Nicky Morgan's thread continued (MNers calling for Lucy Powell to do webchat)

[Mner]

Following on from Nicky Morgan MP's one sided "webchat" see here...

Active petitions against academisation are here:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124702
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124747

Guardian article is here

You can write to your MP: www.writetothem.com/

Good luck to everyone at the demonstrations today. I can't attend

In our London Borough (Richmond upon Thames). There are two schools run by Kunskapsskolan (The Learning Schools Trust) - Twickenham Academy and Hampton Academy. Both have been rated by Ofsted as ´requires improvement´ for many years and they run a particular type of non-traditional curriculum that is unpopular with many parents.

There are areas here where parents do not have the choice of any other school apart from these ´failing´ Kunskapsskolan academies. For us, there is absolutely no other choice. It is a terrible mess and because of legal agreements which have meant that the schools were handed over to their own governance we have had no improvements and no-one has had the ability to step in and make a change.

"Already some MATs are charitable arms of for-profit education providers eg The Learning Schools Trust (Kunskapsskolan) .... When such organisations become involved in education, it isn’t altruism, but investment."

It certainly was "investment" in the case of LST, who originally intended to open many schools in England, each of which would have had to pay to use the (profit making) Kunskappskolan curriculum. However they failed. In March 2014 they were banned from taking on more schools until their existing 4 schools improved. Then one of their schools (Ipswich Academy) was taken from them because it was inadequate. And now they are "voluntarily" under strong advice from the DfE/LA pulling out of two more. Not sure what is happening to the final school, but no doubt they are keen to leave the UK altogether now that they have no business case for staying.

However, I wouldn't use that example to tar all academy trusts with the same brush. Each has its own history and motivation - some good, some more questionable.

Whittonmum: "... and no-one has had the ability to step in and make a change ..."

But now, finally, the DfE/LA have stepped in to make a change: twickenhamacademy.org.uk/notification-of-potential-changes-to-the-academy-nov15

Hopefully it will be successful.

Planetarium - and in the meantime how many years of children have been ?adversely served by this academy trust? And we are supposed to be reassured that this will not be the experience of any/some/most schools forced to become academies under the White Paper? It doesn't take long for a good school to lose it's way if there is a change at the helm.

How can we secure that this experience in London is not the future for more children?

I look forward to Planaterium's reply.

But in the meantime another link

www.naht.org.uk/welcome/news-and-media/blogs/warwick-mansell/the-white-paper-and-what-it-says-about-professionals/

It s (another) excellent blog by Warwick Mansellknsell

how many years of children have been ?adversely served by this academy trust?

Too many. Local parents have been saying that for years, but, until recently, the LA has been happy to have a couple of less popular schools on their patch. It helps them to manage demand for places downwards (it's no coincidence that Richmond has some of the highest rates of state drop-out at Secondary transfer in the country).

However, that is now changing. The Government is responding to criticism and introducing new measures to make it easier for them to get rid of failing trusts. Also the Local Authority have finally woken up to the fact that they need to intervene to get these schools to "good". Richmond have an enormous primary bulge coming through and the more people they try to force into RI schools the crosser people get, (including the many people who take out second mortgages to go private). There are excellent schools, but they're massively oversubscribed. As a consequence, local polls show significant dissatisfaction with secondary education, and the LA know they will need to defend their record in local elections in 2 years time.

For me it is not just about performance and outcomes. It is about quality of educational experience, well being at school, fuelling curiosity, student input into curriculum, parent involvement, etc etc. Performance measures are part of the problem. For a multitude of reasons. The type of performance measured is so limited - business determines what is valuable in a competitive capitalist economy.

The bigger problem is education for profit though. and the fact that our system is dividing in to a polarised one of disciplinary pen-holding for the masses and private school network building for the elite. Off to the demo now! Come if you can!

Nlondondad
Thanks for freaking me out a bit more.

MNHQ
Thanks for starting a debate here. This evening I will go through a couple of her papers on her page.

Nlondondad - thanks for that excellent, if depressing, article by Warwick Mansell. His point about the impact of these changes upon children being totally absent from the White Paper is spot on.

planetarium Yes, thankfully there are changes planned ahead. I hope it will be successful too.

JWIM Too many years have passed unfortunately.

Have just attended the local demo. Great turn for such short notice. Speakers from school, unions, student, parents. Such a strength of feeling which is heartening. Can't believe the government are trying to ignore or attempting to shut this down... one hopes they will listen and turn this totally bonkers idea around.

Is there a gagging order out on the media by any chance (there is no such thing as freedom of speech in this Country in terms of media coverage, only sponsor/political spin)?

twitter.com/hashtag/handsoffourschools?src=hash

I bet the PR agencies are making good use of the opportunities Thickie Nickie is presenting them with. Damage limitation campaigns present good bonus/promotional opportunities for those working in PR.

Speaking of PR where is PrettyBrightFireflies.

I wonder why the press didn't pick up on PrettyBrightFireflies real opinion of the situation:

PrettyBrightFireflies Mon 21-Mar-16 11:08:46

This suggests you’re a gambler rather than a strategist. Unfortunately you’re gambling with the future of every state educated child in the country.

Goodness, no - defeatist, maybe; because I'm of the opinion that it won't be changed, so would rather put my efforts into making the best i can of it. I agree that politicians are gamblers; but some would say that risks have to be taken to succeed.

I'm not oblivious to the fact that they are gambling with DCs education - I have DCs in the system. however, that's certainly not unique to this government. All Governments of all ideologies gamble with the public services they deliver. I was accused of being a troll when I posted that the education of our DCs is political - but that is what this comes down to, governments being able to implement change in line with their own ideology.

I think the suggestion that Richmond and Kingston present a good model is fictional. Their education services are run by a company locally acknowledged as being badly misnamed, "Achieving for Children", and their SEN provision is particularly poor.

So nothing on the News at Ten -nor the BBC news.

ITV news?

Its as if there were no demos/rallies!

I assume the DfE has still not responded to MNHQ's request for some facts and evidence to back up Nicky Morgan's post? What a surprise.

Place marking - can't believe there has been nothing on bbc news

Why aren't the press reporting on this? The BBC has something on their education page but nothing on their main page. Nothing on the Guardian. I know recent tragic incidents are obviously taking precedence, but 'pubs opening late for Queens 90th' gets a slot on the main BBC homepage, but 1000s of people on the Rally, and 100s on other marches across the country doesn't??? Also the BBC reported it as 'teachers protesting' which isn't correct as there were many parents there too.

Mind you I remember how the press mis-reported the marches against hospital closures, hugely under-estimating the numbers etc, so this doesn't surprise me.

"I think the suggestion that Richmond and Kingston present a good model is fictional. Their education services are run by a company locally acknowledged as being badly misnamed, "Achieving for Children", and their SEN provision is particularly poor."

It's certainly an interesting model. It seems to be a little known fact "out there" that LAs can have a 19% stake in academy trusts, and orchestrate the establishment of new schools through cooperative working with local partners - though presumably the DfE would squash such applications from LAs it considered to be providing poor educational provision.

"Achieving for Children" is just Richmond and Kingston's combined and consolidated Education & Childrens' Services departments, turned into a social enterprise, jointly owned by both councils. One "good" thing about it is that if local academies don't like a service that it offers they can purchase it elsewhere - they couldn't do that when they were maintained schools. It also means that particularly strong services can be sold to other boroughs that are struggling in certain areas. Time will tell whether it's a "good" model overall, but it certainly has some advantages and it's worth other councils watching.

One "good" thing about it is that if local academies don't like a service that it offers they can purchase it elsewhere - they couldn't do that when they were maintained schools.

Are you sure about that? Local Management of Schools (LMS) has been around since the early 90s, so about 25 years, which enabled schools to shop around to purchase services. A maintained school I worked at in Oxfordshire at the time did just this, sometimes buying in the County Provision, and sometimes purchasing elsewhere.

Local Management of Schools (LMS) has been around since the early 90s

Yes, there was a commissioning model in Richmond long before Achievement for Children was set up, though in practice maintained schools don't tend to shop around for services.

AfC took the service commissioning to another level, and various financial advantages were put forward in the business case, including the ability to apply for certain grants that weren't available to LAs, and to market their services more widely to other boroughs and independent schools. Like I said though, the jury is still out on whether it's a "good" thing overall. Obviously there were a lot of set-up costs that will need to be offset against any gains.

Those schools I knew in Oxfordshire did tend to shop around. We tended to shop around for the more general services, e.g. painting and decorating or grounds maintenance. We would get three quotes but usually find that for us local tradespeople rather than the larger firms that the County tended to use could offer a more competitive service. Other more specialised educational and health services aren't so readily available and what the County offered was as good, but we could and sometimes did purchase from the neighbouring county.

The small school I worked in survived and thrived, but I really think that forced academisation will be the nail in its coffin.

Underachieving for Children is currently not complying with the law on transferring children from statements to Education Health and Care Plans. If it's accessed extra funds from grants, it's not using them properly.

Weasel alert.

Planaterium states:

"One "good" thing about it is that if local academies don't like a service that it offers they can purchase it elsewhere - they couldn't do that when they were maintained schools."

When this is contradicted by another poster (peregrina) who points out that they know from their experience in Oxfordshire that this statement is not true, Planterium unblushingly responds:

"in practice maintained schools don't tend to shop around for services. "

Which confirms that the first statement was untrue, and replaces it with a second (ALSO untrue).

Planaterium does the same thing regarding their claim that Local Authorities could set up a Trust Chain. Planaterium says they can (so by implication choose not to) then later concedes that the Secretary of State would not allow it.

It has the same logical form as saying that "I could, if I chose, buy a yacht except the bank will not lend me the money"

We tended to shop around for the more general services, e.g. painting and decorating or grounds maintenance...... Other more specialised educational and health services aren't so readily available

It was those specialist services I was referring to. The idea (not mine, the government's) is that, rightly or wrongly, they become more readily available and therefore competitive.

For those of you who can get to London, there's an event with Michael Rosen and the Anti-Academies Alliance coming up: Parents Campaigning Against Academies, details here