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Secondary education

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Original poster

What happens when a school cant improve?

74 replies

GnomeDePlume · 01/10/2016 20:46

DCs' school has gone back into Special Measures. It has been in and out of Special Measures like it is caught on the door handle.

Leadership, teaching, personal development, outcomes all assessed as inadequate.

In amongst the damning statements in the Ofsted report there was praise for the Principal. Unfortunately he has now left. Yet another in a long line of Heads. We have been associated with the school for 9 years. There have been at least 9 Heads in that time.

This isnt an inner city sink school. It is the only school in in a small midlands town.

So what does happen when a school just doesnt seem to be able to get itself out of the doldrums?

Has anyone any experience of this?

Fortunately our association with the school ends in two years as DD is now in 6th form (which was assessed as Good!).

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 02/10/2016 16:44

"I understand what you mean by progress made by pupils, however 21% is so low that personally I think it is a vicious circle, no parent in their right mind looking at their results will willingly send their DC there."

It really won't have got "good" with 21% A*-C unless it is a very very much below average catchment.........

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 17:03

I'll out myself but there is the school. It is in fact 20% A-C (incl English and maths). Maybe somebody can explain why it got 2 with such results as I am puzzled

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/140049

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 17:06

I suspect they got good because of this

" Pupils make good progress. They join the school in Year 7 with levels of attainment that are consistently below the national average. When they reach the end of Year 11, their standards are in line with the national average in a wide range of subjects, including English and mathematics."

fourcorneredcircle · 02/10/2016 17:07

Haha Fleur I went looking for it earlier to check you had your facts right... I found it but didn't out you :)

I think it probably has a lot to do with the fact that they were inspected based on last year's GCSE results ... which weren't as bad. They have high levels of FSM and low levels of EAL... yet another white working class British school with generations of under achievement to address...

BertrandRussell · 02/10/2016 17:08

Well on first read this "Pupils make good progress from starting points that are well below the national average when they join the school. The proportion of pupils who achieved 5 A to C grades including English and mathematics at GCSE level in 2015 was in line with the national average. This is in conflict with the published data because the school’s entry policy for English examinations resulted in a large proportion of pupils’ data not being taken into account. Pupils’ outcomes in English were in line with the national figures, and were well above them in English literature* sprang out

Original poster
GnomeDePlume · 02/10/2016 17:08

Ta1kinpeece, in the case of my DCs' school I dont agree that the problems are socioeconomic. This isnt a sink school with the more able being creamed off by other schools. This is the only school in a small midlands town.

There have been no major industry failures, no steel yards or pits have closed. Unemployment is lower than both county and national average.

The problem is the school not the town. It seems that the problems of the school have almost seeped into its fabric.

OP posts:
fourcorneredcircle · 02/10/2016 17:09

They probably are making "good" progress for their relative start points.

I am pleased that the government focus is moving from % A-C and towards progress. It's a fairer measure across all schools. It'll take a long time before everyone gets their heads around it though.

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 17:19

Fourcornered and Bertrand thanks for explaining. As I said nobody who is slightly involved in their child's education wants their child there. We avoid it like plague. It is sad really as by the time they finish rebuilding it and rebranding it, it will probably have the best facilities in the area but until the results come through realistically and also we stop hearing the stories of clever kids being bullied at the school because they are smart, nobody will willingly send their child there.

My DS is in yr 11 at another school (partially selective) and I remember how they were struggling to reform this school when he was in year 5. There we are 7 years later and they are still pumping cash into it trying to resuscitate it.

BertrandRussell · 02/10/2016 18:48

"also we stop hearing the stories of clever kids being bullied at the school because they are smart, nobody will willingly send their child there"

It's a catch 22 isn't it? The school doesn't have a mix of abilities so it's not going to get the sort of first glance results that mean people will send their clever children there, even thought it's got huge amounts going for it according to the OFSTED. A school can be doing spectacularly well by its cohort but still not look appealing.

Incidentally, in a long life in and around education, I have seen far more children being bullied for being thick than being clever. I''m not saying it doesn't happen, that would be daft. But it is, in my experience, something people are far more often afraid of happening than actually happens.....

Original poster
GnomeDePlume · 02/10/2016 19:32

nobody will willingly send their child there

Unfortunately in the case of my DCs' school there isnt a choice. I could stamp my feet all I liked but I lived in the town so my DCs went to the town school. I can remember being close to tears (and I am not a crier) when DC1 was allocated to the school which had just gone into Special Measures.

OP posts:
Ta1kinpeece · 02/10/2016 20:52

Hmm, tricky
schools in SM are actually neither here nor there - the multitude of reasons covers so many bases
the fact that the school stays shite implies
(a) there is another school within striking distance that motivated parents are using
(b) there is a socio-economic issue in the town

I live in Southampton, we are technically a booming city and yet there are pockets of shite
and YobCentral is bang in the middle of one of them
the problems date back to the 1950's (3rd generation unemployment)

chances are if you mined the census data for your town, the problem would pop up
and sadly as I said above, tax rates below 30% will not resolve it.

TheFallenMadonna · 02/10/2016 20:58

So, the children perform at the national average A - C, from starting points well below national average, therefore making very good progress, but parents avoid it like the plague. I used to teach in a similar sounding school. Middle class parents preferred the other local school, who got slightly higher A-C, but much lower levels of progress. People Like Us maybe?

Good to see OFSTED looking past official performance measures and using real progress data though.

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 21:13

I don't think, no matter what Ofsted says, that any parent will easily send his child to a school where (only) 20% of the kids achieve 5 A-Cs. No matter how much Ofsted reassurance. Incidentally is not our catchment school, I follow its story because I know it since it had metal detectors and I was hearing stories of parents decided to homeschool rather than send their DCs there.

I personally know a very clever girl that went there, the school failed her. The parents were willing to give it a shot, they moved from another town, missed the allocation day so their DD was allocated this school. She was bullied for an entire year because she dared to put her hand up, to answer questions, because she was behaving, she was thrown stones at and called names, until the parents actually won an appeal to move her to another school based on (the other school's) facilities for academic kids. Part of the facilities also being their bulling policy.

So yes, it is catch 22, personally I am happy I didn't need to consider the school so I just read about it and yes I am puzzled that Ofsted rated two schools with opposite ends results as good. When I directly know what happened to the girl in my example above.

On another note my "bad" catchment area school which again I have avoided years ago and DS went to a school 6 miles away, has now improved and you can actually see it. It became an academy, had money thrown at it and the results are coming through. Even if it isn't yet on a par to my DS's school in terms of results I would send my youngest there as 60% achieving 5A-C GCSEs is better than 20%, that would mean that DD would mix with potentially 60% of her year who actually are there to learn.

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 21:18

And I am sorry theFallenMadonna no matter what Ofsted says I cannot believe that 20% A-C GCSEs is achieving national average. I am sorry, no matter what anybody says, I'd like to see the parent that has a choice between 60%-90% results and chooses the one with the lower results just to give it a chance At the cost of their DCs education maybe.

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 21:20

Gnome I am sorry, I can imagine is not easy when there is no choice. Sad

TheFallenMadonna · 02/10/2016 21:26

OFSTED is saying that 20% does not represent the actual results achieved. So, for example, if students take an exam in year 10, and again in year 11, only the "first entry" results count towards performance measures. For the students themselves of course, the best result counts. So while the first entry results are not at national average, the best results, that the students actually got, are. Don't know whether that is what happened with this school, but it certainly happened with a lot of schools when the rules around first/best entry changed a couple of years ago.

TheFallenMadonna · 02/10/2016 21:29

And it's not only the A*-C students who are "willing to learn", and indeed not all of those will be...

Original poster
GnomeDePlume · 02/10/2016 21:36

Ta1kinpeece the difference between my midlands town and the situation you describe for Southampton is one of scale. For people who live in my town there is only one school. You cannot demand to send your DCs to one of the Good schools in neighbouring towns simply because the school in the town is in SM.

Being well motivated doesnt come into it. We live in the town so DCs go to this school. That is it.

There is no socio-economic issue. I have mined the census data.

It is not about the town

OP posts:
Ta1kinpeece · 02/10/2016 21:38

There is a chance that even in an utterly dire school that they can pull together 30 kids in each year in each subject (using setting) who can get cracking results
the school averages will be dire, but those kids will succeed

alternatively it will be like my local school that had no science teachers for two terms Hmm

BertrandRussell · 02/10/2016 22:01

The school fleur links to only has 17% high attainers. I do wonder where the others go...........

Fleurdelise · 02/10/2016 22:05

To the 6 partially selective and 2 non selective schools that went from SM to good and you can actually see the results Bertrand.

Original poster
GnomeDePlume · 02/10/2016 22:09

Thank you Fleurdelise I think it is hard to appreciate how dispiriting a poor school is until you experience it.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 02/10/2016 22:15

Schools like the OPs were supposed to be fixed by academisation. No one really planned for what would happen if academisation failed, because it wasn't supposed to.

It would be really interesting to see the school data.

fourcorneredcircle · 02/10/2016 22:16

Fleur the national average links back to the % progress, not the A-C %. The way schools are measured now is the school will get targets for each child based on KS2 results and then the progress is measured by how far beyond that the children get. So, bearing in mind that the children at that school enter on significantly below national averages (say, for arguments sake, 75/120 or for current Y7 and up levels 2/low 3s) then their GCSE Targets will be low (no one is too sure 100% on the new scale yet but grade E's in "old money"). Therefore, if they score a D grade across subjects the school has made excellent progress given their start points (on the new measure any aggregate score that's .5 and above across all grades is outstanding).

Ofsted aren't measuring progress based on A-C anymore because it meant that schools that were working hard but had students with a low start were penalised whereas schools which due to selection, be it by academics, catchment or other middle class options, were coasting.

OlennasWimple · 02/10/2016 22:23

There are an awful lot of schools that coast along, without really improvements or getting the best out of their pupils. Because many of these are in naice leafy towns, coasting can still deliver quite high results (because they are bright kids with lots of parental support), so they sort of fly under the radar. It sounds like your school, OP, is a bit like that but coasting along at the bottom Sad