Anyone got any opinions on the Michaela School?

[noblegiraffe]

My Twitter is currently full of talk about Michaela as the teachers there have released a book today and are holding a conference explaining what they do. It's a no-excuses school where kids walk the corridors either in silence or chanting Shakespeare, behaviour is expected to be perfect including no slouching. Everything possible is done to reduce workload of teachers - no marking in books, lessons are all joint planned and taught uniformly, no differentiation, they write their own textbooks.

Does anyone's kids go there? Anyone decide against sending their kids there? Does anyone know how it is viewed in the local community?

Authoritarianism in the classroom isn't what he's arguing against. There is value in not pissing around and disturbing the lesson.

So essentially what you're saying there, Eolian, is that the authoritatian approach would be immensely convenient for you - as a parent of the kind of child Michaela wants to teach, and as a teacher. I can see that's true. And if the Michaela approach were transforming every child, from every background, into the kind of child it wants to teach, then fair enough, I suppose. But it isn't; it can't. What it's actually doing, is ensuring that one kind of child is educated separately from the other kinds. Like any other sort of selection, whether that's by academic testing, parental income, postcode... whatever.

I get the impression that the approach they have seems to suit them all.

Cauliflower
But it doesn't suit all, as they admit that an unstated number of children are withdrawn from the school (and presumably more don't even apply because of the well publicised ethos). Whilst as has been stated may work in London, but is not tenable in single school areas.

The blog Noble Giraffe referred to articulates the reservations I have. (and a cheeky dig at the headteacher's very passionate -do it my way or you are letting the children fail -speech)

One of the comments under it that indicated that many private schools (like my sons) market themselves on how they value each and every student as an individual. How they aim to create confident, articulate and happy people with rounded personalities and how exam results are a by-product of the environment rather than an aim in themselves.

I cannot see my very clever, independent thinking, sometimes cynical and sometimes overly anxious son thriving at that school. However we have the luxury of choice. If this style of school was the only state school option in the area, and we could not afford private school, he would hate school.

But that school does not have affluent, middle-class, highly educated, deeply invested families as their target audience.

Their children are from a very deprived, chaotic, literacy-poor area, and therefore the stronger the scaffolding and black-and-white nature of the rules there is, the easier it is for them to focus on their work. These kids won't necessarily have any books at home or access to libraries etc.

You are focusing on your son independently thinking and his anxieties; some of the Michaela parents will be living hand-to-mouth and will not have education high on their agenda. It certainly won't be higher than them wondering if they have enough money to pay for food or if their child is going to stay out of a gang. Michaela is trying to socialise their students and give them the kinds of opportunities that your son and others at his school have as a given.

Your child has a very secure base from which he is operating; theirs do not. It's a totally different starting point.

If you didn't have the money to select to educate your children privately, your options would be very narrow anyway. I would say all state secondary schools suffer from a proportion of disrupted lessons and burnt out staff. Some suffer hugely and parents have zero choice as it's the only school in the area or they are assigned that one due to their proximity.

I get the impression that the approach they have seems to suit them all.

It has only been running for three years with a max of three year groups aged about 11-13, it's a bit early to draw any conclusions, especially regarding workload when they don't publish contact hours.

I want to know contact hours (I'd love low contact hours and no expectations on pointless paperwork, but id love freedom to prepare my own lessons not teach from a script.(
I'd love to know how many leave each year too.

Cauliflower
But are the ones you describe, the children they are educating? I get the impression that the ones with chaotic lives or without the money to pay for school lunches or smart, non supermarket uniforms don't seem to fit well into their systems and opt-out.

All we know about the intake is that they have 111 on PP in 2015 (so about 40%, a good number but comparable with other local schools) but they are not necessary chaotic or putative gang members.

In London you get large numbers of poor, motivated and committed parents and children, many from migrant families (who are often well educated in their own country and very supportive of education). This is one of the reasons why most schools in London are doing much better than the rest of the country.

But if incoming teachers have already thought long and hard, while working in previous schools, about what they would like a curriculum and textbooks to look like, a lot of the workload may already have been completed before arriving at Michaela.

I find this hard to believe. A good textbook takes a long time to write, even if you have taught the material many times.

Even with only three year groups to teach, it's hard to believe that a teacher would find enough time to write textbooks.

A follow up to the previous link about the "show sentence"

tabularasaeducation.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/beyond-the-show-sentence/

The problem for me is that the examples of work we have been presented with in the different links have so far been far from outstanding. They may of course represent very good progress from the individual students. But they don't seem to justify the extraordinary hype which the school seems to attract. I mean Roger Scruton is claiming that the school has converted him to comprehensive education! If the school is doing that I'll be very happy but why?

Maybe we need to organise a Mumsnet trip to Michaela?

Justice she claimed you could do it in a coastal area or Yorkshire

I've now listened to the headteacher's opening speech, but didn't hear her say that. Do you remember which session it was in? Was it when she was introducing one of the other speakers?

It may not suit them all, but it may suit the majority. Most kids would benefit from not losung learning time to bad behaviour. And if I'm basing my opinion on what's best for my dc, so are you (based on your son's anxiety, cynicisn etc). In any case, parents don't have to send their children to a school like Michaela if they don't want to. I think that we have become far too accepting of poor behaviour in schools and that many parents would be pretty appalled if they could be a fly on the wall.

That's why I want to see maths work because you can't parrot showy elaborate maths in the same way as English. Call and response is good for learning facts but that won't help spotting which circle theorem you need to solve a question.

kesstrel I linked to it near the start of the thread with the timepoint in the video. It's part of the bit where she gets worked up about how our children should be running the country.

I think we're all actually being quite generous in assuming that all the children in Michaela have come in with very low starting points

www.standard.co.uk/news/education/london-children-perform-
better-than-rest-of-country-in-three-rs-tests-a3134316.html

Thanks, Noble!

I read the Show Sentence blog about this time last year and was really stuck by how it overcame some of my students biggest problems when phrasing their ideas. I tried it with the class over a couple of weeks, and then saw great results in their written analysis when I assessed them later on. Lots of great ideas coming out of M, but like everything, it won't suit everyone.

As for PPA, on Twitter their teachers have said they have around two hours PPA a day. Can you imagine? That has got to make a massive difference. They use this time to observe each other and reflect on their teaching. It's a great idea.

But if they are disadvantaged then secondary is one of the places (that and pre-school) where the attainment gap really opens up. So if Michaela took disadvantaged kids on level 5s and got them to As (or whatever) then they would be doing much better than a school that took a middle class cohort from 5s to As

Very true Noble.

Also- given their number of Black and Asian students- this is when Black students (particularly boys) statistically start underperforming- in year 7. It does make a difference.

kesstrel

The clip of the headteacher speaking about replication is about half way down this www.teachwire.net/news/michaela-school-book-launch

The headteacher claimed you could replicate it anywhere.

Ok, so I’ve listened to that bit of the livestream. I think it's important that she was responding off the cuff to a question, rather than giving a prepared statement, and the question was “Could it happen anywhere, in a primary, in a coastal town?”

So her response wasn't taking into account the issue of single school locations, because that’s not what was asked. What she was saying was that "children are children" and that she believes coastal town children would respond to high behaviour standards and didactic teaching just as well as London children from ethnic minorities.

I think this discussion really emphasises the need for more scientific rigour when it comes to analysing what works, with whom and why. Ben Goldacre has written extensively about evidence based practice (like here media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/b/ben%20goldacre%20paper.pdf) and before we rush to decide whether parts or all of it should or could be replicated there needs to be more than passionate rhetoric.

My sense is that the school seems to be doing a lot of things right but there is not enough reflection on the downsides (like who does it not suit and what is lost, if anything, in the process) and how to mitigate for them. Even it is a few % of children, they still need an education and my fear would be that they are the really disadvantaged ones

user3615 - in a former life I used to write teaching materials (HE, not secondary). There was a huge difference to the research involved when the people involved had already taught the course (or something very similar) for ages and when they hadn't.

Eliian
In any case, parents don't have to send their children to a school like Michaela if they don't want to.
That is a very London (or urban centric) assumption- in a lot of places, especially in small towns/rural areas the one school is the only viable option unless you have sufficient wealth to fund long distance travel.

Turning the argument on its head a bit, my son's school is not disruptive at all without the level of discipline/ authoritarianism (particularly outside the classroom) that Michaela operates with. Why is that? Is it down to cohort, fee paying or cultural capital? Are there schools in London with different approaches to Michaela with and much perceived success?

Why cannot that type of public school approach (maybe coupled with the didactic teaching approach/long planning time/ evenings off that Michaela offers) be the right one?

I don't know the answer (and I applaud Michaela for their ambition) but it might be elements that any good school offer are right and some wrong but no-one seems to know which

Actually one of the things Michaela might be getting right is the teacher perception of black boys and their ability/potential

There was an interesting graph shown on the programme Will Britain Ever Have A black Prime Minister www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0834rgs/will-britain-ever-have-a-black-prime-minister
It showed a rise in attainment for black boys at GCSE level. The academic who spoke theorised about unconscious bias in teacher assessment of black boys during the early secondary school period and that GCSE was the first external, colour blind test since primary school.

What is your view on that?