Academies in Special Measures

[Rosebud05]

As no-one seems to know on the thread that's going, I thought I'd put it in the title as I'm actually now intrigued.

When an academy goes into Special Measures, what help does it get and from who? Whose - if anyone's - responsibility is it to support it out of Special Measures?

That's interesting, though I still think that this is hardly a proven track record to justify the brutal forcing through of the academy agenda on the scale and at the pace at which it is being done.

(((((((PRH))))))))
Please may we appoint you minister for education ?
It's just that you seem to be able to cut through the gordian knots in such a way that even when I google the links I feel reassured.
SO
hopefully even though Gove is an arse and the mess Bliar left him is horrible, somewhere in there are competent people who can ensure that schools will educate children.

My real concern is that the children affected do NOT have "Mumsnet" parents.
If the school starts to fail the parents will barely notice and the children will slide into an underclass life (the little ratbags were making snowballs with stones in the middle and throwing them at the cars on our drives the other day)
therefore there have to be "professionals" to take action.

I guess I'm lucky, Hampshire LEA is a really good one. There is an excellent CPD resource, good attached inspectors and the late David Kirk really "got" the fact that sorting schools and families sorts society.
Having driven through South London today (Eltham via Peckham, Southwark towards Battersea and Kingston) I can see that many other areas are different....

You've lost me talking, what does 'little ratbags' (nice...) throwing snow balls at your car have to do with the fact that Gove is an arse? Was this part of the curriculum at their 'underclass' school, do you suppose?

I agree that the majority of problems lie in the difficult circumstances that many families live in rather than the 'satisfactory' teaching in the schools.

For those of us who don't live in an excellent LA (indeed a Labour controlled one which has been hammered by the coalition cuts), I fail to see why any local democratic accountability and governance should be removed from our schools.

rosebud
what %age of the parents you meet do not give a shit what is taught at school so long as the kids are not under the legal responsibility of the parents for a few hours per day?
4X4 round here means four kids, four dads.
the politics of the LA /LEA pale by comparison with the families who send their kids to the sweet shop for breakfast
and WE are the areas where "academies" thrive as they offer an alternative - as yet completely unprovable.

I've never met a parent who doesn't give a shit what their child is being taught at school. I'm not saying that they don't exist, but I don't know any.

The 'proof' of academies isn't great tbh - over 1 in 3 below 'floor target' and over 1 in 4 with declining results. More exclusions, more gaming of league tables with vocational qualifications.

rosebud
then you cannot have spent much time in and near sink estates
at DCs school the proportion is around 10% - including those who actively support truanting later on : or use munchausen by proxy to avoid getting up in the morning (according to the other sibling ....)
and at the local academy, around 20% of parents are utterly unaware of what those outside their skulls are doing

I live in an area where +50% of children receive FSM (and some families aren't entitled to benefits, so below that threshold) and are below the poverty line.

I used to work on 'sink estates' and still can't actually think of any parent who didn't care what their children were being taught at school.

And another academy in special measures, this one sponsored by an indie school chain and previously one of the most improved schools in the country...

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/a-school-sponsored-by-an-independent-chain-fails-its-inspection-6804823.html

The point is that the DfE are claiming that 'academy status' is the only answer to school improvement, despite this and other very clear evidence that it's not.

I am biased. I knew one of the special measures academies mentioned by prf fairly well not so long ago. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and under the new framework I can't see how it would avoid a category.

I also don't believe that anyone in the current dept for education really knows what they are doing and what is best for schools. I had little time for Blair and Balls but compared to this lot, they were geniuses.

And I meet a lot of parents who don't have a clue/ give a toss- until you confiscate their child's phone, at which point they storm up like an invading army.

I agree that this mob make Blair and Balls look vaguely competent, though I do think that the DfE know exactly what they are doing.

It looks to me as though Wilshaw has been brought in to repeat on the hour every hour that teachers are crap and hence it's necessary to 'toughen up' the framework every couple of weeks or so, so that Ofsted can denounce more and more schools under performing, force them to convert to sponsored academies, hence weakening LA and union influence.

They're going to very rapidly privatise as much of the education system as possible. Then Wilshaw will retire with a nice fat pension and presumably blame someone else for the disaster that follows.

Talkinpeace2 - Thanks for the offer but I don't think I would want to handle the politics. Schools Adjudicator on the other hand...