Al Madinah school ofsted report

[hillian]

Has anyone seen this report? It says they don't even know who is disabled or which children aren't in school on a particular day!
www.theguardian.com/education/interactive/2013/oct/16/oftsed-report-on-al-madinah-school-derby

[bronya]

Wow - they actually CLOSED the school after day 1 of the report, until it was deemed safe to re-open!

[Hulababy]

caroldecker - NONE of the independent schools round here employ unqualified teachers! All have teaching qualifications. Some may also use outside providers for things like sport or specialist music, but ime so do state schools - and all this is fine, providing the people involved have appropriate qualifications in their area of expertise. In each of the independents round here the qualifications of the employed teaching staff, and often the non teaching staff, are issued on the website and/or with the school prospectus.

It is a big myth that most independents have an army on non qualified teachers. Do you really think that parents who are paying out a lot of money would really put up with staff who were not properly trained and qualified? Really?!

[merrymouse]

The difference with independent schools is that the parents foot the bill and they have no obligation to meet any kind of need except perhaps market forces.

State schools need to do alot more and that is why new state schools (as in schools funded by the state) should only be opened if they can meet strict criteria and should be checked regularly in their first years. This school should never have opened.

[bronya]

Wow - they actually CLOSED the school after day 1 of the report, until it was deemed safe to re-open!

[ErrolTheDragon]

Do you think it is better not to have free schools as they seem a bit dodgy?

I just don't get them. Seems like they're very likely to be set up by some group who has a particular agenda but who may not be as sound educationally as they'd probably like to think.

[Hamwidgeandcheps]

I don't recall any unqualified teachers at the independent school I went to .

I think the faith schools piss all over British children having a right to a basic standard of education. I think state education should be secular :-(

[ErrolTheDragon]

Wow - they actually CLOSED the school after day 1 of the report, until it was deemed safe to re-open!
yes - I read that it was because some of the staff weren't CRB checked (or whatever its called now).

[Talkinpeace]

In a Private (fee paying) school, parents have choice - they can always as a last resort go back to the state school in their area.

THe parents without those resources (both financial and intellectual) have to hope to billyoh that the state will give their bright children the chances they deserve.
So far it has failed www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24551446
and nothing in idiot Gove's policies will change that

[DameFanny]

I'm guessing our local free school - Norwich - is in the minority.

I was pretty impressed with its ethos though - it prioritises looked after children for intake, and open extended hours and days to make things easier for lone parents.

I suspect it's not the sort of thing Toby Young would approve of...

[merrymouse]

I think that if the checks are in place and the free school meets a need rather than just providing a school that somebody would like to run, there isn't a problem.

However, looking at some notable failures so far, this doesn't seem to be the case, and I am not convinced that it will be.

[MrsJamin]

Most free schools are not dodgy! My DSs are going to be going to one in a few years' time and all the parents are over the moon with how much their children love learning there.

[breatheslowly]

The year 2 teacher must be feeling a bit odd as the only one not providing inadequate teaching. It is very odd to have such an appalling school and no LA input.

[Talkinpeace]

breatheslowly
It is very odd to have such an appalling school and no LA input.
Get used to it.
nearly 2/3 of secondary schools now have no LEA input - because they are Academies

[tasteslikechicken]

I think the reactions are directly linked to how this particular school has been identified in the media. Clearly they are not anywhere near where they need to be, and may never get there, however, do people not realise that near on 25% of state schools are currently rated as inadequate. How many children does that affect?

Also, approx 33% of social services with responsibility for safeguarding children are also rated inadequate.

I listened to an interview on R4 today with an education columnist who was banging on about free schools not having qualifications, the unsaid bit being if schools are staffed with qualified teachers then they won't fail. Clearly 25% of state schools being rated inadequate doesn't support that view.

[merrymouse]

I think all new schools have to be free schools/academies now, so some free schools are being set up by partnerships that include LA's and other people who should know what they are doing.

I know of at least one school where the funding was approved under labour (community comprehensive on basis of obvious need for additional school places), withdrawn under coalition and then approved as long as the school is set up as a free school.

I think most free school applications come from organisations in the businesss of running schools, not local groups now? I am not sure how this differs greatly from academies under labour.

The thing that seems to be missing is appropriate checks that people proposing to run free schools know what they are doing, and in the absence of those checks, close enough supervision by the people paying the bill.

[joanofarchitrave]

Yes, I thought that about the year 2 teacher breatheslowly - s/he could be in a Bateman cartoon - 'the teacher who was branded "adequate" by Ofsted'

[nextyearitsbigschool]

jotter2.files.s3.amazonaws.com/377853?response-content-disposition=attachment;filename=ofsted-report-february-2013.pdf&response-content-type=application/pdf&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIHZDCFOYSEK3PO3Q&Expires=1382045042&Signature=Ut0JudID%2F0kzFh3QX7emPemqIYA%3D

This is a faith free school. The Ofsted is good and it's getting an excellent reputation - it's not at all dodgy.

[merrymouse]

It's one thing having an existing school fail, quite another funding a totally new school and then going back after a year to find that it's a bit rubbish.

I know my boiler is a bit rubbish. However, if I buy a new one and it immediately breaks down, I'm not going to be reassured by the fact that other people also have rubbish boilers.

[breatheslowly]

Tasteslikechicken - I'm not sure where you are getting 25% being inadequate from, but I doubt that many of those schools are inadequate across all categories.

[straggle]

'do people not realise that near on 25% of state schools are currently rated as inadequate'

No, because they aren't. 3% of all schools are judged inadequate (see dataview). 9% of sponsored academies, the government's great panacea for improvement, are inadequate.

Meanwhile if the 19% judged 'satisfactory' (now 'needs to improve') were independent schools they would be called 'sound' (see Local Schools Network post).

[Bgsh]

Free schools do not have to follow the national curriculum, neither do academies, all part of Gove's wish to be able to label state schools as a discrete group.

[tribpot]

Surely this is not a school that is failing. It has failed.

I notice that the students are segregated by sex at lunchtime because of a lack of space. Because age, of course, would have been a ludicrous way to segregate the children.

[straggle]

Bgsh but they have to enter primary children for SATs. Which the Maharishi Free School forgot to do last year.

And they all do GCSEs and publish full information in the league tables.

[Hulababy]

Where on earth are you getting the stats for re 25% f state schools are inadequate???

Looking at OFSTED's ow figres:

Primary
Outstanding - 18%
Good - 60%
Satisfactory/Requires Improvement - 19%
Inadequate - 2% (that is 400 schools out of 16,431)

Secondary
Outstanding - 24%
Good - 48%
Satisfactory/Requires Improvement - 24%
Inadequate - 5% (that is 140 schools out of 3,106)

[Hulababy]

Infact f you break that down further, of all the different types of providers - the group with the worst number of "inadequate" ratings is sponsor-led Academies (ie the ones forced into it) - figure is 9%, so still no where near 25%.