Anyone have knowledge of Ampleforth?

[Tinkerboo]

Any Dh's go there? or DS's or DD's now?
We looked around. Out of our league price wise I think, but we were impressed with the young people and the ethos, were we duped?

Crumbs flourandeggs can Cohen be any more insulting than this:

'For girls, education is optional. Having won the sex war, they have arrived at a previously undreamt-of position in our social evolution, where they have the choice either to work or to marry a man who does. So, while my Kitty is a clever little thing and will probably do well in her exams and choose to go to university and one day find work that is financially and spiritually enriching, having had a joyfully relaxed, creative and nurturing time at school; if she doesn't, fuck it, she can just marry a banker.

Not so, Sam. He is going to have to support a family. '

What a tw*t. If that is what he believes then he's a grade A example of why people should break away from sending their children to their old school!

@angrysquirrel73 makes me want to deliver him a virtual punch! I bet Sam turns out to be utterly useless and without a job and ends up being funded by Kitty who will be very successful, have a family and a modern, supportive husband.
I suspect GC likes to provoke a reaction, maybe not as bad in real life? Or am I being too kind!!!

flourandeggs indeed Sam will probably be borish and employed only because of 'contacts'. Whilst Kitty has the chance of a normal life - go girl!

In a nutshell, Ampleforth is appealing against the Ofsted inspection it failed in September. www.thetablet.co.uk/news/13624/ampleforth-banned-from-taking-new-pupils to quote from the article: “The education secretary has banned Ampleforth from taking any new pupils because of a failure to meet “standards relating to safeguarding and leadership and management”.”

The family I know with a child currently there have previous connections to the place. I doubt they are busy making any sort of alternative plans. Baffling, that despite everything there is enormous loyalty there. The school has actually asked parents to put positive messaging all over social media.

@Frostiesandsnowmen push it under the carpet, deny deny deny and hope it goes away. Wonder if any of our current government were educated there by any chance!!!!!!

Looking at the ISI reports; the College failed an inspection twice in 2018, once again in 2019 but actually passed in January 2020.
It looks like another inspection took place in September 2020 which they did not pass.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/939349/Ampleforth_enforcement_notice.pdf

So Ampleforth is now allowed to site students but has failed it's latest Ofsted... Does Ofsted have it in for the school or are these genuine concerns?

Interesting article by Giles Cohen. He went to The Hall, then Westminster.

He seems to recall sexual abuse at The Hall, I was never aware of this. I seem to recall an abuse Head at Westminster years ago.

I think there's only so many times a school can fail an inspection and cite the result as being "unfair" as they have supposedly fixed safeguarding issues.

And then they fail inspection again. And again. How many times?

Personally, I think schools with this amount of historic (and some of it recent!) abuse should just close and the finances of such a closure given to the victims. It would seem the kindest thing for those who suffered. Imagine being a 50 odd year old now failed by Ampleforth reading that AGAIN they failed, and seeing again the excuses they shouldn't have done.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2021/04/19/ampleforth-college-fails-ofsted-inspection-serious-safeguarding/

www.thetablet.co.uk/news/14067/ampleforth-fails-latest-ofsted-inspection

This is this actual week's news. Of the LATEST inspection. I agree, it's the same headlines and the same story. And they are seemingly unable to treat it as serious enough to fix?

How many times does a school have to fail?

Surely nobody in their right mind would send a child there now?

Aboutnow well that's what I would have thought but there are still 400 odd children there and the school has had some kind of consultancy in to sort things out so you would have thought its all sorted now. Is OFSTED just trying to close it down?

I don't think Ofsted has an agenda here. They wouldn't be bringing up issues if they didn't think there was a problem at heart (and evidence of such to back up their recommendations). These will be different inspectors each time and I presume chosen to not show bias as it's a hot potato. And it's been what? Four inspections they have failed? And two they have appealed. There is a point when this surely should be a warning to current parents 🤷🏻‍♀️

At this stage though, I don't think there's anything Ampleforth can do to turn it around. A friend who recently enquired for a place said it had become very "salesman" like and corporate. So it's lost what did make it special (for all previous students not abused obviously as there were/are some very vocal ex students who loved it and didn't know), and also can't get a grip on safeguarding to ensure abuse doesn't happen again 🤷🏻‍♀️

I actually looked around it for DS ages ago before any of this came up. I feel foolish for absolutely falling in love with the ethos. I can't imagine how much worse I'd feel if I were a current parent now, but I 100% know I'd move a child rather than be "loyal" and be five times made a fool.

I think a lot of the kids at Ampleforth are kids of former students, and they often take the approach, well i turned out ok.
A large % of the rest will be overseas students whose parents probably haven’t seen the ofsted reports

I don’t have kids there but my old politics teacher is now the head of Ampleforth and he’s a great guy - formerly deputy head of Wellington College but persuaded to go to Ampleforth I think to sort out some of the issues they’d been having. Can’t imagine he would brook any kind of nonsense.

@Thingaling the ofsted reports are pretty damming against the leadership.

These things take time to turn around, but they don't seem to be able to:

files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50162478

@Thingaling - reading that latest report, he seems to have made things even worse. Plenty standards there that were met in February that now are not met.

@CarrieBlue if you click back, you can read the last three or four. Keeping in mind, the truly damning ones where they sacked the previous one/two heads were previous to that as well.

It's all a mess, and my heart just goes out to those boys who were abused - startlingly recently - and are reading that they're still not able to get a grip on safeguarding procedure 😔

How on earth is the school still functioning as a business? Who is choosing it for their child? So weird. Are they massively subsidised by the church? Surely their numbers are massively down?!