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

No, there isn't. Because the secondary school and 6th form my DC went to didn't have ridiculous draconian behaviour policies - just firm, fair ones.

It’s an inquiry and the first stage is to see what if any claims can be substantiated. Didn’t really have a choice after first two articles.

Of course, there was a choice, but they had the common sense to not ignore all these complaints. They will be corroborated, don't you worry, there is plenty of evidence.

Well said.

This is CEO Peter Hughes on school improvement -

The top thing in his mind when running a school is intriguing...
“I would distill it down to one thing. Question what you are doing and understand when you are making compromises that you may not be aware of. So when we say no excuses, and you have reasons by the back door, are you fully aware of why you don’t want to do something, and you’re willing to kill your own fear, in order to get the best for children”

He does a little sideway look at the end which makes it looks like he's not quite sure what he's just said.😊

He makes it sound as if compromise is always bad. Which is bollocks. I have zero respect for his position.

If your view is that 'the best for children' is exam grades above anything else (happiness, mental health, all that nonsense) then I guess its logical.

It's also deeply tragic, given that all over the UK there are highly successful schools which balance academic results with student wellbeing.

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/02/06/council-insider-mossbourne-leadership-culture-problem/

Someone from Hackney Council has spoken out - “We professionals in Hackney know all too well the cruelty of the Mossbourne system. Our concerns are shared by many different agencies, but we are powerless to do anything…”

Thank you for sharing this. My first thought on reading this is, "dare I hope that finally our collective voices will be heard, and positive change implemented"?

None of the content of the article surprises me. I've emailed the LADO, and what was the Learning Trust in the past over my concerns, and CAMHS was involved in one of the situations.

I did wonder how people who were powerless to instigate change felt hearing our accounts, so it reassures me to read this person's account, which corroborates what I already know.

There’s more in Hackney Citizen again today - this time from a teacher and also from the parent who first raised it. Quite a contrast to what the Telegraph portrayed.

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/02/07/ex-mossbourne-teacher-silent-subjugation-pupils/

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/02/07/andy-leary-may-mossbourne-among-parents-surprised-extent-adverse-experiences/

Wow. Thanks Tigger29. And thanks to the Hackney citizen for digging into all this.

There's obviously a lot we're not being told. I hope these inquiries drag it all out into the open.

Interesting about the academy being told to commission its own report, led by a KC. (That'll cost them a quid or two!) Is this the first we've heard of that? Has the DfE taken this step to circumvent the limits on accountability that the OP highlighted in her original post?

I know - I really can’t understand why the DfE would tell the academy to commission its own review. Like you say it sounds expensive - KC don’t come cheap I expect! Why not wait for the council one, if it’s asking all the right questions?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1uzYgnXpS2RhsSbb22ldNa?si=PMQ7hKpDStyPUxMfUzYUxA

None of this account surprises me. As I've said before, there is not one person who knows what was done to my DC that thinks it's acceptable. It has nothing to do with school uniform.

If I subjected an adult to the set of circumstances my child experienced they would no doubt find it traumatic.

https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/02/26/hackney-council-review-school-behaviour-policies-exclusion-rates/

Hackney Council launches ‘in-depth review’ of school behaviour policies to tackle high exclusion rates

@tigger29 Not sure about Hackney, but in my LA not a single secondary school is not an academy. New ones must be. Therefore I can see why Hackney is concerned but what they can do is very limited.

The change in what a PRU does is also interesting. When I had some involvement with PRUs 35 years ago, we mostly used them for DC in danger of permanent exclusion. They now seem to be units where dc go who are permanently excluded because academy secondaries will not enroll these dc. So they go to the PRU. In essence these have become SEN schools for behaviour and emotional difficulties but without the funding.

I applaud Hackney wanting to find out what’s going on but they won’t be changing academy attitudes any time soon. These schools want compliant dc. I don’t agree with isolation rooms. I prefer parents collecting dc. The heads should do a short exclusion. The big issue is escalating poor behaviour and the need to improve it. That’s probably what Hackney need to work on. I don’t envy them and a new special school for behaviour exclusions.

The problem is underfunding the whole system from social services, to police, to NHS incl mental health, to care, to PRUs to schools, to support for those families and DCs. Nobody wants to deal with the difficult families and kids and they get shunted from pillar to post. Forcing academies to keep them without the necessary funding is unfair on the rest of the DCs in the schooling system. There is no short cut with these kids and families. Somewhere someone has to pay up and deal with the issues. Councils are just as much to blame if they have cut back on youth intervention programmes. Places for kids to go from an early age, play, be mentored, find their place in an increasingly unfair to them society.

Councils are just as much to blame if they have cut back on youth intervention programmes

Councils would not have had a choice about making cute given the massive cuts to their grants under the previous government. And restoration of those funds is going to take a considerable amount of time given the state of the economy. Cutting council funding was an ideological choice - here we are, with children paying the price.

Who is restoring funds to Councils now? All we know is there are council tax rises, and an ageing population to contend with.

The answer is not to force academies who already have tons of kids on FSM to not be allowed to exclude troublemakers (because nobody wants to fund them and help them). The other kids in those schools on FSM - their only chance out is good grades and good jobs.

@Araminta1003 that is the point I was making - there is currently no money to bring council funds back to where they were. But it is utterly disingenuous to blame councils for cutting services for young people in the context of 14 years of cuts to council funding, weighing the heaviest cuts towards Labour run councils. The previous government bears a heavy responsibility. Their cuts to Sure Start would also have contributed massively to the poor outcomes schools are having to deal with.

However, the answer is not to allow schools like Mossbourne to have their way by manoeuvering their student population so that they do not have to deal with the challenging kids, and it is certainly not to allow schools to carry on with the kind of emotionally abusive practices now under investigation at Mossbourne. Other schools in the UK manage discipline in a measured and sensible way; as has been said many times on this thread, it is not a black and white choice between petty draconian rules and rule-free chaos.

@Araminta1003 Im sorry to have to tell you but I worked in the days when we had a Rolls Royce Youth and Community team that was well funded. In fact the LA where I worked was considered one of the best for Y&C. Did it prevent exclusions - no. Mainly because these dc never attended!

I dealt with excluded dc in terms of finding a new school and many had received numerous interventions from babyhood onwards. A catalogue of interventions. The best action is special schools at primary. We had 1:6 ratios and we had peripatetic specialist teachers to advise schools and outreach from our special schools. It takes resources and early intervention. Youth interventions are too late for many dc.

We had play units for primary dc to go back to basics. Those staff worked with the primary schools on behaviour and reintegration back into full time school. Pre Nursery aged dc were also identified via social workers so we could start interventions early. This seems another world now because all the money is devolved to schools who are not accountable. Above all there were not regimented strict schools. More understanding ones. 25% exclusions is unbelievable - it’s like cleansing a school.

@TizerorFizz - we won’t be going back to special schools based on deprivation and mild SEND rather than severe need at primary though. It’s not politically correct anymore. Special schools at primary are now for the most disabled children typically with genetic abnormalities and severe physical disabilities ie need of the child rather than background. So the question is what is the solution for children with milder Send but from chaotic neglected households where the parents don’t support the school? I have witnessed time and again huge efforts by Reception staff and then a battle lost further down the line due to chaotic parenting, rather than any actual real problem with the child itself? Same child being born into an educationally and financially privileged secure household would have done very well.
It’s such a difficult question and in a free society nobody is going to intervene drastically in these children’s lives? You have to have some sort of national mentoring programme for them based on achievement and fitting into society but ultimately you need some cooperation from the parents. And trust in the system itself. Privileged kids and families (and by that I mean educational drive/privilege) know innately what to do and buy into the system.

Places like Hackney have schools that achieved incredibly well with some children who have poverty factors - but buy-in from parents into the system, and a belief in the importance of education as a means of rising up. By all means, that is not enough as peer group can detract and SEND, even in a less challenging form can present real challenges. However, I really do believe schools being a hub of the community where other services are delivered and accessed in a positive way to reframe negative thinking of some people, would be a really good start. It sounds like Mossbourne may have not delivered on the parent engagement front. You cannot ignore the parents. Schools are always a partnership based on trust with all stakeholders. I do understand why in an underfunded stretched system schools don’t make time for this, but they have to, somehow.

@Araminta1003 We still have a Sen school at primary for SEMH dc. No one thinks they are mild SEN. The MH aspect can be a child from any background as can the SE aspect. These dc deserve help and so what if they are deprived? Don’t they deserve even more help? It’s obviously very difficult to decide which dc go to this school but they are can go from the age of 4. There are still schools for other learning difficulties and these can be moderate or severe. I don’t agree SEMH is mild though and most dc having such a child in their class would not find it mild either. Neither is about parental money. The school also has a secondary campus. Obviously schools can pay for Sen services.

Different schools, different county, same academy chain…

“Pupils are in fear every day’: parents raise concerns about new schools run by top UK academy
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/02/pupils-uk-schools-academy-essex-mossbourne?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other