Academy Status- state millions for Steiner school- is this right or fair?

[northernrefugee39]

OK, I know people have had enough of the Steiner thing, but Hereford Steiner school is being granted academy status, millions of pounds of government money, when other non religious/ specialist schools are desperate for an injection of cash.
Guardian article here

The Woods report which was a government commissioned report into Steiner education seems quite biased towards the anthroposophical ideas.

I just think it seems strange that a school so obviously religious in flavour can be given this status.

I agree slur. But the difference is that at least Reg is open about creationism at the start.
The steiner mob are deceptive. They pretend it's all natural silks and wooden knitting, when it's really about awakening the spirit/soul of the children ready to reincarnate them.

I had no clue about that northern. I can't read the usual Steiner thread too much quoting. I just thought the woolly natural thing, though dp's always been suspicious about an anti-technology vibe.

Vardy's were forced to be upfront by good anti-academy campaigns. They still don't admit to anti-homosexuality and so on.

Well, I'm hoping the anthroposophy in steiner will be forced to be opened up by all these discussions.
The school ours were at had no mention of spirit worlds or clairvoyance in any promotional material, or the word anthroposophy. At our various meetings and interviews, nothing was mentioned but this whole chld naturaleducation, craft and painting, woodwork and orchestra.
when things started to go wrong, alarm bells started ringing.
I'd asked abot anthroposophy, because i'd seen obscure books and magazines in the cafe at the community and the bookshop.
Thew stock answeres wereWE only take what we want from Steiner" and "Steiner is very difficult"
Then we realised they leave bullying, (past life issue)
try to change left handedness( karmic weakness)
reincarnation"only really means the child has a past and a future"- yeah, right...

Slur,tell your dp that the devil, Ahriman, speaks through the tv and computer

They sound bonkers. I'll have to look into it, I haven't heard any of that before! Dp will be pleased and vindicated

Some of it is hilarious, like man evolving on the moon as jelly like beings , the surface of the moon being like "boiled lettuce" and man attatched to it with an astral umbilical cord, who "sucked milk out of his surroundings"

Other bits are REALLLY racist, like blond hair bestowing intelligence,the aryan race being the most advanced, the white race is the pure race. Ahriman, the devil, displaced evolution so that earlier primitive races that should have died out still remain, the black race is decadent, oh , there's tons of HORRIFYING stuff along with the bonkers.

Oh, for God's SAKE!!! Do you plan to take over the entire board with boring, tedious threads about Steiner? I can't believe the other one is still going, but at least you were all in one place.
Go away and be boring on your own thread. There you can dissect and nitpick each other's posts, regurgitate reams of quotes and mis-quotes to your hearts' content, and congratulate yourselves on points you believe scored against the opposition if you really wish and leave the rest of us alone.

AMumInScotland on Sun 20-Apr-08 19:33:32
"Do schools which push other religions/philosophies get academy status?"

Our excellent local secondary has just been closed down (council wanted to sell the land) and merged with another secondary + the running of it put out to tender. A bid was put in by local educators/businessmen, but cabinet minister came down from London and basically told the council to award it to a Christian group. Due to open in September as an academy.

I went to their opening evening, as it's our catchment school and I have never seen such a shambles. People were walking out in disgust halfway through.

They had nothing to say about the curriculum, but just kept waffling on and on about their Great Founder (no, not Jesus Christ, the founder of this particular sect) and his awful school experience. Also at great length about how parents naturally feel suspicious of education and how they wanted to reassure us.

Which is fine, except most of the people present were parents who have a great interest in their children doing well at school and they did not take kindly to being patronised.

By the time the applications went in, they were still unable to tell us anything about what subjects they would actually be teaching.

Nor could they tell us what, if anything, they would do for a disabled child (dd)in terms of access. The representatives who were present at the open evening hadn't even walked around the school buildings first, so they didn't know it had stairs and no lifts. And when we queried it, they didn't send anyone out to look.

They kept saying they couldn't know how they would run the school, because they'd only just got the contract.

This school is now opening as an academy and we have had no reassurance as to how Christianity will be presented in their teaching. But there was a definite hint of leader cult in the opening meeting, so I can imagine what their assemblies will be like.

Sorry, nothing to do with Steiner, but it's a similar thing.

Tanith, you don't have to come on the thread you know, it's not compulsory

Cory! That is shocking
What kind of christian cult is it? Who is their founder? ( Only if you want to say, just being nosey)
Reg Vardy and his creationism is bad enough.
It's a scandal, particulalarly if it's the only school. And to have no idea about access and curriculum.

I wish we were like France, church and state seperate.
We have problems here with born again evangelicals infiltrating community primary schools.

Good luck, I hope you have another choice?

i was just wondering if anyone's child goes here? do they have to do the national curriculum and SATs as it is state funded?

NAppy. You have just weirded me out with your thread necromancy!

But in answer to you question...

Academies have to fufil requirements of National curriculum in english, maths, science, ict. That's it. How they choose to teach to those requiremens up to sponsers, other subjects - up to them.

They are required to do Sats as anyone.

Academies are schools that are run by private companies. The governing bodies are majority (usually) non-parents/teachers. The schools are essentially privatised with public funding.

It is shot.
Academies take away control and ownership of the school grounds and land and impose their own agenda in curriculum and change the working conditions of staff and remove the influence of local community.

Academies are WANK.

thread necrowhat???

tbh i am surprised a steiner school has agreed to do sats though. that's probably why most of them don't bother trying to get funding.

necromancy as in raising from dead, this is old old thread yes?

but here is a biased link

Which weirded me because I hadn'r realised then started reading and thought hmm I have read these opinions before and then OHoH there I am.

Ah an old thread

are steiner schools not usually inspected by ofsted then?

They are inspected by ofsted.

Well said Slur
"impose their own agenda in curriculum and change the working conditions of staff and remove the influence of local community.
Academies are WANK."

academies leech money from regular schools
The report into them before funding and academy status was given, seem biased and very sympathetic to anthroposophy. The woods report- husband and wife team i thiunk who support the whole pseudo religious/spiritual leanings.
Yes- academies stink.....

From the Guardian last year
"The Department for Education and Skills is considering whether to pay most of a £10m building programme at the school as well as meeting the cost of the 330 pupils' education

Organisers of the project say they have been guaranteed that the distinctive curriculum and ethos of the Steiner system will be maintained although they have had to agree that children will sit national curriculum tests in the core subjects of maths, science and English at 11 and 14."

From the Telegraph

"Most of the 330 pupils - aged three to 16 - will be drawn from relatively affluent villages nearby.

It will employ Steiner methods, although it is thought children will have to sit traditional GCSEs. Liz Lee, from the Campaign for State Education, said: "It simply creates a two or three-tier system and that is not what the comprehensive education system is about."

The local parish council also said it was "strongly opposed". "

ROGER TITCOMBE
doi:10.2304/forum.2008.50.1.49

The Freedom of Information Act was used over a three-year period to investigate the curriculum of state schools and academies. The resulting data has shown that spectacular apparent school improvement, in terms of five or more A-C GCSE /GNVQ passes has been largely brought about by the substitution of mainstream curriculum subjects by much easier vocational alternatives with disproportionate and unjustifiable equivalence to GCSE. Despite academies being exempt from FOI, and their refusal, supported by DCSF, to reveal their subject examination results, strong evidence has been found in individual cases of an extreme use of this strategy to boost headline results and league table performance. Examples are given of worryingly* degraded curriculum opportunities in a number of academies for which data has been indirectly obtained, giving rise to concerns that some or even all pupils in some of these schools are being denied a right to a broad and balanced educational experience appropriate to full participatory citizenship in a modern European democracy. Private control of academies is revealed as likely to give rise to the differentiation of curriculum pathways with academic or vocational outcomes designed to meet the needs of the business interests of the sponsor. Questions are raised over the ability of academies to staff a full range of subjects at GCSE and sixth form level with serious consequences for progression to higher education especially for those pupils drafted at an early age into vocational pathways."
Sorry about so muchg text- the bold is mine...

but

will they have Black Pencils?

felt gnomes...
Oh god.. twill end in tears ... STOP or I will be banned....

tis not allowed to be mentioned or the bee will come back....

Careful 'Fugee.... step away from the thread!

Message withdrawn