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

@Proportionate I have every sympathy for your DCs , and all the children mistreated at Mossbourne, as you'll see from my previous posts on this thread - but I have to say, I think you're being overly cynical about the parents who wrote in support of the school.

They may give out vibes that they're worried about their kids' CVs. But underneath it all, they're scared that they may have made the wrong choice. A choice that exposed their DC to harm - the one thing we all dread the most. A choice their DC might blame them for later.

We're all mega defensive about the decisions we make for our DCs, because it hurts so much to think we might just possibly have fucked it up. You see it on thread after thread here, not just education ones. And when we're feeling vulnerable and frightened, we double down (another thing MN is famous for!).

I'm not trying to defend the letter writers or agree with them ... just thinking it helps to understand.

I agree that motivations will no doubt vary. My point, and it was a side point to the key issues, is that they responded defensively without knowing the detail of over 300 accounts. SeaSwim brought up "250 people writing in" as strength to their false narrative that this is an "anti Mossbourne crusade"

Fortunately the investigation is rightly underway and hopefully there will be necessary improvement. I would like some of the "250" to have the good grace to acknowledge they were ignorant to the facts, when the facts become public.

Yes, I hope so too

Hello, there is a lot of information in this thread, but also a lot of back and forth and it’s difficult to understand.

Please could someone clarify, is the investigation looking into historic allegations or both historic and present?

I see a deference in views in the validity of the allegations- this isn’t my question.

Thanks

@Proportionate I think you're absolutely right on cognitive dissonance.
These are the same people who will tell you that they bought a house in Crapford not because they couldn't afford South Kensington, but because Crapford is better, that the 50-minute train journey with a train every 40 minutes is really no big deal, etc etc.
Except that when you are bullshitting about your commute no one is getting hurt.
When you ignore safeguarding concerns that could impact your children, that's an entirely different story

@zaxxon Being scared of having made the wrong choice is no justification for being defensive and ignoring potential concerns.

If someone told me that some children in my kids' primary have been mistreated, my reaction wouldn't be:

"You must be lying, how dare you challenge the notion that our school is perfect?"

It would be:

"Oh, wow, I need to look into this, I need to understand if my children were affected, I need to understand what really happened, and, even if my children weren't affected but other children were it would still be extremely serious".

I also wonder if it is a cultural thing. I worked abroad briefly and I have many foreign colleagues. I have no idea if my limited experience is representative or completely meaningless, but I did notice the French, the Germans and the Italians are more likely to complain about their schools or the area they live in than the Brits. I have NEVER heard a Brit (let alone mumsnetters!) say: "I would have wanted to live in X but I had to settle for Y"

Duskwriter it's historic and current. Mossbourne have a very fixed way of running their schools. They're very open about that, so cite good results as proof that it works and keep the system rolling on. It's very hard as a parent to challenge or question it. For the kids who can fit their system they get great results. For a lot of kids though it causes them very real issues.

It's a modus operandi, and it's unhealthy and unnecessary to put children under that level of constant fear and stress.
www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/02/pupils-uk-schools-academy-essex-mossbourne

Not good enough for the review to solely focus on Mossbourne Victoria Park, but at least Mossbourne Federation has taken some accountability for looking into the way in which they ignore complaints.

www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/03/07/mossbourne-review-complaints-procedure-safeguarding-inquiry/

This bit of the article:

“The barrister will report directly to Daniel Flitterman (son-in-law of Lady Bourne), Tareic Alphonse (local resident) and Shedeh Javadzadeh (former student).” …Daniel Flitterman served as a director of Mossbourne Federation for eight years, until November 2020, and was a director of Peter Hughes’ company, Progress Teaching Limited, until February last year.

Does that mean the Progress Teaching / PAMparent thing that we all use is owned by the CEO?

Hi Odyesseus here, wonderful to see that after nearly 3 months since my last posting, the middle class angst is still going strong. Maybe some of you should take up building models out of match sticks? Just thought I would share you a couple of facts from the recent survey of parents at Mossbourne community academy.
They received just under 800 responses which represents just over half the school.
81% felt their child was happy
87% would recommend the school

Now seeing that those parents most unhappy would be likely respond and those not bothered wouldn't bother anyway that seems like a pretty good vote of confidence.
However the arm chair/keyboard warriors amongst you will no doubt cry foul. No pleasing some I guess.
SO AS I SAID BEFORE IF THE KITCHEN IS TOO HOT KEEP OUT OF IT. In other words jog on nothing to see here. I'm off to the underworld.

Half of parents responding isn’t great. Who did the survey? The school? From your figures less than half can be counted as satisfied. Plenty have not responded so it’s difficult to know what they think.

As a governor, in the past, I found surveys interesting but should not drive complacency. They can be the cheerleaders being vocal which hides issues bubbling under the surface. When parents actively choose a strict school they usually support that style of school. Therefore a survey should confirm that. It doesn’t do anything else.

I imagine the unhappy parents would be unlikely to engage with a school initiated survey; they would have no trust in its validity.

Sneering pro Mossbourne posts don't help the cause, they just show how out of touch and lacking in empathy some people are.

@pointythings

I think satisfied parents who actively want that type of school, and are probably wanting a school in line with their beliefs and attitudes, will respond favourably. What they don’t want to know about is how the school affects others. It’s the typical “I’m alright Jack”. So they stay in their echo chamber which the school appreciates and of course has designed.

It's definitely not parents logging in to Ofsted Parent View (2 responses on there for Mossbourne Community Academy for the current academic year).

@MarchingFrogs

It’s essentially for marketing and ammunition against the dissatisfied.

Half of parents responding is absolutely brilliant for a school survey! Many schools would be delighted with a fraction of that engagement.

Clearly, the vast majority of parents are happy with the education their child is receiving. Interestingly, at the inadequate school another poster mentioned up thread, 45% of parents think their DC aren’t safe in school and 68% that students are badly behaved.

So the majority of half of parents don't give a damn about children being verbally abused, humiliated, managed out and having their education destroyed. Nice people.

The vast majority are not expressing that they happy. The majority haven’t expressed any view at all. It’s quite normal to have many with no particular views but 50% responding is because the school has cheerleaders and many who do want this type of school. They will of course respond and support their choice.

What cannot be claimed though is that it’s a ringing endorsement by a majority or that the views of a significant minority (probably) who are not so happy are listened to. It’s the stricter parents endorsing their choice of a strict school. Nothing more.

The majority of parents want their DC to receive a rigorous education in a safe and calm environment, so that their future opportunities are maximised.

Clearly no school will suit everyone, but if the school was really the prison you suggest, I suspect parents would not have such positive views.

Well, there are enough parents and teachers to have triggered a serious enquiry into the school's practices.

And once again: this isn't a zero sum game between draconian rigid abusive management and all out permissiveness. Strict but fair is possible - many schools do it well and achieve high value added outcomes as well as high grades. So the question is: why can't Mossbourne? Are they lazy, unwilling or incompetent?

@pointythings. Almost certainly unwilling. They get enough compliant parents and dc to run the school in the way they do. What is the incentive to do otherwise? What jurisdiction will make them change and be welcoming to all pupils? There isn’t one because the school is successful. Inadequate and it might change. The Hackney review has no teeth so the state can easily squash the voices of the minority.

They should, of course, have firm but fair rules but these schools attract a certain type of true believer teacher and most go along with the ethos for an easy life.

Why on earth a school change its whole ethos when: 1. It is one of the most successful in the country and 2. The vast majority of parents are happy with how it operates?

Any school that backtracked purely because of a few middle class parents in the media would be crazy to do so.

@SeaSwim5 130 parents plus teachers = A few. You have to laugh at the contortionist mathematics.

Fact checking is not your strong point is it?

"The CHSCP has confirmed the dossier has grown to contain over 300 separate accounts from parents and other sources."

www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2025/03/07/mossbourne-review-complaints-procedure-safeguarding-inquiry/

I had an interesting university outreach session with year 11s from Mossbourne years before this article came out. They were together with year 10/11 from two other London academies.

The sessions was specific for kids who wanted to pursue medicine as career so there was some selection bias. All the teenagers were well behaved, and asked really insightful questions.

The most memorable thing for all the staff was that the Mossbourne kids were eerily still. They all sat together and their teacher sat behind them. They were silent throughout the presentation and talks (90 minutes). No one even turned around to look at the people behind them or the teacher, there was no fidgeting. The teacher didn't have to say a single word throughout the entire session. They then just left the room in a silent, orderly fashion.

I remember one of the helpers asking me later on what was going on with those kids. It was really...different to the other teenagers from the other two schools. I'm not sure what I witnessed but it really stuck with me.