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Original poster

Anyone got any opinions on the Michaela School?

624 replies

noblegiraffe · 26/11/2016 13:43

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?

OP posts:
EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 17:17

But your previous point was that Michaela doesn't spend money on unnecessary top-heavy management. 4 deputy heads is expensive, especially for a small school, and my point was that whilst they may teach, they will have a tiny teaching load compared to a standard teacher. My deputy head teaches 8/25 lessons per week. A standard teacher teaches 22/25. So Michaela is spending money on a top-heavy management structure. Assuming all teaching staff are listed on the website, nearly 1/5 of teaching staff are management. In a large secondary with 80 teachers, that's the equivalent of having an SLT of 16!

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 17:28

they will have a tiny teaching load compared to a standard teacher

How can you possibly know that? The number of teaching hours of a "deputy head" could vary from nearly full time in a very small school (the person is deputy head solely for cases where the head is unavailable) to full time.

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 17:31

Oh please. Deputy heads have a hell of a lot to do and do not have the same teaching load as a standard teacher. They just don't.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 17:53

Evil As you said above, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 17:57

Happy to agree to disagree where it comes to Michaela's approach to SEN but you directly contradicted yourself about management. Whether or not the 1 head and 4 deputies teach, there is no doubt that they will be paid well (otherwise why would they do it?) and that 5/27 teaching staff being management constitutes a "top heavy" profile. You said they didn't have that. They do.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 03/12/2016 18:04

Ok well let's take French.
Across Years 7 and 8 there are 26 hours of lesons

mcsbrent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/TIMETABLE1.pp

Assuming there are the same number in year 9, that makes 39 hours in total for the school.

There are 3 French teachers, 1 of whom is a deputy head and head of languages.

The week has 29 hours of lessons.

If it was shared equally between the three of them they would have 13 hours to teach a week. The deputy must have far less. Let's say he has 8 hours. That leaves about 15 hours for each of the other two.

Most mainscale teachers have 22 hours a week. That's expensive!

I notice that they state "Humanities" on the timetable - and staff are "Humanities" teachers. It is much more expensive to ensure specialist teachers are in place. Cheaper to have the geography teacher teach history as well for example.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 03/12/2016 18:11

Well that explains quite a lot. Including how the 1:1 SEN provision is provided by teachers rather than TAs.

I don't think 13hrs a week contact time is going to do much for the MN perception that teachers are lazy though.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 18:17

Okay, Evil ....

  1. This is a free school. They can have whatever structure they like.
  1. The school has a group of "Senior Teachers" who take responsibility for curriculum development etc , many of whom are also "Deputy heads".
  1. It's entirely possible that they decided to divide the work of one "deputy head" among 4 people, so that the others could continue to do a lot of teaching, because one thing that is clear from their blogs is that they are ALL passionate about teaching.
  1. You say there is no doubt that they will be paid well (otherwise why would they do it?) I don't think anyone joined the Michaela team for the pay. The senior teachers' blogs and other writing are strong evidence that they are all passionate about the innovative Michaela approach to teaching and learning. You have no evidence for their level of pay or for their motivation.
  1. Whether a school has a "top heavy" teaching staff depends not on the number of people with a management "label", but on how much time they spend on management, compared to the total number of teaching hours the school has overall. By your logic, the greater the number of part time teachers in a school (and therefore the larger the headcount of the staff), the lower the management to staff ratio would be.
  1. You have misrepresented my position about SEN. I never said that children don't have SEMH needs or that "being a bit stricter" is the solution to those needs. What I actually said is that there are question marks over the widespread usage of the emotional and behavioural disorder "diagnosis", as well as question marks about the best way to handle this. If all diagnoses of SEN by schools are accurate, why are there twice as many August-born children labelled with ADHD than September-born ones?
EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 18:23

Kesstrel, what is clear is that you will defend any criticism or query about this school despite the fact that you claim not to have any personal involvement. That makes it very difficult to have any level of objective discussion about it. I am interested in the school, but I do not think they have got everything right. However, if you are going to continue to blast down any questions then there is no point in my remaining in the discussion.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 18:35

Kesstrel, what is clear is that you will defend any criticism or query about this school

No, I am attempting to provide an alternative view to the primarily critical one here. I am in a position to do that because I have read quite a lot about the school.

despite the fact that you claim not to have any personal involvement.

"claim". Charming.

That makes it very difficult to have any level of objective discussion about it.

No, what makes it difficult is people who misrepresent other people's views, and attack them for what they have not said.

I am interested in the school, but I do not think they have got everything right.

I don't think they have got everything right, either. There are also lot of unanswered questions about what they are doing.(I believe I have said a number of times that we need more information.) However, I don't think that justifies misrepresenting their approach, or asserting as fact something that I cannot possibly know.

If you are going to continue to blast down any questions

Please give me an example of me "blasting down questions".

NWgirls · 03/12/2016 18:57

May I suggest BrewBrew or WineWine for you both?

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 19:08

The website states that staff are paid on the inner London pay scale. So no matter how much/little teaching the deputy heads are paid, if the four deputies are titled Deputy Heads, they are paid well. I am arguing against your assertion that the school does not spend money on too heavy management. Two of the 27 teachers are "teaching fellows" who work on interventions. Therefore exactly 1/5 of Michaela's teaching staff are SLT. That is a lot.

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 19:09

By the way, I've also read a lot about the school, but I don't consider myself an expert.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 03/12/2016 19:23

kesstrel has a point about the SEN, particularly when it comes to literacy. Over diagnosis of dyslexia is still a problem, one that is stopping us from identifying those children that really do have issues and need the money spent on them.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 19:38

By the way, I've also read a lot about the school, but I don't consider myself an expert.

Neither do I. That's why my posts include statements like:

"(although I could be wrong here)" and "I am just speculating about where they would save money to pay for more teacher time. I could well be wrong." Also why they don't include statements like: "You come across as pretty uninformed about X". I will just add that my so-called "assertion" about top heavy management was not as strong as saying that that was definitely how they are saving money. As indicated by the Smile after my original comment, and my further comment to Justice quoted above.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 19:41

Thanks, Rafals. I sometimes feel that is one of the things you're not allowed to say on here.

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 19:45

I've put my "would it work in an existing school" question to one of the deputy heads in Twitter and have my answer now.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 03/12/2016 19:46

I'm glad we agree on something.

I don't think we're usually on different sides of an argument when it comes to reading/core knowledge/direct instruction. Grin

Surprisingly I can't see anything on the Reading Reform Foundation forum. I was half expecting to see a thread.

kesstrel · 03/12/2016 19:47

Rafals I've noticed things have really quietened down there. I think the former major participants have switched to mostly using twitter now.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 03/12/2016 19:55

Evil what did they say??

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 03/12/2016 19:55

Evil what did they say?

OP posts:
HarveySchlumpfenburger · 03/12/2016 19:56

I think so. I think I follow most of them on twitter.

I'm getting a site is under reconstruction message from the main site. Which is annoying because I wanted to look up something.

EvilTwins · 03/12/2016 19:58

Basically that it wouldn't - it works at Michaela because they got to start from scratch, but there are bits of it that would work anywhere. I do agree with that. In fact there are things I have suggested to our HT but unfortunately he was of the view that we're "not ready for it". The way they deal with homework, in particular, is brilliant.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 03/12/2016 20:06

Yes I think I agree.
I think the boot camp is one of the most important issues.

How do they deal with homework?

I've bought the book

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 03/12/2016 20:07

I think the problem is year 7 is too late. We probably need an attitude change at primary too.

I'm not suggesting we need to have kids doing a limited curriculum and drill and an extreme behaviour policy (at either stage tbh). But if we can get rid of some of the 'I need a WOW activity to teach column addition' attitude it would be a start.

IMHO, if you teach the basics effectively you free up quite a bit of curriculum time.