How can I speak freely about my childs faith school?

[zaffy34]

Help me please. I cannot and dare not givetoo many details personal, as I do not want to be discovered in my community.
My child attends faith school primary in Tyseley Birmingham and the latest ofstead report at the end of 2012 was horrible.
Many parents know of this situation for a long time but nobody dares speak up.
The chairman of the school is the head of a very powerful family who have many others employed at the school weather they are qualified or not. Nobody dares complain and women even less so as they will bring dis honour on to their family.
Many say that the school does what it likes and is only interested in getting government money.
Why does the authority let then get away with so much? How can i tell someone about it all?

Im sorry . I will try to look tomorrow.

Please help.

Unless it is an academy, it is still under local authority control so you could speak to them or the diocese the school is in. What is so bad about the ofsted report? If it is that bad, the LA should already be involved.

By chairman do you mean chair of governors or the headteacher?

That sounds really stressful for you. Well done for having the courage to come and ask.

I'm guessing that the head has the governors in his pocket, and they won't dare go against him either.

I don't know, but I think what I'd do is keep a diary for a while. Write down anything that you're not happy with, if concerns are raised and what is done with any raised concerns. Make sure they are directly effecting your dc, not just rumours going round.
Then take it to Ofsted. Request that you stay annoymous, but raise your concerns. If you think it's further than ofstead-that is child protection issues, then I'm not sure whether it would be Social services, police or Local authority you would need to contact.

As it was a bad Ofsted report, then they should be back sooner anyway, but if you place concerns, it may trigger a quicker response anyway.

Good luck in sorting it.

I think it is possible to identify the school from the information given in OP. if it is the one I think it is, the school (VA) was inspected in November 2012, graded inadequate and recommended for special measures.

Is it the AF school with the terrible OFSTED from November? I don't know it, just googled though. If so that's an appalling school to be in at the moment for you and your children, the teaching and learning and many other things look awful.

On the positive side, at least OFSTED have now been and seem to agree with what you are saying as a parent and there will have to be changes nowI would have thought.

Does the school have a plan for tackling the issues mentioned? Can you find out if and when OFSTED will be revisiting? They should be sharing this with parents.

Yes, I managed to find it very quickly. If you are really all 'scared' of the heads and leaders this is very wrong :(

Thank you.
Yes the report covers everything but the chairman of the governers will and is now doing all in his power to make this go away. The headteacher at the time of the report (his wife!) has now taken long term absence and the birmingham authority has imposed upon him a woman head from a nearby school to supervise improvements. She is not scared of him and openly argued with him in a recent parents meeting and everyone cheered. Her school is a state school and is outstandimg. I admire her very much but they are now spreading rumors about her in the community about how she is undermining our faith (she is not).
I know of many parents and even our teachers who have complained about the family who run the school but nothing has happened for the past up until now.
There is also a new temporary headteacher appointed full time up until summer and she is also not muslim and seems to argue with mr ahmed also. I cannot help but find that funny, as now he has two women arguing with him, one in each ear,and it is probably a new experience for him!

I heard a rumor that the inspector is going to sack the governors and send in new ones and everyone is so exited about that. By the way, the inspector is also a woman. I think they are all very brave and dream that one day my daughter will be just like them.
Can the governors who are mainly family members be sacked just like that? They own the land so how can this be?

If a school in special measures does not improve, then there are a range of options available and one of those is the replacement of the governing body.

Whilst in special measures, the school cannot escape scrutiny (and frequent visits) by OFSTED.

Incidentally, certain faith elements are not inspected by OFSTED. Perhaps parents need to be told (informally, or via grapevine) that his is not undermining the faith component of the school, that they are interested only in improving the inadequacies identified in the report, and that there are plenty of examples of excellent faith schools (something which all sides can presumably be united in wanting as the outcome here).

I am sorry to mention the faith as it is distracting us from the main problem which is the poor standard of education. I mention it purely to show the mind of the chairman, who cannot beat these women with facts about procedures as thay know much more than him, so he settles on under mining them with the parents which is totaly unfair. Because as soon as faith is in the frame, he knows everyone will straight away bow their head and let him have his way.
He is shamed by losing to women and our children now have to suffer for it. At least that is what i think. I am very angry and hope it gets solved soon.

Thank you for taking the time to help me with this. Some of these things are very interesting to me.

I think it is possible to identify the school from your information and indeed the OFSTED report is not good. However, there is also a further interim report, posted to the website only yesterday, which does seem to indicate that improvements are underway. Have you seen that one? The interim headteacher and the executive head appear to be making progress. The interim head is very new so I think you will see further changes quite soon. If the new teachers appear to have the support of the families (which you seem to indicate in your postings) then this will be a huge help to them in their work.

I think it is unfortunate that some powerful people are using faith arguments to try to protect their comfortable position. It is for the local community to consider that the proper education of their children is actually a reflection of some of the duties that are placed on them as parents (DH is Muslim, I am Christian).

In respect of the Governors, they have been highlighted in the main report and the interim report as part of the problem so it is possible that steps will be taken to remove them. This is a state school and there are systems in place to deal with failing schools so the Governors no longer have control of the process.