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

Dear Lisa, maybe speak to other parents? 😄

Also you haven't been accused of condoning child abuse. But come on, a bit of empathy, show some curiosity, stay away from this black and white thinking, use your imagination, chat to people who don't look like you. It is beautiful that your kids are fine and amazing that Mr Popat 's child was well cared for. But many others weren't/aren't. Just in my circle of acquaintances I know 8 families with shit stories. They don't live in expensive houses, what's that about. Do you live in a posh house? The aim is not to destroy Mossbourne. We want to find out if so many students have been let down because of a systemic issue or because of random incompetent teachers. ( Lovely to see the Daily Telegraph championing the poor and the disadvantaged though. 😂)

Non-paywalled version of the Torygraph article: https://archive.is/REf7l

It is the usual bullshit you can expect from a very partisan newspaper.

It tells the story of one special needs child who was apparently well looked after at Mossbourne, and presents the whole thing as the personal vendetta of some affluent, out of touch parents who fail to understand the good that Mossbourne brings. Same bullshit peddled by any on this forum, too.

The truth is, of course, very different:

• Mossbourne had to be taken to court because it tried to argue that the laws on special needs provision didn't apply to them
• one complaint can be a disgruntled person - when more than 200 persons come forward it's a tad different
• a school can produce good academic results while still traumatising and abusing the children, and Ofsted are useless when it comes to spotting it. Holland Park School is a very clear example https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/04/investigation-finds-school-failed-vulnerable-children-and-misled-ofsted
• It is false and dishonest to peddle the false dichotomy of draconian rules vs anarchy and chaos. Plenty of schools manage to be strict without descending into batshit crazy
• The ExcrementGraph interviews parents who are happy with the school but no one who isn't
• It also conveniently ignores the lack of accountability academies benefit from. As has been posted here, the complaints process involves 4 steps with the school only (the academy marking its homework) and only in the final step can parents complaint to the DfE, which however cannot get a school to change its decisions. Whatever your views, even if you like Mossbourne's methods, you cannot deny that we wouldn't accept this level of unaccountability with other public services.

@ParentOfOne This is triggering as The Telegraph does not know our accounts, nor the patterns.

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FAO the UK media: This is not a political debate, I repeat this is not a political debate, so don't politicise, or polarise it.

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I cannot abide polarised debate. We are raising our voices for good reason. The accounts I know about are across different cultures, races, classes, genders, abilities, and there are patterns.

Yet still we commend the hard work of Mossbourne teachers, because we have reasoning abilities and don't see the world in a polarised way.

As I've said before, I've yet to meet anyone, regardless of class, culture, race, or political background who thinks the way my DC was treated was "right".

Deleted as I was able to edit my previous post

This article 's lack of nuance is appalling. Disabled people are all disabled in different ways, their disability might affect them in different ways at different times. I get that a quiet corridor will be brilliant for many neurodivergent students. But there will be many neurodivergent students who will require extra or different adaptations. Flexibility is key.
This article doesn't serve the disabled community at all. It implies that you might be ill/disabled/downright mad, but if you pull your socks up, you can go to school/go to work, no excuses. The reality is that most disabled people have hard lives, find it difficult to function, especially if from poor families. It is shameful!!!! No care/no compassion. What really baffles me is that families with very disabled children contributed to this article. The term useful idiots comes to mind.

Yes, let's not make it political. 😥

By definition it is a political debate though given that the anti-Mossbourne campaign is being driven by socialist councillors.

I also know that a number of those who are anti-Mossbourne are from middle class backgrounds. in contrast, the 300 parents who signed the letter praising the school come from a wide range of backgrounds/

So you'd believe it if it were driven by Conservative councillors then?

@TreeSquirrel By definition it is a political debate though given that the anti-Mossbourne campaign is being driven by socialist councillors.

So would you believe it if a Tory or Reform councillor were driving it?

I also know that a number of those who are anti-Mossbourne are from middle class backgrounds. in contrast, the 300 parents who signed the letter praising the school come from a wide range of backgrounds

How many of the 300 parents who defended Mossbourne do you know?
And how many of the 200+ people who have come forward against it do you know?

Can you reliably and confidently say that most of 300 people come from diverse backgrounds, while most of the 200 do not?

Do you not realise how nonsensical this statement is?
Do you not realise because you genuinely fail to comprehend that you cannot infer much about large groups from only a handful of data points?
Or do you realise but ignore it because your objective is to push your narrative?

In other words, is it ignorance or bad faith???

And, even if you were right, so what?

Emotional abuse is fine ... if right wing people are OK with it ???

Are you aware of what happened at Holland Park School? Are you aware of the findings of the investigation? Would you have been a bootlicker in that case, too, denying that emotionally abusing children was much of a big deal as long as academic results remained good??

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/04/investigation-finds-school-failed-vulnerable-children-and-misled-ofsted

https://callingbullshit.org/

@TreeSquirrel No, it very definitely isn't political.

It is an issue of breaking education law, and a safeguarding matter.

While it's not unusual for politicians and press to jump on a bandwagon and politicise an issue, that does not mean that the issue is political.

Finally our accounts of disproportionate punishment are going to be reviewed.

This is not a political matter and I wish parents whose kids have had a lovely time at Mossbourne would stop reactively defending a brand that isn't under threat. I find it a bit low reasoning to be honest.

If a surgeon carried out a fantastic textbook operation on me, that I was very grateful for, then several patients came forward with concerns, I would not be writing to the press about my great operation, because I'd have the reasoning skills to understand I didn't have the full picture.

@TreeSquirrel where are you getting this "anti-Mossbourne" rhetoric from by the way?

It doesn't sit well with the intentions of the people who have submitted accounts to the safeguarding review so I wonder why you keep using this rhetoric.

Are you one of the parents who signed the letter, a member of the SLT, press, or a troll?

You seem very invested in peddling an untruthful narrative.

(The ScoobyDoo Gang lift the mask and gasp "Elon Musk") 😂

I am definitely not middle class. I think you can tell by the way I write. 😂
Loads of middle class families signed the supportive letter. Both the Lisa and Mr Popat from the DT are middle class.
There is no way you know the 200plus families who are part of the campaign. It's a mix.
To be fair being middle class is not a crime either. It's a crime to show no empathy for families who claim their kids were badly cared for by the school.

And I am definitely not anti-Mossbourne. Lots of good there.

I know the press will want this to sound like a battle, an attack, an ideological crusade, anti-Mossbourne etc etc. But it always seems like anyone actually talking about their concerns does it in a pretty balanced way - the only ‘row’ seems to be the one the press portrays. This is the actual text from the ‘Educating Hackney’ website:

“This is a unique situation. It may be the first time that a collection of evidence of harm, with every respondent (now almost 300) keen to speak and providing contact details, has been large enough to result in a whole-school safeguarding review. We hope it will empower the Review to look at systematic issues which affect not only Mossbourne, but other schools and academies. This would ensure that neither the school nor its teachers are scapegoated.
We are pleased that the Observer reported that a group of parents has described a “successful school with brilliant and committed teachers”. We agree, as do many of those who have submitted accounts. There is widespread agreement that a good learning environment requires good discipline, but this should not negate the need to address ongoing harm, even if a minority of children are affected.
We hope all that is good about the Mossbourne schools continues to be celebrated, and that the review will be conducted in a calm, considered context, with the expectation that its findings will benefit all children there.”

Your definition of political seems to consist of "views that disagree with my own," while you have treated every account that agrees with you as the gospel truth.

And your second point is contradictory on its face. You claim that the 300 parents who signed the letter praising the school come from a wide range of backgrounds, while "in contrast" a number of those who are anti-mossbourne are middle class...which implies that others in that camp are not middle class. So your contrast is not, in fact, a contrast.

Thanks for posting that tigger29. It's really helpful to counter the DMail type articles. It's hardly surprising that the main spokespeople are middle class parents, but that doesn't mean it's solely a middle class issue. From parents I know it's a total mix. Some are middle class but many aren't. I was chatting to a neighbour recently whose daughter school refused a few years ago because she couldn't cope. Instead of compassion and trying to help her daughter back, Mossbourne told her if you don't like it find another school. Her daughter wasn't badly behaved. Just a normal little girl, bright and sweet, yet she went from highly motivated to withdrawn with real mental health issues. The mum grew up in Hackney and they live on an estate near the school. She'd describe herself as working class. She's really grateful to the campaign group for organising and giving everyone a voice. It's too late for her daughter, but she's hoping it might change things for kids in the future. No child should go through what her daughter did. That's the point really. Surely that's hard to disagree with.

Of course not. By definition any campaign that is driven by councillors attached to a political party (except the lib dems ime) will have ideological objectives.

The ‘independent socialists’ are against academies and strict behaviour policies (a view the teaching unions don’t share incidentally), so this is the perfect thing for them to jump on.

This then makes me wonder - is there anybody at all who, if they had come across evidence of potential harm to children in a school you like, could ask for it to be looked into in a way that you wouldn’t dismiss out of hand?

Right, so if a Lib Dem councillor raised concerns about harm to children, you would believe them, but everyone else is driven by a desire for schools to be rife with bad behaviour, because as we all know there is no such thing as a school with firm but fair behaviour policies. It's a choice between chaos and Colditz. Got it.

It's impossible! The article in the Daily Telegraph was really upsetting and revelatory. For parents of disabled children to show such lack of compassion and empathy! I don't know if this is some sort of psychological flaw or an ideological issue. Only their happy experience or their values count. They only know happy,functioning, ambitious, pull your socks up type of students, so they cannot fathom the existence of students who got upset at being yelled at, felt humiliated because they shat themselves because frightened to ask to use the loo, were mortified because shouted at because their hair was deemed too untidy (these were black students), required 'unacceptable' adaptations because of chronic illnesses or neurodivergence. Shame on you, especially more so if you are educated. This is not about being against the rules.This is about implementing them without humiliating/putting down a young person and showing some flexibility if a child has an illness,etc. Nobody gives a damn that the councillor is from the Reform party like in the Essex schools or a socialist like in Hackney. I thought this thread would help me make sense of how so many families I know have terrible stories about Mossbourne, but it has left me full of dismay. On the other hand, I know the investigation is proceeding well, plenty of stories that can be corroborated. Racism, xenophobia, unkindness, humiliating and bullying tactics, desperate parents with very unwell children dropped by the school, Camhs psychologists having to battle with unhelpful teachers and a lot more that cannot mentioned on here. I am going to log out, see you on the other side.

I would be inclined to believe that concerns raised by a Lib Dem councillor are deserving of investigation, yes. Ime the Lib Dems are the least dogmatic of all the major parties (particularly at a local level).

In contrast, we know that the independent socialists are totally against academies and any form of non state involvement in anything education. The last thing they want is an academy being one of the most successful schools in the country.

They are also against strict disciplinary policies in schools, so it’s no surprise they’re doing everything possible to get Mossbourne closer/radically changed. Imo they are putting ideology ahead of the best interests of disadvantaged children:

I completely agree with what was said here. The attacks and name calling of parents with severely disabled children who speak out in defence of the school is awful. I know the popats personally and what they have been through

I am not questioning anyone’s experience and hope the inquiry does a fair and proper job. It is political though because if the school is so awful why does mr Leary may send his second child there. I think him spearheading this campaign actually does damage to those who have genuine concerns. He comes across as entitled and hypocritical. As for the councillor who is part of the independent socialist group. She was many years ago instrumental in bringing Mossbourne in to run the school.

Can you really not see, @TreeSquirrel, that you are continually posting, 'I like my ideology better than theirs', whilst ignoring the fact that safeguarding children and avoiding psychological harms should be something that people irrespective of ideology can agree is unacceptable and needs to end?

Are you Lisa by any chance? If so ,why not tell the Daily Telegraph that you welcome the investigation of these allegations and it makes you feel terrible that your kids were well looked after and others weren't. . I suppose
Mr Leary sends his child there because he doesn't hate the school/the rules/its ethos. He just wants to find out why it has gone so wrong in so many cases. His kid was not allowed the flexibility he needed because of his illness. Why not? Why the strange rigidity? Every child should be cared the way your kids were treated. Is this so difficult to understand😥