Michaela head: Children are horrible

[noblegiraffe]

“You will find in other schools children are not kind at all, they are horrible. And they are horrible because nobody has taught them how to be kind,” Birbalsingh says."

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/30/no-excuses-inside-britains-strictest-school

In an article that slates pretty much everyone else (other teachers = crap, other schools = crap, other kids = crap), it was probably the assertion that kids in other schools are just horrible because they aren't taught kindness that got me most.
On twitter she said that children will tear insects apart without thought to their pain unless taught otherwise. It struck me as a religious position to assert that children are born bad, and indeed she confirmed further on in a discussion that she believes in Original Sin (is she catholic?).

If you know any kids that are kind, by the way, who don't go to her school, then they must have been taught kindness from someone else, maybe a kind aunt or someone.

She also believes that most teachers think that the children know as much as them.

I'm a bit

If you thought the Head was slightly mad before have a look at this:

twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/814902447906942976

Bizaare thing is when asked when behaviour was so good in schools she says " a time before ours" Then how does she know? There are teachers accounts of schools in the 50s and 60s. What they say certainly doesn't sound like a golden age.

"if my head said what has been said to the papers about children being horrible and then started wanging on about original sin on the internet as justification, I'd be a bit concerned about the leadership."
Don't laugh - my mum worked in an FE college many years back, the principal gradually became more and more 'eccentric' and after some time it came to light that he was receiving messages from God telling him how to run the college . . . (Fortunately after some time off and treatment he recovered fully and took a less stressful job.)

I think there is an element of truth -kids can be mean, very mean. We put a lot of time and effort into teaching them to be nice.

Some kids just don't have that. I am not sure if harsh discipline rather than a caring school environment would fix the problem though.

I spent some time in school down the road a couple of years before Michaela was set up. Behaviour was shocking. I always think of it as 'high level' disruption. Shouting out in class, throwing things in class and I found canteen intimidating at break as an adult. But what shocked me more was that staff thought this was totally normal.

Some kids can be mean, absolutely. But Original Sin? How harmful to an environment for the leader to believe that a large part of the community are inherently evil horrible.

I guess it's disappointing because up till now I had been quite reassured by the secular nature of the school - no prayers, a stoic 'philosophy' over a religious agenda. To find a toxic religious doctrine that I thought we'd left behind centuries ago at the heart of the leadership is disheartening.

Anyway are the school really teaching kids kindness, or simply obedience? They go on about how there's no bullying because there's no opportunity to bully. What if there was? Will they release their grip on the kids as they get older to allow them to make decisions for themselves?

Looking at that twitter feed, I'd guess the proof will be whether they go around stamping on cats when out of school.

Vince Ulam really has a bee in his bonnet about Michaela. He may have a point with the question about PP spending though.

Is slagging off other schools and other children role modelling kindness? I don't think so. I don't think you can say you teach children to be kind while simultaneously making spiteful comments about other schools and other children.

I actually think it's a good idea to specifically set aside time to show gratitude. But I don't think it's compatible with calling other children horrible.

Gosh. She states the primary schools don't teach them kindness. She's insane.

A few years down the line and she will be discredited like the kids company woman was.

I'd be showing gratitude to Michaela and its staff too, if they were telling me that the other option was to be stamped on in the corridors of any other school in the country.

From a school that purports to teach facts.

Interesting article, but I wonder if it's a bit biased in the sense of "aren't free schools great" which isn't what I would expect from the Guardian.
I suspect that it would be more accurate to say that some children are horrible in some other schools rather than the use of "other" on it's own but this would be less dramatic from a journalist's point of view.
Having said that my dd attended a comprehensive school where the pupils were encouraged to be themselves and express themselves as well as expecting (and achieving) high standards of behaviour and excellent academic results.
This particular school hasn't yet put a year group through public exams so cannot be judged on that score yet. I don't think that expecting high standards of behaviour is wrong, but what does concern me is that the pupils are being in someway repressed and unable to express their feelings etc which I am not sure is a good thing in the long term.

There seems to be an arrogant all knowing attitude.

I would want to know how the school knows the state of a parents finances on a daily basis. The fact that if you cannot afford lunch money but the school thinks you can then your child ends up in lunch isolation.

I would love to hear the schools take on dyslexia or dysgraphia

The twitter conversation is shocking.

Strict discipline in schools isn't a new idea.
I think it is good she has high aspirations in kids from a deprived area. If they don't have this face on their parents then they need it from the school.
I think she is doing a good job not many people could nor would be able to do.

Is slagging off other schools and other children role modelling kindness? I don't think so. I don't think you can say you teach children to be kind while simultaneously making spiteful comments about other schools and other children.

I don't think she is being all that kind about her own pupils either, implying that they would be tearing insects apart or stamping on cats tails were they not being taught the michaela brand of kindness. Of course, not doing those things does not make you kind; it just means you are not cruel to animals.

I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with high expectations for children from deprived areas (and all children for that matter). But that's not really what they are doing. There are schools that have done that and have the results to show for it.

What Michaela are doing seems to be some sort of experiment with a very specific teaching method. For the children's sake you have to hope it works out.

Had never heard of this school before today. I'm a secondary English teacher and those exemplar essay extracts are very odd. I'm also an examiner and you can always spot the kids who have been taught the vocab by rote but with no real understanding of its meaning a mile off!

It's what happens when you get a very rigid tick box description of what a 'good' sentence looks like and forget that sentences don't stand on their own and what works in one context won't in another.

In KS2 I've usually think it's down to lack of subject knowledge/confidence in how to teach writing so I'm surprised to see it by subject specialists in secondary.

They aren't on the whole trained teachers though are they? Rather idealistic high achieving graduates buying into a specific worldview.

Which I think is the problem. And why I have an issue with their claim about sub levels of progress being a sign of their success. Sub levelling writing was never the most subjective process to start with.

The Head of English seems to be seeking advice on how to teach English Language GCSE

twitter.com/jo_facer/status/811157518273703936

This seems to be the paper she is talking about:

qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/English%20Language/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/GCSE-English-Lang-SAMs.pdf

I'm not an teacher so can't say how difficult this is to teach. But it looks very similar to the sort of thing that was on my O-Level paper in 1982(gulp!!). Should it really be so difficult for a Head of English to tackle this?

The statements about horrible children make her sound like Miss Trunchball from Matilda. Does she really believe that her school is the only one where the students are pleasant, kind and considerate?

Haha yes SarahMused "Horrible things, children. Glad I never was one..."

It's always going to be difficult because it's a new spec and no one really knows what to expect (see the KS2 reading paper for a good example).

But looking at that twitter thread, it seems to be the concept of an English language paper she's struggling with and I don't think that is normal.

Time for them to put their money where their mouth is, maybe?