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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

St Olave's excluding pupils

121 replies

jeanne16 · 30/08/2017 08:07

For any school to exclude pupils after Year 12 as their exam results are not good enough is absolutely scandalous. I am pleased to see this is now going to court. I believe this is far more prevalent than people realise and does explain some of the fantastic results these schools achieve. The Guardian Article also refers to a pupil forced to sit exams as an external candidate. That is a very devious way to protect their results.

OP posts:

Ontopofthesunset · 01/09/2017 17:40

Sorry you went to such a bad school, Talk. I suspect however more schools were like that about attendance 25 or 30 years ago. If my sons don't register in the morning, both parents get a text; if the boy still hasn't registered an hour or so later, they phone up. No way could you be absent for weeks on end without the parents knowing.

On the subject of exam boards, other countries seem to manage so I don't think its impossible. Teachers employed by the boards are unelected. The one board would just employ teachers, probably on a rapidly rotating basis. The French Bac, to the best of my knowledge, isn't administered by various different boards. Maybe you don't think its desirable. I think the current system leads to nonsensical gaming.

Why do we still have high stakes public exams at 16 anyway when the school leaving age is now 18? Again, other countries seem to mostly manage without this and without disadvantaging students. But that's a broader question.

Piggywaspushed · 01/09/2017 17:48

Scotland, closer to home, has one exam board!

Ta1kinPeece · 01/09/2017 18:41

Ontop
I went to a selective private girls school in London that pops up in threads on here quite regularly.
I was not absent - I was in the building, just not in lessons

DumbledoresApprentice · 01/09/2017 18:57

Looks like they've backed down and readmitted them all. The statement by the HT is quite badly worded IMO.
"Our aim as a school has been and continues to be to nurture boys who flourish and achieve their full potential academically and in life generally."

Do they mean that they see it as their responsibility to make sure all their boys flourish or that they should only have to cater to those that do flourish and achieve their full potential? When combined with their policy of chucking our kids with BBC at AS the latter seems more likely.

Ta1kinPeece · 01/09/2017 19:25

Shame its not getting properly tested
but I guess the school asked the barrister parents who - when they stopped laughing - suggested that complying with the law was a good idea

Anybody checking the websites of all the superselectives for "updates"

Piggywaspushed · 01/09/2017 20:38

He's a highly educated man so I suspect that ambiguous wording is deliberate Dumbledore and only you, me and most of MN would pay attention to that pesky 'who' in that sentence!!

DumbledoresApprentice · 01/09/2017 20:50

Indeed, Piggy. Who would ever care that he said who instead of to? I wouldn't trust him to feed my cat let alone educate a child

Piggywaspushed · 01/09/2017 22:03

He'll be for the chop soon, I reckon.

Ceto · 01/09/2017 23:06

If their results fall as a result of this U-turn, there could be some interesting questions arising. But I would hope that they will recognise that they have a duty to get the best out of all their pupils including the ones that they wanted to chuck out, and help them all to do well.

BubblesBuddy · 02/09/2017 08:24

Their teachers will have to earn their corn now to turn these results around! The school will have consulted their own educational specialist lawyers, not parental barristers who may specialise in some other aspect of law. You wouldn't wash your dirty linen with parents! They obviously had advice that said they were acting illegally so would lose the case.

To some extent it has clarified the position. Parents at other schools are now in a stronger position if the same situation arises elsewhere. They will be better informed about exclusion Law if nothing else!

I have been surprised how many parents on MN thought these boys had U or E grades and have not understood that the boys had respectable grades.

pannetone · 02/09/2017 18:24

Having been on the receiving end of many emails from the Head I agree that sadly his focus will be on 'boys (or sixth form girls) who flourish' not enabling (all) boys to flourish.

In our dealings with the Head (after DS was prevented from continuing with a subject to A2) he was quite clear that our DS had had his 'chance' and his focus was future students coming into the sixth form, rather than letting our DS repeat Y12 as we asked. We were told by complaining about the withdrawal of A2 tuition in this subject we were 'harassing' the Head and his staff. We were told the school would seek costs against us if we didn't 'win' our case of disability discrimination.

At the tribunal hearing the Head blamed everything but the school for DS's poor AS results - he didn't have the ability, he didn't work hard enough, we parents had over inflated views of his ability, we put too much pressure on him... In fact the school failed to support DS sufficiently, let him to struggle causing his mental health to decline, failed to tell us of the situation and pretended he was on target for top grades.

The school were ordered by the tribunal to apologise to us and DS when they were found guilty of discrimination. The written apology was 'the Governing body apologises that it has been found to have discriminated against X'! Not that they were sorry, just sorry to have been found guilty!

Ta1kinPeece · 02/09/2017 18:30

awful

DumbledoresApprentice · 02/09/2017 18:33

Pannetone- that is disgraceful. Hopefully he'll be out of a job soon.

childmaintenanceserviceinquiry · 02/09/2017 18:40

And pannetone, how did your son get on in that subject finally?

Piggywaspushed · 02/09/2017 19:15

Wow Pannetone , how stressful for you. Glad it has worked out for you.

DopeOnARope · 02/09/2017 19:32

Pannetone, that is really disgraceful. What a mealy mouthed 'apology' from the Governing Body.

Everything about this says 'terrible school',

I hope all the current students do well under this regime, but surely new parents will be put off?

pannetone · 02/09/2017 23:09

Potential new parents don't seem to be put off - there are so many applicants for each place that I think parents only think their son has been given an amazing opportunity and don't see the pressure the boys are now put under.

My DS1 (it was DS2 with the tribunal case) really thrived at Olaves and achieved well without continual pressure - that was the previous head.... DS2's first year of sixth form was Onac's first year as head.

Onac certainly made his presence felt that summer - as well as DS2 not being allowed to continue with a subject he needed for uni, at least 6 boys were not allowed back into Y13. (This was 6 years ago and the requirement was 3 C grades to go into Y13.) DS was actually one grade short - he had CCDE - I think they let him go into Y13 because they knew we would face many questions from us why he failed to get the AAAB grades the school repeatedly told us he was on target for.

In an underhand move they let DS start Y13 doing the 3 subjects he needed for his uni plans - then a week into term changed their minds and said he couldn't do the one subject crucial for his uni application. We refused to move DS from those A2 lessons, (we were hoping to get the decision reversed),the school refused to teach him. Poor DS (who has ASD) was in A2 lessons but had to work on AS re sits.

childmaintainance DS (a year after his peers because of the setback) got a B grade in the subject- the E grade he got at AS wasn't representative of his ability.

pannetone · 02/09/2017 23:12

they knew they would face many questions from us

Logans · 02/09/2017 23:23

"Our aim as a school has been and continues to be to nurture boys who flourish and achieve their full potential academically and in life generally."

😮 so a 🖕to boys who aren't flourishing and achieving their full potential then!? That's the worst school mission statement I've ever heard.

Logans · 02/09/2017 23:25

pannatone

The written apology was 'the Governing body apologises that it has been found to have discriminated against X'! Not that they were sorry, just sorry to have been found guilty!

That is also appalling. Personally I would be going to the papers with that non apology. I think schools this horrible need the embarrassment, it's the only way they will change.

pannetone · 03/09/2017 14:10

So the Head at Olaves has said those students who failed to get 3 B grades at the end of Y12, can move on into Y13.

BUT will those students be allowed to continue to A2 exams in those subjects where they failed to get a B
grade? Or will they, like our DS, not be allowed to continue with those subjects?

In Y13 our DS ended up doing 2 subjects to A2 and studying for resits for the 3rd subject in which he didn't get the Olave required grade. Not sure how that worked for school funding.

The school were always insistent that it was their 'professional judgement' that determined what subjects a student could continue with - but it seemed to be a judgement influenced by league table position...

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