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

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/15/academy-trust-england-safeguarding-review-mossbourne

“The independent safeguarding review will be led by Sir Alan Wood, who was director of children’s services in Hackney for nearly a decade until 2015 . Gamble said it would seek first to “determine if concerns can be substantiated”. He added: “It will seek to identify any lessons concerning the application of behaviour policies and their impact on students, families, staff and the wider school community.””

MS is only the 'best' on one very limited definition of best. I still want to know why OFSTED didn't criticise their limited KS3 curriculum when other schools have had that.
They do not have a broad curriculum by any stretch of the imagination.
I've also heard from several university lecturers that many students from this type of school (heavy focus on knowledge organisers and quizzing over other forms of study) are struggling at university and ask for what effectively is a 'crib sheet' for the course rather than studying for themselves.

I think it's a shame they've chosen someone who formerly worked in Hackney. I think it's best practice to get someone from elsewhere to investigate.

@Araminta1003 Didn't the trend of creating schools funded by the state but independent of the councils, and practically unaccountable to anyone, start with Blair? Tory and Labour are both culpable.

The Torygraph article (BTW, paywall free link here): https://archive.is/NTcic is the typical poor journalism you'd expect from them.

Implying that academies get better results than maintained (local authority) schools is very misleading, because some 70% of all secondary schools are, in fact, academies or other types of non-maintained schools. The % is 100% in quite a few boroughs. Was this ignorance or bad faith by you and by the Torygraph journos?

A honest story would have mentioned that the scores of British students in international rankings fall off a cliff in the last two years of secondary (6th form), as the UK has this unique and idiotic system of choosing only 3-4 subjects, so our kids have skills in English and maths which are comparable to those of their peers till 16, but fall off a cliff after that. Another reason the system sucks is that it forces kids to choose too early what they want to do, as no combination of subjects will let them choose any uni course. Read Sam Freedman's "Failed state - why nothing works and how we fix it".

Another reason the Torygraph article is outright dishonest is that it implies that Labour wants to water down discipline, and links to this article https://archive.is/WkZDd , but the article says nothing of the sort!!!
The article talks about banning phones in schools, something I very strongly support, and mentions the book "The Anxious Generation" which I read and adored. Does Labour want to make banning phones in schools illegal? If so, the Tory-fakenews-graph fails to prove it.

@Araminta1003 You and the Torygraph continue with the dishonest lie that there are only two alternatives, with no middle ground: either no discipline, or the draconian discipline of these schools. You are wrong. The world is full of alternatives. Look at how well Finland does with a model that couldn't be more different (read the book "Finnish lessons 3.0"). And, yes, there is less inequality in Finland, but even in the UK there are many schools which do well without shouting at children, forcing them to wear blazers in a heatwave, giving them detentions if they look at a clock on the wall, etc. The point is not if other schools which do well are academies, because most secondaries are now, but if they achieve good results without terrorising children. That's the question. Shame on your for presenting a false dichotomy.

Do you have any more lies, fake news or half truths you'd like me to debunk? Always happy to.

Take the example of mobile phones: I absolutely support banning them, yet according to the Torygraph those who oppose the needlessly harsh methods of Mossbourne Micaela etc all oppose mobile phone bans. As if there were no middle ground between terror and anarchy.

I ask again: where is the proof that these extremes are necessary? Where are the studies on the effect on mental health? Again, I have seen firsthand the terrible impact that toxic environments have on adults. Why should we allow it with children???? The enablers who allow this to happen will have a lot on their conscience.

The latter bit is creeping out if academies into all schools now. It's depressing.

I knew read a study that said if you did an international comparison right up to university, British students are best as the university system is more enquiring and less didactic. I assume this will start changing as more and more students demand rote learning and helpsheets.

The lecturers I spoke to are resistant - but with the current business model who knows!
Our Sixth Form style in my department is very similar to university and our students do very well.
I am getting tired of my GCSE students asking for short cuts and structures they can learn by rote though. I tell them I want them to get 9s and that isn't the way to do it.
I also let them take their blazers off when they want (they don't have to ask).
Mossbourne and Michaela are not for me!

@Araminta1003 ^https://schoolsweek.co.uk/the-rise-of-parent-activism-and-how-schools-are-tackling-it/^
Here is quite a balanced article on the rise of the parent activism.
So yes the school should be investigated, but it has to be balanced against all these factors.

The article mentions both i) vexatious, unsubstantiated claims and ii) clear examples of schools overstepping, like school personnel showing up at home unannounced and terrorising a child, and toxic behaviour policies, but ultimately the article seems to imply, without saying it too explicitly, that most parents are wrong.

It hints, without elaborating on it, at schools marking their own homework. As was discussed in this thread, most schools have become de facto unaccountable, with multiple steps of the complaint process involving only the school, and only the last one involving the Secretary of State, which however cannot get the governing body of a school to change its decisions. Tell me, in how many other public services do we accept such a lack of democratic accountability??? Imagine if you complained to your GP or hospital, they fobbed you off, and your only option were to either sue them or complain to the Department of Health!!!!

And surely Ofsted would have a paper trail of parental input from their inspections. At that point, all parents could have filled in the forms.

Please. It's like saying that no abuse could have ever happened in a workplace because noone complained to HR and everyone was happy in the staff satisfaction surveys.
Ofsted picks up only some blatant failings. I.e. if Ofsted says a school sucks, it's likely to suck. But if it says it's good, it may well suck for other reasons.

It is well known that trouble kids are often encouraged to stay home or are otherwise kept 'busy' during Ofsted inspections. A friend took her daughter away from school because she was being bullied and the school did nothing about it. She was certainly not contacted by Ofsted to ask why she had left. That's textbook selection bias: you don't hear from those whose problems are so serious that they leave.

@GrammarTeacher on rote learning and critical thinking:
I am not going to dox myself detailing where I work, but I will say that a disturbing trend I see among new hires in the workplace is that they are absolutely lost if they have to do something which isn't identical to something else they have already practiced.

They can do a project which is identical to their previous one, but change just a few things and they are completely lost.

I have quite a few friends teaching STEM subjects at university, and they tell me similar things. Their students will ace the kind of exercises they have already seen, requiring a method they are familiar with, but change just one tiny detail, one small assumption, expect them to use their reasoning more than their memory, and they're lost.

This is the problem with the kind of rote learning favoured by schools like Micaela.
Yes, it is better (in terms of academics, not of mental health) than the absolute nothingness those kids will learn in a failing school with no discipline.
But it is not the only alternative. Let's move away from this false dichotomy.

In an open sessions at one of these draconian secondary schools, the head kept blabbering about all these studies linking the importance of uniforms to behaviour and academic results. I then asked him if he could recommend some of these studies, if they were books, peer-reviewed research or what, because it's a topic I am very interested in, and I know many countries manage very differently. His reply was that he doesn't need to justify himself to me and, if I don't like it, I have the option to send my kid elsewhere.

This is exactly the kind of attitude created by these draconian schools which crush your soul into submission: don't you dare ask why, keep your head down, switch off your brain, obey and shut the <@@###!!!> up.

Instead, I would very much like my kids to develop the kind of critical, analytical and sceptical skills that lead them to say: "wait a sec, that's what you are saying, but where is the proof? Can you substantiate it?? Show me!"
They will NOT develop these skills at schools like Mossbourne, Micaela, Ashcroft etc.

@Araminta1003
Thank you for your reasonable and interesting input. Nice to read some decent critical thinking.

Some children and parents like it and make progress. Those that get excluded and discriminated against for being disabled, not so much.

I wonder why people tolerate education for poor people by means of screaming and shouting, rigid draconian and irrational rules and abuse, but not for rich children? Private schools get excellent results without resulting to those techniques, no doubt because they realise that if they tried they would lose most of their pupils within months. Academies get away with it because they know parents don't actually have much of a choice.

And surely Ofsted would have a paper trail of parental input from their inspections. At that point, all parents could have filled in the forms.

Once Ofsted has found a school to be outstanding, it may well not go back for 8-10 years or more. I've seen a supposedly outstanding school with clearly unlawful SEND, equality and discipline policies that had not been inspected for 10 years.

What puzzles me is why some headteachers in particular think it is acceptable to produce discipline by shouting and screaming at children, often for long periods of time. Surely what teaches them mostly is that incontinent, aggressive behaviour is acceptable and that might is right? Do we really want to produce more citizens with that mindset?

I was quite shocked when I heard about secondary academies that basically line up Year 7 on the first day of term and threaten and terrorise them about behaviour. Does it not occur to heads promoting this sort of thing that they should be teaching children by example about the obvious benefits of politeness and good behaviour - i.e. that both get you a long way in society, smooth your path in all sorts of ways, and basically make your own and everyone's lives much easier? That is the teaching that should start from day 1, but I guess for a certain type of teacher it's just too difficult.

@Isatis - MPVA’s Ofsted is from less than a year ago! https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50212593

That is the whole point. The parents could have all submitted their feedback in detail then and surely Ofsted still has it all? The report was not published until March 2024.

And this is why it goes further than Mossbourne. The question is if the checks and balances in place are adequate or not. Hopefully lessons will be learnt.

The problem is no one is forcing anyone to go to these schools and people do have a choice of schools, but activists are ruining the schools for those people who do want to go there, denying other people their choice.

It happened before in London, "school activism" mentioned by @Araminta1003 existed even 10 years ago, I witnessed its results unfolding in our local comp.

The problem is no one is forcing anyone to go to these schools and people do have a choice of schools, but activists are ruining the schools for those people who do want to go there, denying other people their choice.

No, the problem is that outside London and other large cities, parents do NOT have a choice of schools. In many places, these batshit crazy academy schools are the only offering available. That simply isn't acceptable.

@TreeSquirrel(sorry, not tagging you but can't seem to delete it)

The whole thing about "if you don't like it, send your kids elsewhere" - it's this neoliberal idea of education that is creeping in from the US. Education is a product like any other, the thinking goes, and parents & students are the consumers. They choose whichever provider they feel offers the best service at the lowest cost. The product is made available from a variety of sources (state, academies, private), with minimal state regulation so as to free up the consumers to have more choice and the producers to make more profit (if they're profit-making).

But there are problems with extrapolating this to education. To be truly efficient , a neoliberal system relies on everyone having good information. So parents would have to know about all the pros and cons of a school before applying. Many parents (especially in London) are new to the area or don't have great English, or don't have community links to other parents, so they only hear what the school wants to tell them.

There's also location: students may not be able to travel to another school, whether because of affordability, time, disabilities, transport limitations or any number of reasons.

So although it's easy to say, "if you don't like it, go elsewhere, it's a free country!", in reality it's not so simple. TBH I think it's a bit of a lazy get-out card.

... and another problem with the neoliberal model: these are people we're talking about. It's not like changing your supermarket. If your child has been psychologically harmed in a toxic school environment, that harm will keep affecting them, even if they move.

Much better to have the schools monitored so that the harm doesn't happen in the first place.

Also, what about the children themselves? They should be able to be educated in a supportive environment regardless of what their parents think.

I can see a number of problems that mean state schools need to adopt these authoritatian approaches when private schools can get good results without them. Many of them boil down to not enough funding.

1. Not able to easily exclude students that are seriously disruptive or violent
2. Unmet SEN needs
3. Not enough staff time to get to know individual students well, build relationships and work with students to find out and resolve pastoral and academic issues.
4. Unsuitable curriculum with no time / resources to go back and fill in missing building blocks for struggling students

But at the same time with Google, surely if a place has a reputation then you may be able to find information on Google etc

In Hackney this is not the case. Everyone knows the reputation of the school and support it. And , yes, as someone else says, google.

The obvious difference is that private schools are businesses and students who won’t behave and parents who won’t support the school can and will be shown the door forthwith.

The wider debate about pedagogy on this thread is very interesting. I strongly agree with the issue of politicians meddling with curricula (it baffles me that no-one was able to prevent Gove from meddling with some A level syllabi, for example. I personally think university lecturers are well placed to advise on A level subject matter).

The point someone (Araminta?) raised about AI learning in schools is interesting too. And I completely agree that the pandemic has caused considerable damage to education, development and wellbeing of a cohort of children, and this is of concern.

The invective not so much.

Under education law punishment must be reasonable, proportionate and fair.

How about we aim for a firm, but fair ethos, with reasonable and proportionate punishment? How about we lead by example?

If you read into parenting styles, a parent can be authoritarian, authoritative, permissive or neglectful.

My view is that an authoritative approach to education is achievable and should be the aim. I don't see this as a "mythical third way".

Regarding the narrative that the review of Mossbourne is due to "activist parents", if you read the Observer article today, you'll see that local GPs and CAMHS (psychologists) are involved in the review of Mossbourne Federation.

@ParentOfOne - I do not know why you are singling me out in your posts above. Besides, Finland has been debunked as an educational paradigm and the Finnish themselves were worried about their 2022 PISA results. So it is not a good example to use at the moment. And I do not see why quoting a particular MPs article in the Telegraph is a problem, especially one who is state educated and a first generation uni goer.

The whole point I am trying to make is that we need to move on from these old fashioned left and right ideologies surrounding education. Our society is very multicultural and mixed now and whether we like it or not, we are competing globally with the Asian education systems and economies. We should take the best from it and more.

I agree that critical thinking is very important, but I do think it is the universities’ job to teach that. For some children, they will have had exposure to that at home via discussions and university educated parents. Others have not had that exposure and rote learning can help them master the basics. Tertiary education is meant to take them to this new level.
Whilst grammar and private schools may have the luxury of privileged and highly able intakes and the time to let kids work things out for themselves, that is not going to be the case in every school. If we want true social mobility, we do need to expect unis to be willing to teach critical thinking. For some kids, get high grades at GSCEs and A levels is a massive achievement so what if they ask for a bit of rote learning at uni, in their first term. That can be unlearned.