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

Her whole schtick seems to be that her school is wonderful because it takes the most dreadful children from incredibly deprived homes and turns them into living saints. Not terribly flattering to her pupils, and when you look at the catchment area, what she says just doesn't tie up with reality.

Just read her blog post reply to the guardian article.

In it she blames poor teacher retention (in the UK) to bad student behaviour - not insane workloads that other people do.

And she blames 20% illiteracy to bad student behaviour - not Dyslexia.

So there you go. If everyone was just well behaved they'd be no dyslexia.

I know a teacher who starts there in Sep. He's very happy and excited and loves the school. He's been told he has to memorise every child's name before he starts. Every child in the school!

Here's her blog: tomisswithloveblog.wordpress.com/

I think she loses all respect with her stupid comments on children and teachers in other schools. As a PP said if Michaela believes in its methods it should let the results speak for themselves rather than make wild and erroneous accusations about other schools and their children.
The English essay on Macbeth is sad. For all the potential shortcomings of PEE paragraphs at least they are paragraphs and not a love letter to alliteration and the rule of three! (No reflection on the poor student).

Poor teacher retention is not due to bad behaviour per se. It is wearing but ok if the right support is in place.
It's the unending stress of being accountable for everything and endless new initiatives being introduced while no old ones are removed which drives people out.

This is a great article and the reply from the Head is very interesting too:

aviewthroughdifferenteyes.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/finding-an-antidote-for-michaelas-marmite-effect/

Problem is the Head will not admit that it was perfectly possible to promote the school without implying that all other schools are terrible. Until she understands this she's always going to feel like a victim. This is another school that's trying to do things differently, although in a very different way to Michaela

www.school21.org.uk/culture

I like their idea for Parents Evening. Note that the school describes what they believe in without once denigrating other schools.

The Head has writte a new blog in reponse to the Guardian article and explaining the context that some of the comments were made in tomisswithloveblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/when-the-facts-change-i-change-my-mind/ . Shame she continued to dig herself into an ever deeper hole when asked about the article on Twitter yesterday though.

Quote from article

Detention for not having a pen sounds harsh – until you learn that Michaela provides pens to all pupils at the start of the year, that there is a school shop selling cut-price ones each morning, and that parents are given persistent reminders about the equipment their children need to bring every day.

Poem given to staff on a school training day

“Cause I Ain’t Got a Pencil,” Joshua T. Dickerson

I woke myself up

Because we ain’t got an alarm clock

Dug in the dirty clothes basket,

Cause ain’t nobody washed my uniform

Brushed my hair and teeth in the dark,

Cause the lights ain’t on

Even got my baby sister ready,

Cause my mama wasn’t home.

Got us both to school on time,

To eat us a good breakfast.

Then when I got to class the teacher fussed

Cause I ain’t got no pencil

In dds school 36 out of 56 pupils in her year were statemented dyslexic /dysgraphic. According to Michaela this must have been one of the most unruly disruptive schools around that should have according to OFSTED be failing.
It is actually a school which has 1000s apply every year for a limited number of places. Outstanding OFSTED rating and the children who might be loud chatty and confident are professional in everything they do inside and outside school. They also get amazing GCSE results even though only 1/2 the week is set aside for academic lessons.

And it does all this without slagging off any other school

It's distinctly worrying that the school doesn't apparently recognise that a child who has a pen at the start of the day may lose it due to bullying, or simply because they have an SN which affects their organisation skills.

Michaela's SENCO doesn't believe dyslexia exists.

Michaela's SENCO doesn't believe dyslexia exists*

Then why is she in the job

I think her argument is that dyslexic children haven't been taught to read properly and dyslexia can be cured by intensive reading intervention, therefore it isn't a real condition.

The whole thing with the grape is just batshit.

Yes, teachers at other schools do tell pupils to pick their mess up.

Oliver - only half the week is academic lessons? Is it a state.school? How Di they get away with that. Sounds great!

No not state. It was a vocational school with the emphasis on vocational.

I notice that in her blog she doesn't respond at all to one of the biggest issues that people had with her article which was the assertion that children at other schools are just horrible.

The response she wrote to the marmite blog read very oddly. She seems particularly self-absorbed.

I think that tweet about dyslexia might have been better as a blog. The dyslexia debate is far more nuanced than you can get across in a tweet of 140 characters.

Given that they seem to be providing the appropriate intervention to help children with SpLD or who are otherwise behind in reading and writing to catch up I'm not sure the label matters. Good intervention deals with the issues rather than the label.

Absolutely the dyslexia issue can't be dealt with within 140 characters, which is why it is silly and unprofessional to advance views on it through twitter.

It was a particularly stupid throwaway comment to make at a time when all eyes were on the school.

Given that they seem to be providing the appropriate intervention to help children with SpLD or who are otherwise behind in reading and writing to catch up

You cant just work harder to catch up if you have dyslexia it is like telling someone with terminal cancer that if they just ate a bit more healthier then they wouldn't have a problem. Also dyslexia takes many different forms. Not all are about reading and writing.

Dd could set off to school with a hundred pens but by the last lesson not have a one to her name. She wouldn't be able to tell you what she has done with them.

I would love to see what they would do with ds s handwriting which has not changed despite hours and hours, week after week, one to one lessons on trying to improve his handwriting. It is still unreadable and is exactly the same as it was when he was 3 years old.
When it I said they are providing the appropriate intervention does that mean that they give out detentions as a deterrent to a disability.

I think I read they gave out detentions for bad handwriting and not having a pen.

I think the school is a little bit behind the times with what looks like a love affair with A Levels and subsequent university placements.

It doesn't sit right that on the one hand the school is saying that the pupils are from some poverty stricken underclass yet in trying to get its pupils into university which after 3 years will leave them in huge debt they might never recover from.

Maybe it is because what dd and ds want to do but whilst viewing colleges there seemed to have been a shift from university being the only way forward to more of an emphasis on BTECHs or apprenticeships.

You cant just work harder to catch up if you have dyslexia it is like telling someone with terminal cancer that if they just ate a bit more healthier then they wouldn't have a problem.

I'm not sure I understand your argument here. What do you think should happen after a child has been given a diagnosis of dyslexia? Assuming you are not going to be putting interventions in place, what would you like to see happen?

Given that they seem to be providing the appropriate intervention to help children with SpLD or who are otherwise behind in reading and writing to catch up I'm not sure the label matters

You really do not have a clue do you?

Enlighten me.

Dyslexia is for life you can put in place ways of looking at different work and ways of approaching lessons but it cannot be cured.

DD can read fine however ask her what she has just read and she hasn't a clue.
If someone else reads the story she will still have difficulty following but give her a stress ball to squeeze and she is able to follow the story ok.

Dyslexia takes many forms. A few extra reading lessons or concentrating on a story is going to do nothing to make sure dd doesn't lose her Oyster Card somewhere between scanning in and getting on the train.