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

Thanks, and sorry if I misinterpreted your intentions. The experiences we've had and the accounts I've heard aren't ethical. It goes beyond "a bit of strictness and discipline" which is why there's no shortage of parents, pupils, ex-pupils and teachers coming forward. It's not a black and white situation though. Many Mossbourne teachers do excellent work and we're particularly grateful for the ones that maintained their integrity.

Yes, you suggested other posters here believed that whereas in reality I don't think anyone would make such wide generalisations. We just see the police at a certain time of the day and wonder if they might believe something different from a rosy picture of secondary school angels... 🤔

Mossbourne and Michaela are non selective and their intake is very diverse and include really disruptive children who never experienced any discipline at home and are at serious risk to join gangs.

Champagne socialists living in 1M+ houses in fairly recently gentrified Hackney could have sent their DC to private schools, but instead they want to take over local state schools/academies and turn them around in accordance with their (ultra) left views. That's exactly what schools fear as perfectly illustrated by a poster upthread who didn't like it when the school sent a message "don't think you would be able to change us - you won't". The poster immediately self-selected out, not at all surprisingly. The wealthy lefties do not give a s* if their poor neighbours children will have good grades or not - all they really want is to save PS fees whilst living in 1M houses - and for the local school to do as they want it.

It's not just Birbalsingh who those people call fascist - a HT at our local perfectly MC and not too strict school was subjected to the same hate campaign online and IRL. They actually called him Hitler online, both parents and children, it was appalling. The head left to lead one of the best grammars and our school that used to be in top state schools nationally sank out of the rankings completely.

Yes, you suggested other posters here believed that

Because some posters on these threads clearly do believe it.
And then you start going on about 'lefties', which tells me everything I need to know.

I ask again: why are these schools unable to provide a learning environment that is safe and not damaging for a substantial number of young people who are doing nothing wrong? Why do they not care about all their students?

My DC went to my local comp. It was not a perfect school, but those who wanteed to learn and achieve were supported to do so. Uniform policy was sensible. Bullying was handled. Nobody got detentions for dropping a pencil and there was no stupid rule about how to hold your arms when speaking to a teacher.

Why can't all schools manage that middle ground?

I don't agree with the superstrict approach of these academies but I think if you haven't worked in a challenging London school you have no idea what the behaviour can be like & how damaging the experience is for both children and teachers.

But how are these schools going to cater adequately for the good kids? Answer: they aren't. And that isn't good enough.

@TreeSquirrel There are plenty of inadequate schools where DC are in charge, lessons disrupted and fights common for parents who don’t want their DC to follow rules.

Like I have asked plenty of times in this thread, without ever getting an answer, what makes these bootlickers think that the only alternatives are petty capricious draconian rules or... chaos and anarchy??? How narrowminded must one be to think that???

I am not saying that there should be no rules and no punishment. But they must be substantiated and proportionate.

You can punish kids who misbehave without holding seminars on "healthy fear" and without shouting in their face.

You can enforce a uniform code without forcing kids to wear blazers in a heatwave or preventing them from wearing a warmer coat or a warmer intermediate layer when they are cold.

You can punish kids who disrupt a lesson without terrorising the entire class.

@Ubertomusic I ask the same questions to you, too.
But your deranged rant about "lefties" tells me all I need to know.

Can you answer the questions above?
What makes you think that there is no middle ground?
What makes you think that that's the only way?

@Headingforholidays if you haven't worked in a challenging London school you have no idea what the behaviour can be like & how damaging the experience is for both children and teachers.

Again, what makes you think that's the only way?

Just because a school is an academy, there’s no reason for it to be strict. The governors set the ethos. It’s nothing to do with LA or MAT - it makes little difference. All schools have been inspected. However they are not accountable to parents.

I would never ever have sent my DC to such a school. I think lots more dc need special schools than used to be the case to get much higher staffing ratios. Parents of many dc have to avoid the strict schools in cities so the worst dc congregate in other schools. So inevitably schools like Michaela get the cream and can do a lot with them. But for the square peg on the round hole child, these schools are a nightmare. What do you do if it’s your local school and your dc cannot go anywhere else? Suffer these schools and sergeant major teachers. Many have no choice and our education system should be calling them out instead of encouraging them. They are breeding like topsy!

I would be interested to know the "turnover" of pupils at these schools. How many leave or are forced out?

@Ubertomusic "Apparently" is a key word here.
Do you always believe what people say?

I do not. I have heard parents describe as dystopian hellholes a school which dared give a detention to their little Johnny for not doing his homework.
But that's not what we're talking about here. Have you even read the articles?

A group of 30 parents and former teachers spoke out when the first story broke out https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/23/teachers-at-mossbourne-academy-in-hackney-screamed-at-and-humiliated-pupils-say-angry-parents

and now 70 more parents, 30 former students and 8 former teachers have come forward, too https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/07/london-academies-emotional-harm-mossbourne-schools-observer-investigation

Quoting from the article:
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.[...] Colin Diamond, professor of education leadership at Birmingham University and a former Dfe adviser on academies, said: “Every school has some tendentious parents raising issues, but this is way beyond that. There is too much evidence for anyone to dismiss this.”

You say that
The lead campaigner still has his child in this supposedly horrible school - and it's not like they have no other option, they can afford to take the other DC out

But how on Earth do you know what that family's options and situations are? Even if the other child had adjusted well to that environment, that doesn't mean the abuse is right.
One of my best friends is still an emotional wreck after a very terrible experience in a horrible, toxic workplace. Yet two people from when he started still remain in that team; they seem to be handling the toxicity. So what? This doesn't make the toxicity right.

My local school (an academy) that gets the highest results in the city. Once the school census is done in October they are known to encourage children who aren’t going to achieve great grades to leave or they will PEX them for persistant disruptive behaviour. Often they are forced to sit in a punishment room hunched over a desk with partitions either side, unable to go to the toilet or even stand up and stretch their legs for 3+ hours. They do this repeatedly picking up a child on every tiny perceived infringement. Either the child develops ESBA, anxiety or school trauma or they get PEX. Results look great as a number of kids in Y11 who were due to get 1/2/3’s are removed from the roll in Y11.

I don't really know where to start with your comments tbh. I don't think poor kids or rich kids should be soiling themselves* in class. What if it's the poor kids that are being targeted? Do the ends always justify the means?

I think it's possible to have strict schools with high standards that deliver good results without verbal abuse. We chose a school that was 'worse' on paper but 'better' for our kid.

I went to a strict school myself and benefitted from it but if the allegations are eventually proven then I think Mossbourne have gone too far.

We don't like in a million pound house if that helps, and yes we think it's good to have parents and school work together. Inequality is staggering in this area and you're right it's a major problem.

*(See original article here).

I'm local to Mossbourne. Kids who stick there undeniably do well academically but the discipline's ridiculous and lots of kids drop out with serious mental health issues. Also, what about the kids who stay. They learn to keep their heads down and think it's normal to have teachers who scream at them. That doesn't happen just to the badly behaved kids either. Just one small mistake in line up can mean you're in the firing line. Imagine how tense that must make them all. Clearly I'm not a fan! I'm pretty sure my son could have coped but we didn't send him there. He went to a comp (also in Hackney, so a similar demographic in terms of intake) and did well academically. That was strict, but managed to be friendly and kind too. A mixed intake is undeniably challenging for any school, but you don't have to run a militarised boot camp to give the kids a good education.

My post was in response to @Ubertomusic's post which picked up on my previous comments.

@ThatsGoingToHurt Thank you for pointing it out. I also remember multiple threads here and on some other forum about parents asking for advice because their school was pushing for them to "voluntarily" withdraw their child.

There have also been examples of outright cheating and dishonesty:

A Harris teacher rewrote the coursework to improve his students' grades https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/flagship-academy-teacher-cheated-harris-federation-pupils-science-coursework-rewritten-to-improve-grades-8940442.html

In another Harris, a primary, the teachers had cheated on SATs https://schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-harris-school-praised-by-ministers-overaided-pupils-in-sats/

The Orpington Harris cheated by enrolling native speakers into a test meant for foreigners https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7671311/The-GCSE-language-loophole-Hundreds-British-pupils-took-English-exam-meant-foreign-students.html

@TreeSquirrel thinks there is a link between these strict rules and academic performance, but has failed to prove their point by failing to show how these strict schools compare vs other schools which do well academically without terrorising their children.

I see another pattern: once you make it all about exam results and Ofsted reports, some schools (not all, sure, but some) will lie and cheat in order to fake good results, and it is no coincidence that so many of the schools which lie and cheat happen to be unaccountable academies!!!!

Honestly, teaching at a school where poor behaviour is rampant because of a wholehearted embrace of Paul Dix and restorative justice at all costs, where the end goal is no sanctions, I’m wishing my school was a bit more like this! Having to endure abuse and chaotic behaviour from 11 year olds and then have a chat about ‘well why did you make X feel like they had to call you a fat bitch?’ isn’t as rosy as it seems! No wonder there’s a retention and recruitment crisis.

littleyeti, that sounds far from good, but surely there's a middle ground. My son's comp seemed to manage things pretty well. I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be done.

@ParentOfOne

Ime a lot of the ‘strict’ rules complained about don’t actually exist. The blazer one you mention is a case in point- no school forces DC to wear blazers in a heatwave.

Like at the DC’s school, teachers can and do give permission to remove blazers in very hot weather.

@TreeSquirrel Not sure I follow your thought process here: surely your point is not that, since your school does not have certain stupid rules, then no school in the country has those stupid rules????

The allegations about shouting at children to instil fear, the seminars on 'healthy fear' etc at Mossbourne were discussed in the two articles linked in the first post. We're talking about a hundred parents, 30 former students and 8 former teachers who have come forward.

Ashcroft Academy bans bicycles and gives detentions to students caught cycling to school . See the link to their official policy https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/1figz90/ashcroft_secondary_school_bans_bicycles_how_legal/

Holderness Academy put a student in isolation for wearing an Asda skirt which was 99% identical, but cheaper, than the official one. Look at the comparison pictures on the BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-66812748

Other examples were discussed in this thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5168466-how-common-are-detentions-at-secondary?page=9&reply=138524258

This academy wanted a medical certificate for period pain (I think they backed down after a public outcry): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly4zd8xp74o

This other academy wanted parents to send children even when unwell "because they have first aiders", but ultimately backed down https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/12/uk-academies-very-sorry-for-policies-saying-pupils-must-attend-when-unwell

Mumsnet is full of stories of schools not allowing their children to wear a lighter uniform / not allowing them to wear PE kit / forcing them to wear blazers during heatwaves. Absolutely full.

There was another story about a school not allowing students to wear coats while in the playground, with pictures of coat-wearing teachers telling students to remove their coats.

Another one about a school not allowing any other coat nor any other layer other than the school-mandated ones, so students who felt cold were not even allowed to wear non-descriptive, logoless black or navy or grey vests or jumpers or anything.
I mean, there are times where I wear a rolled up shirt in the office while the person next to me literally wears a down jacket - by the same logic, should one of us be fired??

I could go on, but the point is simple: the country is full of schools, typically unaccountable academies, constantly coming up with batshit crazy policies. If your child's school isn't one of them, I am happy for your child, but it means absolutely nothing. Nothing.

I don't think there is no middle ground, please stop putting words in my mouth.
If anyone looks deranged on this thread it's you.

I also asked a question - why is that the police thinks it necessary to patrol the streets when school is out? But that was a rhetorical question of course.

Mossbourne and Michaela are in London, people do have a choice of schools here, but these horrible schools are somehow oversubscribed 🤷‍♀️

In my LA, all secondary schools are academies. Many of them are good and outstanding schools. Many are hugely popular with parents. In plenty of LAs there’s hardly any non academies left at secondary. I think Sheffield has one. So it’s utter rubbish to say all academies are like these and have crazy rules. They simply do not. A few cases in the press does not mean the academies are all the same. Plus how do you avoid one? Most parents cannot.

Yes, I’m sure this school that behaves in an abusive and unlawful manner only does to children who deserve it.

It is also unheard of for schools to deviate from their written policies: so as long as “abuse children” isn’t in there, I’m sure it’s fine.

I'd go by @Proportionate comments, they have first hand experience of the school and presented a balanced view of both concerns and acknowledgments.

MSM stopped being a valid source of information many years if not decades ago.