Free school head without any teaching qualifications plans to ignore curriculum

[mrz]

m.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/10/free-school-head-no-qualification

"It's a common sense approach"

Yes. If your product is washing powder or an evening class in basket-weaving. Not a big deal if it's not very good. Quick turnaround for customer to realise failure and buy a new product.

Completely unsuitable if your product is school age education.

Children will never get back those developmental stages. It may take years for failure to be fully obvious. If propped up by political will, failing school may persist for years and children be mandated to attend.

Though less acute than in healthcare, the "let them fail" model just isn't good enough for 5-18 year old education. Those are real human beings whose lives will be permanently affected by someone else's failure.

How will they solve anything CC?
The idea came from Sweden where they are already seem as failing
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/10/sweden-free-schools-experiment

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7846599/Swedish-free-schools-fail-to-improve-results.html

www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6039807

debrakidd.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/calling-all-teachers/
I've copied the link from another thread because of it's relevance

Just a quick few questions;
If the new curriculum goes ahead and I assume teachers are all trained in its delivery - how much will it cost?
And what if three years or so down the line it all goes wrong and standards don't go up (or even worse go down) who will take the blame? The government ? The group who devised the curriculum? Or the teachers? I've a pretty good idea already, but what do others think?

MRZ, yes I most certainly do think teachers don't keep up to date with research, how could they possibly manage that as well as their day job? Just look at the fact most don't know learning styles theories in education are rubbish. I do think you keep more up to date than most but you are hardly representative.
I referred to a consensus in cognitive psychology on the role of knowledge with skills, not a consensus over curriculum design!

Yes teachers are trained in it's delivery.
Cost - difficult to measure but schools certainly won't be resources for the full history content or equipped for the cookery element of DT etc

If it doesn't work it will be the teachers fault

Sorry beezmum but you are mistaken. I did a part time MA in Education after school (while working full time) and I'm far from unusual.

It doesn't really help an honest debate if you use left wing (anti-Free School) bias newspapers as a source of facts, because they spin the facts into anything they want them to say.

But that aside, those articles quote a study which was specific to Sweden and is of ?limited? use when predicting the impact of similar reforms in England. Sweden uses profit making Free Schools, England does not. Swedish Free Schools have a grade inflation problem, so did English schools, Gove is resolving that.

"The evidence on the impact of the reforms suggests that, so far, Swedish pupils do not appear to be harmed by the competition from private schools"

"evidence showed a ?moderately positive? impact of free schools on academic performance"

"A second study found that in a given municipality, the higher the proportion of free schools, the more standards rise all round. The evidence not only from Swedish free schools but from American charter schools shows that such schools help to close the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest children.?

"...research, at Harvard, Stanford and MIT, has shown that allowing properly regulated new schools can bring dramatic improvements in school standards, especially for schools for poorer children in poor areas."

mrz - those newspapers are quoting studies that show the benefits of Free Schools.

Ipad very many teachers are actively encouraged to take account of learning styles in their teaching. I certainly was in my training and it is a normal thing to encounter - as well as AFL...
Regards knowledge based curriculums we certainly do not have such a curriculum in the UK. The last secondary curriculum produced by under Labour was designed with assumptions about promoting skills that are flatly contradicted by the findings in cognitive psychology. Yes, I know theories change but given that the last curriculum was based on theories that have been comprehensively debunked it is probably best practice to look into a re- design...

As for the long term harm done to children if these schools fail. Well we have that now, with a whole generation of children leaving a failed education system with grades that are meaningless in the real world, at best, or illiterate and innumerate at worst.

Free schools will give the power back to parents to figure out what is best for their children. And from my experience parents can figure that out pretty quick. I haven't heard about swathes of children being forced to go to any Free School, so the 'experiment' is only for the willing, the rest can stick with a bog standard comp.

Learning styles have been discredited beezmum

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sIv9rz2NTUk

So you see statements such as

The study said any advantages gained by pupils attending free schools in Sweden failed to translate into ?greater educational success? beyond the age of 16.

"This is a school for criminals," he declared, to laughter. "Nobody's working in this school, because no one here has any future." His remark is clearly intended as a joke, but it suggests how marginalised he feels.
as supporting?

beezmum I don't understand how maths, for instance can be taught, without teaching the knowledge base, together with the skills to do the arithmetic.
Can you explain please?

www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/opinion/more-lessons-about-charter-schools.html?_r=0

I was pointing out that the report could be spun either way. The report is about Swedish Free Schools which operate under different rules and cannot be used to determine the outcomes of English free Schools.

Like I said the proof of the schools will be in their successes and imho state teachers are running scared.

If you mean teachers are afraid that this curriculum will harm children you could be right

MRZ er yes - that is exactly what I have been saying ree learning styles. Its humbling to realise how little attention is paid to what I say!

Ipad there is a long and proper answer to that question but my husband is already cross as he is dishing up tea! i will get back to you...

No I think that teachers are afraid some schools will do better that the current system forcing them to work harder.

on the plus side they should all do well in pub quizes

lol

Why do you imagine teachers will need to work harder CC?

Children yes because there are all the facts to learn ...

"I think that teachers are afraid some schools will do better that the current system forcing them to work harder"

My understanding of this statement is that you don't think teachers (sweep generalisation here) are working hard enough now. In what way? What do you think they are slacking on in the current curriculum?

Seems very strange that this person should advise on National Curriculum and then be made a head at 27 with no teaching experience or qualifications

Mrz an MA only scratches the surface of educational research, the vast majority of teachers don't even do that. I spend most of my leisure time, saddo that I am, reading about educational research and issues and yet I have only managed to dip into the research on curriculum reform and yet among my friends (virtually all teachers...) and colleagues I am unusual for the amount I know. I argued that teachers rarely have expertise on curriculum reform and the fact some teachers have an MA in something related to education, or even curriclum reform, is good for them but hardly counters my point.