 9 my own school can not equal that. Many of my students cannot do higher than predicted as the data says 9. It will be interesting what happens without that data set this year.