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?

Not issues - techniques !

HW is 30 mins reading, 30 mins IXL maths and 30 mins self-quizzing and self correcting from a knowledge organiser. Doesn't need any marking from the teacher except to check that it has been done and done neatly.

Homework is essentially revision - they make notes about specific things they've learned and write it out a specified number of times. Given the way that exams have gone (i.e. linear) this is good, IMO, for getting information to stick. Also, whole school does just one subject each night and it's the same for every year group. Means they only do homework in 5 subjects, but that's good enough if it works.

However, the narrow curriculum and lack of creativity doesn't sit well with me.

I'm also not 100% comfortable with the "no excuses" behaviour policy - though I don't know enough about the way children are dealt with to be able to comment properly.

I like the emphasis on kindness and the daily discussions, though I think that children need time to be themselves at lunchtime. I am a Year 13 tutor and we do formal discussions and debates based on things in the news during tutor time and they love it.

Interesting that if you read the initial application to be a free school, there are differences between what they said would happen and what does happen.

I think there's probably an effective middle ground with the behaviour policy.

It would be a shame if some of the good things that they do were rejected by people because of some of the more extreme policies that they have..

The behaviour thing is interesting. We have a "no tolerance" policy at my school. It works well where staff are consistent, but there was a huge backlash from some parents when we brought it in. We're rural though, so I totally get where the argument about Michaela needing supportive parents comes from. One family removed their three children (and went to the local press about draconian measures) but the rest have got on with it and kids go to isolation if they are disrupting learning. Parents are not all supportive, but they don't have the option of simply shipping out to another school. We also have a nurture room so those whose disruptive behaviour is a results of SEN or issues at home or emotional issues (we have a few young carers, a handful of LAC students and a few who are just going through a tough time) have an alternative. They are still prevented from disrupting learning but are taken somewhere supportive rather than being punished.

It was the homework I wanted our HT to look at but he wasn't keen.

I get the no tolerance thing and staff do need to be consistent and supported by SLT. But I'm not sure about some of the rules.

I think it's a bit like uniforms. You could have very strict set of uniform criteria and crack down on every breach of it because if you don't the kids will see how far they can push the boundaries.

OTOH, you could have a much looser set of uniform criteria and still have zero tolerance of breaches of it. There's still a boundary that kids know they can't cross, but there's also a bit more freedom within it.

It's the lack of consequences for breaking the rules that's the issue, not exactly what the rules are.

The SENCo's blog is interesting, in that she seems to concentrate almost exclusively on what might be termed the "easier" types of learning difficulty from a teaching point of view, particularly literacy problems. She has nothing to offer in relation to issues like autism, sensory needs, severe anxiety, mental health problems, foetal alcohol syndrome etc. Is that because children with those types of difficulty get eased out, or ignored? Or because they simply don't fit in with the more simplistic aspects of the Michaela philosophy?

Wouldhave Those are good questions, and it would be interesting to read what the SENCO has to say about them.

On one of her blogs, she says:

As a SENCO, you are thinking constantly about what’s best for those who need the most support, and with a proactive attitude and a bit of gusto, you can fly the flag for SEN when senior team are cooking up the latest school-wide strategy. It is an excellent opportunity to have a huge impact on what is often (sadly) a big chunk of the student body.

I think it's worth considering how Michaela's structure and ethos, in and of itself, might help to reduce the problems children with ASD, sensory issues, anxiety, and mental health problems are likely to have in school. Michela offers the following:

1. An environment with extremely low sensory impact. It’s always quiet and orderly, and the walls aren’t covered with distracting images.

2. An environment where no one needs to be afraid of being bullied. 3. An ethos that is constantly emphasising that kindness to others is as important as academic achievement. 4. A low pupil to staff ratio, so that the interventions for children with SEN are always done by teachers, not by TAs. 5. A family atmosphere, in which children stay with the same form throughout all their lessons, so are not constantly encountering new faces. 6. Organised seating at lunch, so that no one needs to be afraid of having no one to sit with. 7. Extremely clear expectations of what pupils need to do in order to learn, and a carefully structured and scaffolded curriculum that builds on prior knowledge, rather than moving rapidly from topic to topic. 8. An approach to teaching that is consistent across all subjects, so that pupils don’t need to learn lots of different behaviours for different classrooms. 9. Teachers have lower contact hours than normal, so have plenty of time for planning. They also have their evenings and weekends largely free, so they are likely to stay with the school: so no problem with strings of rapidly changing supply teachers and new faces to get used to.

Of course, those things won't solve every SEN problem, but I do think they would help significantly.

It will be interesting to see if those things continue as the school fills up. Low staff ratios may well be a result of the fact that there are only 3 year groups. It's not economical to keep it like that.

They really shouldn't be preaching about workload when their contact hours are so low.

No KS4 - that makes a HUGE difference to workload. 90% of my marking is KS4 & KS5, plus about 80% of planning. KS3 in my dept is like a well-oiled machine!

That's so true, Evil.

I think the very pared down, predictable routines and rules, combined with the stable staff who all deal with classes in the same way with the same routines and procedures, would go a long way to helping with many of the SEN children I have taught.

I feel one of the reasons some of them can get very anxious and stressed is when things are unpredictable, chaotic, unmanaged, noisy and they feel unsafe. Actually, that would make most kids on edge.

I can certainly think of two yr 9 boys I teach who would benefit from the stability and predictability. In one case, though, it would depend on how well things were explained to him. He has ASD and if a rule doesn't make sense to him (eg he gets why one set of stairs is UP and the other is DOWN because it helps with crowding but he doesn't accept that he's not allowed in the Science block at lunchtime - he's allowed in the other building so that makes no sense to him) he won't follow it.

They appear to have a total of 386 contact hours per week, including form time. If you divide that evenly among the 24 teaching staff (including the deputy heads), you get 16 hours a week. So
If a their contact hours are around 16 to 17 hours a week, that gives them 5 or 6 hours of non-contact time per week that standard 22 contact hours teachers don't have.

Would most teachers be able to cover all their "extra" workload, including meetings, in 5 or 6 hours per week? That's not the impression I've got from teacher comments and blogs.

Yes, they probably could. 5 or 6 hours less of teaching that they have to plan and mark for, plus 5 or 6 extra hours to do their planning and marking in would make a huge difference to any teacher's workload, but for one who only taught KS3 which is easy and doesn't generate much workload, it would make the job a piece of cake.

They also do quite a lot of observing of each other and feeding back and discussing of practice.

So it will be interesting to see what happens with workload when they start GCSEs, then.

That would really help with planning.

I'm actually quite pissed off at the 'Michaela teachers can leave by 5pm' thing now. Of course you bloody can.

Exactly Noble - it's the combination of more non-contact hours and fewer classes to teach.

Actually I'm part time, although I work 5 days a week with a patchy timetable. Next year my youngest goes to school and I will be able to work at school in the time I currently spend at home with her. I'm expecting that this will significantly reduce the work I do in the evenings and weekends (in fact I'm counting on it), obviously the difference between me and a Michaela teacher would be that I'm only paid part time.

Slightly off topic, but I'm guessing that part of the reason that Michaela exists is to provide an alternative to view points like this.

Just stumbled across it when looking for something else.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/11/28/poor-bright-pupils-left-behind-time-give-opportunity-excel/

God only knows what's wrong with providing all children with the opportunity to access a highly academic education with a rich complement of arts, sports and character education.

What bothers me about the Michaela system is the point touched on by EvilTwins, namely its rigidity and whether they are willing to change it in order to make adjustments for disability. I can't see how a child with Tourette's is going to fit in with the demands for silence, for instance.

Would any Michaela student feel comfortable writing something like this?

twitter.com/Penny_Ten/status/804443011652403205

Rafa That Anthony Seldon piece has to be the most stupid educational idea anyone has come up with. How is a school supposed to only admit students from the bottom 25%? How would you define that for a start? And then can you imagine means-testing every child who sits the test and how on earth would you prevent cheating?

And why exactly do children who have passed the 11+ deserve a "rich" extra curricular programme of sports etc when those who have failed the test do not? Uggh!

It'll be the bottom 25% whose parents decide to enter them for the test and whose parents might be prepared to send them to board weekly.

I'm guessing those are not the children who are going to have the most problem with a lack of social mobility.

The whole idea is completely illogical if your aim is to increase social mobility. It's the opposite of what will help.