Mossbourne Academies: investigations into alleged emotional harm and abuse. Why are needlessly strict academies unaccountable?

[ParentOfOne]

The Guardian has published a story https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/07/london-academies-emotional-harm-mossbourne-schools-observer-investigation

about allegation of emotional harm and other forms of mistreatment at "one of the country's leading academy trusts", which runs the following schools in Hackney, North London: https://www.mossbourne.org/our-schools/

It is a follow up to a similar story, on the same topic, published a couple of weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/23/teachers-at-mossbourne-academy-in-hackney-screamed-at-and-humiliated-pupils-say-angry-parents

The previous story was based on testimonials from 30 parents, but now 70 parents, more than 30 former students and eight former teachers have come forward

"A dossier of allegations, shared with the Observer and sent to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, included Mossbourne teachers being trained in “healthy fear” and “screaming” sometimes “centimetres apart” from children’s faces, several reports of children fainting in line-ups while being shouted at, and children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) being punished unfairly and “pushed out” to other schools. Many former students said they had suffered mental health issues due to being afraid in school which had lasted long after they left."

Here there were some discussions about how notoriously strict these schools were https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5019841-mossbourne-community-academy-any-experiences but no one mentioned this kind of emotional abuse.

My opinion remains that:

• I hate how so many schools have become academies. That's a backdoor privatisation, with teachers being paid less, while the CEOs of these academy trusts earn more than many University vice-chancellors
• I hate that academies are de facto unaccountable to anyone
• It is false that academies do a better job. Some work well, some don't, but lack of transparency and accountability remain big issues. E.g. see academic research by the LSE https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/Assets/Documents/PDF/Research-reports/Academies-Vision-Report.pdf .
• Academies are simply good at showing Ofsted what they want. If this kind of s* happens in a school rated Outstanding, it means ratings are useless
• I am all for strict discipline, and I will absolutely stand by the school if they punish my child for misbehaving. But I absolutely dread needlessly draconian rules, put together by sexually repressed headteachers who didn't get enough love from their mums, and who get off on exercising this kind of authority to crush their students' spirit. I had made some examples here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5168466-how-common-are-detentions-at-secondary?page=9&reply=138524258 where I also talked about a secondary school in London banning bicycles and giving detentions to students caught cycling to school

Are you one of those people who think the Mossbourne approach is a good thing?

On this thread that basically means 'do you agree with abusing kids?' So of course my answer is no.

I was asking hypothetically about outside of this thread, but I do understand that you don't want to engage on this one.

@pointythings

In my view anyone who is against the ‘Mossbourne approach’ should explain why they want to take future opportunities away from disadvantaged DC.

The anti-discipline brigade keeps ascending new heights 😂
Says it all about you lot.

Unfortunately we're not outside of this thread.

Hypothetically, if it were a forced choice, would you rather send your child to one of these schools at the top of the progress 8 table, or one at the bottom?

They don't. They just think that there is a middle ground where there is structure and discipline without petty rules and humiliations. Plenty of disadvantaged kids in my town have done very well at our non-Mossbourne school. One of them is my foster DS, who has come from a background and a past best described as horrific. The belief that disadvantaged kids need to be treated like dirt in order to achieve academically is repugnant.

Hypothetically I'd bloody homeschool before sending any of my kids to a Mossbourne school.

Is there often a forced choice between a school with no discipline, and one where staff bully and abuse students and each other? Or, in real life, is there more often a middle ground?

That wasn't the question.

But if in fact there was a middle ground in most cases, then your question would seem to be of limited utility, since it's premised on a choice only between two terrible options.

You don't seem to understand why the question is hypothetical and a forced choice.

Perhaps because you don't want to answer it. Similar to Pointythings who also dodged the question.

They're both real schools with real kids in them.

At the comp my DS went to they were assigned “target pathways” at the start of y7 based on (I assume) their y6 SATs and the borough-wide banding CATs. Isn’t that the starting point for progress 8? Not a facetious question, I’m genuinely curious.

The question is a forced choice because you're trying to force people to accede to a position that is otherwise indefensible. Alternatively, you could just back down from an indefensible position and admit that while strict schools may be necessary in deprived areas, abuse is not.

One of the problems with never admitting you're wrong is that eventually, people will start ignoring you even when you're right.

No, not at all.

Progress 8 takes the average point score for each child in KS2 SATs who actually sat their GCSEs that year and looks at the grades they actually got. Children's grades are compared to the grades of the kids in their cohort who got the same average SATs points as them. It's not a prediction of future results, it's an analysis of actual results. School predictions are often set to be 'ambitious' or are contextual. Progress 8 isn't. It cannot be calculated until the exams have been sat and the results are in.

So for each individual pupil who sat SATs (ones who didn't don't count for Progress 8) gets a 'prior attainment score' based on the average of their reading and maths scaled score in KS2 SATs (SPaG and writing don't count). Their attainment 8 score is then calculated from their GCSE results (according to various restrictions). The average attainment 8 score for pupils with the same prior attainment is calculated and then subtracted from that pupil's attainment 8 score. If they did better than the average, the result is positive, if they did worse than the average, the result is negative. This is then divided by 10. A score of 1 means they did better by one grade in every GCSE that counted, than the average kid with the same prior attainment score as them, -1 means one grade worse in every subject.

These progress 8 scores are then averaged over every kid in the school who had a score calculated (kids who didn't sit SATs don't count). And that's the school's Progress 8.

There are caps on negative progress for kids who completely flunk so they don't tank the school score.

I already said that abuse isn't right.

There are evidently huge problems in screening police officers who want to abuse power. Wayne Couzens is just one recent example.

There are also serious problems with local authorities financial controls. Apart from the growing number of bankruptcies, there is an audit crisis where many (most?) local authorities haven't had their accounts independently scrutinised in three or four years now. The proposed solution is going to include disclaimed opinions up and down the country. My own local authority just had a scandal involving hundreds of thousands paid to a blogger without following their financial controls process.

So while I agree with many of your excellent points particularly about behaviour policies in some of these trusts and the impact on children with SEND/neurodivergent, I'm not sure that other institutions are necessarily doing much better.

I still tend to think a school is a school and some are good and some are dreadful, and the holding to account process for all schools needs to improve. The way that ofsted has just changed to me is still better for estate agents than children, parents or schools.

Then why are you arguing? All this pressure group wants is for there to be a safeguarding review to determine whether abuse is occurring at these schools, and if it is, for the abuse to stop.

@jodeg there is tons of research on why strictness is helpful for student learning and safeguarding. You just need to Google "strictness in schools is it helpful" and all sorts of peer reviewed work comes up

You continue not to understand. There is research suggesting that strict BUT FAIR rules are helpful and conducive to a productive learning environment. Sure. No dispute there.
But there is a difference between i) strict but fair and ii) strict and batshit crazy.

I support i) but not ii)

Tell me, is there any research that says that strict and batshit crazy is necessary, doesn't mess up students' mental health, etc? Please, do tell me.

It's not peer reviewed research, but some interesting reading:
https://thelead.uk/rise-authoritarian-schools

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/learning/are-super-strict-schools-good-for-students.html#:~:text=But%20some%20educators%20have%20expressed,foster%20autonomy%20or%20critical%20thinking.

some educators have expressed concern about the broader zero-tolerance approach, saying that controlling students’ behavior so minutely might produce excellent academic results, but does not foster autonomy or critical thinking. Draconian punishments for minor infractions can also come at a psychological cost, they say.

I also have a very good friend, a psychologist, who wants a strict but fair school for his child, and wants to avoid strict and batshit crazy at all costs, because she sees first hand, with her patients, the kind of permanent emotional damage those kinds of environment can cause

There is no variation allowed from the uniform policy.

First of all there is no conclusive evidence linking uniforms to better behaviour nor better academic results. See, this is the kind of critical thinking that I want my kids to develop, and which they will certainly not develop in an environment which terrorises them into submission.
The Sutton trust on uniforms: https://www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion/all-news-opinion/smaller-classes-uniforms-primary-homework-among-least-effective-ways-boosting-school-performance/
Or this peer-reviewed article: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8775910/

But most Brits are brainwashed and incapable of realising that.
Anyway I don't even mean to question uniforms, it's a lost cause.
My point is that, yes, fine, have a uniform policy, but why on earth should this uniform policy force students to wear blazers in a heatwave or prevent them from wearing additional layers if they are cold? I asked before and the only answer was deafening silence: what do these rules achieve? Please, please, pretty please, can you answer? Do you not see that that's not justr strict, but batshit crazy?

There is never consensus on anything in any field amongst experts

Wrong. In every field there is a body of acquired knowledge on which there is consensus, and debate on the most advanced topics. Scientists and doctors are unsure how to treat certain types of cancer but everyone agrees that vaccines work and there are established protocols for the most common treatments.
Again, please tell me what the scientific basis for strict and batshit crazy would be?
The opinions of some opinionated headteacher, in a system that, unlike the police, doesn't screen for the kind of sick individuals who get off on petty capricious rules to exercise power onto other people, means nothing.

Again, I remind you that in the past we had headteachers convinced about corporal punishments, claiming they knew best as they were the experts.

It is not dependent on a few opiniated headteachers. All you are doing when you make assertions like this is expose your own ignorance.

My own ignorance? Yet you have failed to show a single peer reviewed study on the merits or effects of strict and batshit crazy. Again, I totally support an environment which punishes kids who misbehave or don't do their homework. That's strict but fair. Shouting at children is not. For the last time, before I write you off as a troll, can you provide this evidence?

@Ubertomusic she seems very composed in a situation where she's being constantly attacked by posters who've gone completely deranged (I must add I don't mean you).

There are those who are outraged by the abuse. And those who are outraged by those calling out the abuse. You do you.

I have explained numerous times why I have the highest contempt for the enablers who allow bullying and abuse to continue in toxic environments. Unfortunately the only way these people will ever understand is if they or their loved ones are reduced to an emotional wreck, unable to sleep eat and function. Maybe only then.

And what's wrong with that exactly? Do you prefer girls looking like harlots in school?

So without knowing the facts, you have already decided that the school was right, and that the girl was not only just wrong but deserved to be slut-shamed.
What is it that we call judging before knowing the facts?

What a despicable behaviour. If your children ever read this they should be ashamed.

https://www.gl-assessment.co.uk/assessments/pass/

There are tests out there to measure how kids feel about their school. Just putting that out there. Perhaps reporting on tests such as these should be more valued?

@noblegiraffe OK then, if you want an answer to your ridiculous binary zero sum choice question then.... I'll send my kids to the sink school and support them well at home.

So measure Progress8 and well-being/attitudes to school?
Although generally I do find it hard to believe that an unhappy child produces excellent progress.
It’s the same at work, a person needs to flourish to perform. So whilst I can well believe that this school fails some children horribly, it flies in the face of common sense to say it fails the majority with those Progress8 scores.

@Jodeg There are systems in place to deal with those mistakes. Use those systems

No, there are not. This has been discussed in the thread: schools have de facto been privatised with no accountability. Councils can no longer intervene. The complaint process requires complaining to the school and its governing body, and only after those complaints are exhausted, one can complain to the Secretary of State, who however cannot get the governing body to reverse its decisions!!! It's a joke! Again, I cannot think of many other ppublic services with so little accountability. Imagine if you complained to the GP or local hospital, and your only way to escalate was to involve the department of health!!!

The school does not instil an atmosphere of fear. It is strict.

It is strict but not fair. It is strict and batshit crazy. You think it doesn't instil an atmosphere of fear. Tell me, have you ever sat down with your child to understand how they felt? had they felt differently from you, would they have been open / allowed to bring it up? If neither you nor your child felt like that, does it mean that no other individual is allowed to feel differently and to interpret being shouted at or being forced to kneel as abuse???