School - BBC 2 - 9 pm

[HollowTalk]

Anyone watching?

Cross LEA catchments aren't as complicated as you'd think - you just apply in your home LEA and they do all the paperwork. Gets a bit fun sometimes with holiday times and I think DD2's speech problems slipped through the net slightly with her being at nursery in a different county to where we lived and referrals going wonky - but it's very common here for people to be at school in a different LEA as we're right on a county boundary (mine crossed the border for nursery, are back over the border for primary and I may well apply across the border again for secondary to avoid the local MAT).

Ironically by the end of the programme it looked like the Head had actually done the groundwork and tough graft needed to start to turn the school around - he just hadn't managed to work miracles in time for Ofsted returning and that set the wheels in motion for his departure really. I think if they'd given him another year or so - he'd have done it - painfully and with a hell of a lot of cuts required dictated by the academy trust, but he'd have done it.

I've just been catching up with this, and goodness me what a bleak and sobering documentary. I really do hope it helps to show the impossibilities and troubles faced on a daily basis by those who work in schools.

I would also love to get a closer focus on the CEO, what his job entails apart from telling others to cut back and moving staff around. As well as how much he earns. I bet he doesn't lie awake at night worrying about the children, staff morale and exam results.

If Marlwood and CAstle schools are close, then one of them was on borrowed time. Why would an academy keep two schools open beside each other, with twice the overheads, when it could consolidate on one site and save thousands and bus kids in?

As a governor of a small school, this is why academisation keeps me up at night. No academy will keep small schools open when it’s more expensive, and damn the benefits to a community of having a local school.

Remember the teacher strikes, this is what they were trying to prevent.

I’m not sure if the schools will merge, Castle is already very big with a PAN of 270 - Marlwood has a PAN of 210 I think but only half full. The area is marked for a lot of new houses, already a lot been built. But rumour is that the family houses are largely being bought by retirees rather than families, so not the influx of school age children they were expecting.

I was at both last year’s and this year’s open evenings at Marlwood - and the difference was stark. First one with the old head was depressing, staff disengaged / not motivated, no effort to sell the school. With the new head this year, it felt completely different - enthused, energetic, really trying to sell the school but also engage with peoples concerns. I have hopes it’ll turn around. Though not fast enough for me to want to send my y6 there.

Am I correct in thinking the 6th form has merged?

I remember reading a leaflet that South Glos wants an extra 22,000 houses built by 2022.

We have also received a letter from child's primary headmaster and their budget is being cut by £55000.00 and a letter for parents to send to local MP. Both myself and husband will be sending this.

Yes the sixth forms of Marlwood and Castle have merged. All sixth form Marlwood students go to the Castle Sixth form now.

The Castle Sixth form buildings are in desperate need of repair.

They have to wear coats in the winter. Rooms have been abandoned to let nature take its course.

They’re building a new sixth form I thought? Had finally been allocated capital budget for it?

There was talk of building a new sixth form but so far it hasn't happened. I will believe it when I see it.

First of all it was supposed to be on the old Council building site but that fell through. Then on the Lower School site but nothing so far. It has all gone very quiet, probably due to finances.

Re:behaviour. I have noticed in my school that the whole idea of respect is declining rapidly. The caretaker who was painting over the graffiti is right. No respect for the rules, the staff, their environment, other pupils, and themselves. And there is a lot of talk of rights, but with no thought to their responsibilities. Without all that, a school will go downhill fast. A lot of the ones who DO show respect when they enter year 7 and who are easily influenced quickly lose it when they see the older ones behaving so badly. I think a couple of pupils actually admitted this, that they were good in primary and aren’t anymore because they just decided to follow the crowd. What you are left with is a handful of despairing kids and staff trying to uphold the standards all on their own.

I wonder when and how this societal shift started. it’s extremely worrying because this lack of respect for authority is now spreading to lack of respect for the police and for our ambulance and fire services.

Henry’s mum seemed quite switched off. Had that been my child coming through the door after school they wouldn’t be greeted with a friendly “hello”and half hearted questioning about what had gone on at school. My child would be getting both barrels. I just didn’t sense any real disapproval from her, I just got the feeling like she’d behaved similarly at school herself maybe and so half understood his actions.

This is the problem, I think. The kids who misbehaved at school in the 80s after the decline of corporal punishment are now parents themselves. They’re unlikely to be the best role models on the whole.

Obviously we can’t go back to the days of corporal punishment but we do need firm sanctions that actually work. Not many actually do. I don’t know what the answer is.

I do think a lot of kids just aren’t made to stay at school for as long as they have to these days. My Nan left at 14 with a good enough education to go and get herself a job. Into the adult world, earning a living and some self-respect, a place in the world, working alongside adults as peers.

However even if we wanted to go back to kids leaving at 15, there are no jobs for them to go to. No wonder MPs want every single child in education or training till they’re 18 and most going to uni after that. It keeps their NEET figures down but it’s not actually doing a lot of good for a lot of kids.

I walked from teaching a year and a half ago, I was consistently ‘outstanding’ over the last ten years and I love teaching but this reflects the sheer grimness of school now. My husband is a headteacher and we decided to home educate the youngest. The series is framed to show the worst bits, but I felt it was realistic.

The series is framed to show the worst bits, but I felt it was realistic.

The pack mentality of those year 7s was pretty grim. It wasn't clear if they were supposed to be in lessons but for the head teacher to just direct them to the tennis court was crazy. If the year 7s have such little respect then what hope is there for the staff to have any control over the other year groups.

ahem, I'm a child of the 90s long after corporal punishment ended, apart from low level misbehaviour and few cigs behind the sports court me and my friends were nowhere near that level of destructive and disruptive.

We've just heard a local school (my older dc's former school) is going to be on a channel 4 documentary. The headmistress was always going on about funding cuts but discipline went into free fall under her watch. My ds2 is an academy school about 1.5 miles away with a similar socioeconomic catchment and they manage to maintain a high level of discipline. It will be interesting to see how the school looks on the tv.
Recently ds2 showed me a video taken in this school's exam hall just before a mock exam, which had been posted online. Never mind a kid was able to get his phone out and film, the hall was an absolute riot. Even ds2 was shocked at the behaviour.

bloody hell that sounds awful miss Eliza,

in my day someones phone going off in their pocket during the GCSE's could mean everyone in that sittings paper could be null and void.

I really don't understand what the benefit is to the school of getting involved in any of these documentaries. Don't get me wrong, it makes fascinating if terrifying viewing but as a HT why would you?

I know my DCs secondary has been approached a few times and the HT has always said definitely not, he and his staff are there to educate the pupils, the pupils are to be educated and nothing should be distracting them from that.

I don't understand how the school benefits either. I'm assuming the school receives a fee but if the school ends up looking bad, they'll lose out on pupils in the future. In the case of the school I mentioned, I'm pretty sure they'll use it as an opportunity to complain about finding.

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/27/bbc-headteacher-resigned-tv-james-pope-school?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
This is an interview with the headteacher from Marlwood. He talks about being motivated by wanting to show the impact of budget cuts and the realities of the problems that is causing.

Yes, Moonrise, it seems fairly obvious to me that’s why he agreed to it. I think jt’s The whole aim of the programme-makers and all I can say is “about bloody time”! Our education is in deep crisis and it’s about time people working in schools were able to speak freely to the general public about how bad things really are. We need the government to act, not just on school funding but on the wider social issues such as mental health support etc.which affect the lives of many children in our schools.

Not to mention decent SEN provision which i think is the subject of tonight’s programme.

I'm glad the HT agreed to the filming because far too many heads cover up problems in schools - they're bad PR. I had an impossible job in a school where kids tried to set fire to the floors and emptied bins all over the place because the HT denied there was a behaviour problem. If you don't admit to it, it isn't happening (the school is now in special measures).

I think tonight’s one is going to be a hard watch :(