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

Progress 8 is a much much better
accountability measure than its predecessor 5 A*-C, but it's very dependent on the quality of the primary schools the kids have been to. If the primaries are getting high SATs results the secondary P8 will be depressed, and vice versa.

Shoreditch Park, not far from the Mossbourne schools, is a good example of a recent Outstanding judgment with a discipline policy which manages to be warm as well as strict:

reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/23/143756

@JoanOgdenThat doesn’t always hold true. Grammars near me are almost exclusively populated by high achievers from primary. They do get good P8. Better than other schools because hard to move lower achievers hold them back. Removing the lower achievers to a different type of provision would make a big difference.

@pointythings. We have a total aversion to MFLs here! First subject to be dropped by many. Even higher achievers.

Grammars can’t get the kind of P8 that Michaela or similar get though. If their target grade from KS2 is 9 there’s not much progress to make!

No one gets what Michaela gets. I guess some parents do want this at the expense of other things. Michaela might be that dc haven’t been well taught before going there and they restrict GCSEs. What % of low achievers? It’s still the case around me that the grammars do better overall.

Michaela only had 9 low prior attainers in 2024. When looking at just low prior attainers, they are top for progress 8 and attainment 8, and second top for % achieving 5+ in E&M.

They had 49 middle prior attainers in 2024 and are top for progress 8 when just looking at middle prior attainers. Second to Altrincham Grammar School for Girls for attainment 8.

45 high prior attainers. Top for progress 8 when just looking at high prior attainers. Joint top with Queen Elizabeth’s for attainment 8.

@TizerorFizz I reckon there is an advantage to having a national language that is only spoken by about 30 million people worldwide. It means you make more of an effort to learn other languages - English is compulsory in the Dutch school system. For everyone, at all levels.

However, if you want to have compulsory MFL, you need to have excellent quality of teaching and teaching methods that work. The UK's 'regurgitate a phrasebook' approach doesn't work. I had a weekly test on vocab and irregular verbs in 3 different languages all the way through to Year 12. Grammar tests at least twice a term. Learning languages is a lot of memorisation and hard graft, which you then put into use. At the equivalent of A level, you are expected to produce essays in the language, not about the language, and you are expected to read at least 12 books in each one - and there are no set books, you are responsibel for choosing appropriately. It's a high standard.

@pointythings Totally agree it’s hard graft and a good memory. DD has a MFL degree. However these are not always the qualities the Brits have. I agree about English being important to so many but I assume some Dutch people give up? I can see the difficulties for low achievers but we start way too late and most dc then are not happy making much effort because other subjects are definitely easier.

The definition of high is quite wide though. As a grammar teacher many of my students come in on targets (in my subject) of 8 and 9. It is literally impossible for my department to get a P8 that matches them. No matter how hard we work.
That said I wouldn’t want to work anywhere like that.

@TizerorFizz giving up English or Dutch isn't an option anyone has. You can fail it though - you are allowed to fail one or two subjects as long as your overall scores across all subjects meet pass criteria.

And of course Dutch popular media is drenched in all things English. My mum was a teacher of English in the Dutch school system - she told her strugglers to listen to English language radio, not try to understand it but just let it wash over them so they could start hearing the flow and pattern of the language. It's an effective approach, DC1 used it in GCSE French to boost his listening skills.

Of course the best way to learn a language is by immersion, but that isn't usually feasible.

So Michaela has few low attainers. They go elsewhere. If their high attainers are very high and predicted 8/9, how do they get the high scores?

They can’t be predicted 8/9. It’s impossible to get 2 grades more than that. High attainment includes predictions of 7 for example. It’s perfectly possible to turn a 7 into a 9.

@GrammarTeacher but they don’t just top the tables in terms of progress 8. They are also joint top for attainment 8 when looking at high prior attainers.

@TizerorFizz because high prior attainers are those who achieve an average score greater than or equal to 110 at KS2 so still the ability to add value. And even those in the top KS2 prior attainment group with an average KS2 scaled score of 119.5-120 don’t have a perfect attainment 8 score so it is still possible to have a positive P8 score for them.

Progress 8 isn’t about predictions or targets. It compares a pupil’s KS4 results to the results of pupils nationally who have similar prior attainment.

Exactly though. If their prior attainment is high (resulting in that target) you can’t get them higher.

They don’t come top for Attainment 8. Not nationally.

@GrammarTeacher they do come joint top nationally with QE in Barnet if you only look at high prior attainers, which is what I said. They both have an attainment 8 of 86.6.

Even those in the top KS2 prior attainment group with an average KS2 scaled score of 119.5-120 don’t have a perfect attainment 8 score so it is still possible to have a positive P8 score for them. And not all high prior attainers achieving 9s have an average scaled score of 119.5-120 at KS2.

@pointythings If you look at countries in Europe, there are those who provide a foundational track from the moment children hit secondary school.

Finding the right balance is not straightforward.
On one hand, not everyone should study the same subjects.
On the other hand, any early selection of the most academic children risks:

• perpetuating and worsening social inequality, as the children of the most affluent parents will have more access to tutoring and other resources
• favouring those kids who are wll-rounded and who are so at the very age of the selection, to the detriment of those who may excel in some subjects only and/or who mature later (not all kids mature at the same pace).

After all, these are the very same criticisms of the grammar school system.

In effect Michaela selects. The low strainers swerve it. The regime there means this happens. They only want Bsingh believers. It’s a different form of selection - like church attendance. Germany doesn’t have an issue with different styles of schools. We had the tripartite system and ditched it - a mistake.

@ParentOfOne I agree there's a balance to be had. I am not sure how the Dutch system works now, but when I was in it, there was flexibility. After primary school, you would end up in a school that matched your aptitude profile, based ' on both national testing and teacher assessment, but once in that school you would be in a 'bridging' setting, getting a broad general education. That would usually be for two years, taking you to age 14. At that point it would be possible to stream laterally to a technical/vocational school or you would be placed in one of three general/academic streams equating to a GCSE equivalent (followed by further schooling or apprenticeship since school leaving age was and is 18), an AS level equivalent (again, followed by more education or training) or an A level equivalent, leading usually to University.

Moreover, it was and is possible to 'stream through' from one stream to another. Someone who has succesfully passed their vocational school exams with the requisite number of subjects (i.e. one more than the minimum) has the absolute right to stream through to the AS level stream. They would then start in the 4th year of that stream, not the 5th and final year, so they could complete the curriculum. They would then graduate at age 18. They would also, with the right number of subjects in place, have the right afterwards to stream through to the academic stream and graduate at age 20 - all this is funded. So late developers and people who struggle for whatever reason but then develop solid coping strategies still have all the options.

The UK system has zero flexibility and is incredibly high stakes - I have a friend who got no GCSEs at all due to serious mental ill health issues combined with autism and ADHD. He's now in a position to pick up some functional GCSEs but there's very little for him, and it's too late.

Health isn’t the same as selection though.

Obviously I meant low attainers earlier - not strainers!

Michaela does have a higher than average proportion of students who are pupil premium/SEN though, so it’s not exactly a grammar school.

It’s not a school I’d send my DC to given the limited education it seems to offer, but it does get great results for DC.

Compared to the national average for mainstream secondary schools in England, Michaela has a lower than average number of EHCPs (1.9% compared to the national average for MS secondaries of 2.7%) and pupils on SEN Support (10.1% vs 12.9% for the national average for MS secondaries).

@BrightYellowTrain. I would guess it’s low ECHP % for the LA area.

@TizerorFizz yes, Michaela’s 1.9% of pupils with EHCPs is lower than the LA average for state mainstream secondary schools as well as lower than the national average for state mainstream secondary schools. The LA average is 2.3%.

Interestingly though, the percentage on SEN Support at Michaela is higher than the LA average for state mainstream secondary schools. The LA average is 9.7%.