Can you smell an ofsted/academy rat at your school??

[bexa]

Roke school in kenley is being forcibly turned into an academy after falling from long standing "outstanding" into special measures in their latest ofsted inspection.

Ofsted hadnt even been back to inspect whether any improvements had been made before handing the school over to David Cameron's personal friend and Tory donor, lord Harris. Smells pretty fishy! The governors were told they would be sacked of they objected. Smells oven more fishy!

Is roke alone? I heard a similar thing happened in coleford. Just wondering if anyone else knows of other schools where this has happened? Either ofsted not returning to do a follow up inspection before declaring academy status or schools falling from outstanding to failing so fast???

Is roke the only one?

[prh47bridge]

Under the last government some research commissioned by Ed Balls found that ten LAs had particularly high concentrations of schools that had performed below floor level for 5 years or more. The research concluded that these LAs were not taking any effective action to improve the performance of their underperforming schools. I wonder if you can name two of those LAs?

[yellowsubmarine53]

I wonder if it then would have been more prudent for central government to provide adequate funding to those LAs instead of cutting them to the bone?

Given that this is all meant to be about what's best for the children, of course.

[admission]

Sorry that is rubbish. There are 150 Local Authorities, Coventry gets the 48th highest GUF(guaranteed unit of funding) at £5232.31 per pupil and Derby City is 67th on the list at £5049.32 per pupil.
Try being in Leicestershire, bottom of the pile at £4428.70 per pupil. Just think what some of their schools could achieve with the extra £804.61 per pupil that coventry get.

[yellowsubmarine53]

National rankings are too crude a measure - the coal face of needs are so much more complex.

[CalmChaos]

Hear hear submarine.

[admission]

I agree that the national funding structure is a crude out of date measure that should have revised years ago but nobody from the previous government had the guts to do and even Mr Gove realises how much of a can of worms it is, so he has put off till 2015.
However Coventry and Derby City are still getting a lot more funding per pupil than the majority of local authorities and that is a fact. And the formula that is used is so out of date and complicated that it has no resemblance to the coal face of needs. Every LA below Coventry and Derby City will argue that their needs exceed those of these two LAs.
Ofsted are targeting Derby and Coventry because of the number of schools in the two LAs that are considered inadequate and inadequate over a considerable period of time and that is not directly related to funding, it is a comment on the teaching and learning that goes on in those schools.

[sleepylampost]

Now this thread is going seriously off topic, no?

[bexa]

Anyone see the Guardian piece on Roke school yesterday? Yet more evidence of foul play I say! Really needs a hardcore investigative journo to dig deep. I bet there are more schools in this sort of situation.