Panorama - Britain's Strictest Schools - 8pm Monday 3/8/26 - BBC1

[TobaccoFlower]

Thought this might be of interest

I will watch this, sounds interesting! Intrigued to see if they are private schools or not.

Oooh I shall watch. Thank you OP.

It says

Britain’s Strictest Schools
Panorama

When running a big school, how much discipline is too much? Richard Bilton reports from an academy trust whose stakeholders say its strict policies on behaviour have gone too far.

I wonder if it's the same school in London there was a thread about, with parents saying it was too strict. Trying to remember the name.

This one
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyvlj1zel0o

I assume Katherine Burbalsingh will be featured. I remember one parent took her to court because she disagreed with one aspect of the school, whilst simultaneously applying for a place for another of her children

I believe it features a school in Launceston Cornwall

Must be hard finding the balance. If a school isn't strict enough, some kids will take full advantage and bully and be disruptive, which is harmful too.

It could be the Launceston one. The Trust is now possibly being dissolved

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgje8d1p419o I suspect it is launceston. There's being strict and then theres just being controlling. Even the teachers said it was oppressing.

Watching it now.

I found this so sad. You could tell that some of the children will have done well at the exams but hated it. There’s discipline and then this type of thing.

I can see it as a hard balance with teachers leaving the profession due to bad behaviour in schools, but quite a few of the teachers had left. There’s discipline music class was the strangest to me, silence?

Looked like a lovely place. Seems like they did go too far with the regimented discipline. I think my kids' school got it right. It was a Comp that let anyone in. They did have detentions/isolation/suspension etc, but not all the stuff about fixed eyes and not moving a pencil etc, so most could avoid sanctions for years on end as long as they did homework and weren't disruptive.

Yes, the fact that the teachers were finding it too oppressive said it all really.

I found this so sad to watch. You could really feel the trauma that the young girl (with her brother) had gone through.

It's the academies that aren't monitored and it's so widespread across England now. It must be one of the biggest modern day scandals. No one for parents to complain too other than the school.

Awful parts:

• The ex-teacher agreeing that the students were oppressed and describing a student looking at a pencil to be enough for a warning/sanction.
• The school gym previously used for sport being used as a giant isolation hall.
• All lessons having to be carried out silently including music lessons as explained by the ex-music teacher!
• Over 500 students having left to be home schooled e.g not have a school
• The poor girl that developed kidney infections and scarring due to being too scared to drink water in case she needed the loo.
• Exam results only improved by 5% despite all this.

We talk a lot about young people's mental health being in bits and it's often blamed on social media. But there are 5m kids attending academies and how many of them are being treated like this?

It's something I would expect to hear about from China or North Korea. I think the biggest shame of all is on the teachers that continue to work in these places.

I was surprised to see she wasn’t featured.

500 out of 1300 left? Wow, I missed that.

It was 500 across all the secondary schools. Still horrendously high

Oh I see

It was 500 students that left the Athena learning trust who ran the academies in Cornwall/Devon. I think they had 6 secondary schools.

Academies are a scandal really, it is far too easy for heads/CEOs to go rogue and some extraordinary practices go on.

Some of them treat both teachers and students badly.

There have been real issues at one of our local trusts - not on this scale, but an uncompromising approach. It has all been very unhelpful for the kids and their families.

When academies were first introduced part of the idea was to broaden the range of schools. Now with the academy trusts parents in some areas don’t have a choice except one of the strict type schools.

This was such an interesting watch. I would never work in such a school.

Far too many academies work on the basis that strict discipline is everything, because they perceive that parents like it and it's much easier to achieve than actual good teaching and learning. An advisory teacher friend of mine was appalled on being shown round one at how proud the school was of having just arranged for a second large classroom to be fitted out as an isolation room, and not understanding why on earth she asked whether they were sorry to lose a perfectly good teaching space.

It's also astonishing at how few of them seem to feel the duty not to discriminate on the basis of disability applies to them. I've heard far too often about refusals to make any sort of allowances for issues like autism or Tourette's on the basis that "we can't relax the rules just for one person" when it's blatant rubbish. You'd think it might occur to them that breaking the law doesn't set a good example, but apparently it never does.

We are in Cornwall and my daughter goes to an Athena school. It is fucking bleak. It’s sucked all the joy out of learning for her. They treat the children like robots. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the trust that replaces them will be even slightly more relaxed.