An elementary lesson in politics?

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the new head of Ofsted, whom I've blogged about earlier, is in the news again.  I think we can expect this.  He realises that there will be 'some academies that won't do well' (these, incidentally will almost always be those unfortunate ones that will have originated from schools that have not 'done well' for decades because they are being measured against 'standards' that are, in their context, unachievable  -  see previous post). What usually happens in these cases is that the hapless first Principal, often a 'superhead' who has allegedly 'done very well' in much more favourable circumstances or even in apparently similar circumstances, departs within 12-18 months and some other poor *** is encouraged to believe that s/he can work a miracle.

Wilshaw asks how we can detect when things aren't going well in an academy and declares that 'we need some sort of intermediary bodies which can detect when things aren't going well, look at the data  and have their ear to the ground' because 'its's no good just relying on Ofsted' (well at least he's right about that).

He continues: 'these people would be non-political, in other words they would not be like LEAs responsible to a council, they would be people who would report directly to the secretary of state .'  So people whose jobs are totally dependant on keeping in with the secretary of state (and in this case we are talking about possibly the most bigoted and deeply ignorant secretary of state of all time) are 'non-political', but people who are ultimately accountable  to democratically elected local councillors are 'political'?

This quote could be the interesting basis for a question on a politics exam paper.

This man really is even more a prat than I had thought!

In reality, history will show that LEAs and their generally expert and committed staff worked unstintingly supporting and challenging schools so that they never came to the attention of Ofsted or anyone else looking for 'failing schools'.  They knew the schools and they knew the local circumstances.

I can predict already the kind of creeps that will be appointed to these posts: exactly the type of people who have become  -  under New Labour and Tories alike  -  the movers and shakers responsible for the replacement of perfectly good schools with academies in a plot reminiscent of  'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'.  Often people who have little or no experience of leadership and management, and/or who have never stayed in one place long enough to be found out, have been in a position to call the shots when principals are being hired or fired across a whole region.  Even heads with respectable records have been persuaded to become involved by the prospect of pocketing loadsamoney that has been robbed from all the proper schools trying to compete with academies.

Predictably, a comment from Stephen Twigg, Labour's shadow education secretary, shows an unseemly eagerness to claim that his party has already embraced this profoundly anti-democratic concept.

As ever we need to remember the maxim: 'Schools do make a difference, and mostly they make the same amount of difference'.

A sensible article about league tables here

Click here. That's not something you can say very often, especially when the author is Mike Baker, formerly BBC education correspondent and not known for seeing beyond the hype. I'm interested at the government's reason for abandoning contextual value added, the noble attempt to account for factors affecting results that are beyond a school's control. A simple example: if less 10% of a school's intake have a reading age equal to or greater than their chronological age, this is likely to have an impact on their ability to reach an arbitrary target which might be readily achievable by a school with a more balanced intake. The reasons for the difficulties that certain student populations have in achieving are what CVA attempts to allow for. The government says that CVA is too complicated for parents to understand. So they are happy to present parents with 'raw' figures, which tell you next to nothing about a school's real performance, because these are simple and easy to understand. The fact that they also happen to be utterly misleading is conveniently ignored.  Further proof, if proof were needed, that they don't care at all about the schools that are really struggling.  In fact, the more 'failing schools' they can identify, the more academies they can create.

I've always been interested in the amount of direct influence they have over academies.  This will be the subject of a future post.  I'll also be considering what parents really want from schools  -  there's plenty of evidence that  they value a lot of things other than 'performance'.

It was Labour that started it

I'm amused by the fact that David Lammy, a minister in the former Labour Government, is incensed that his old primary school - a popular, inclusive school - is being forced by Gove to become an academy (academies were invented by New labour) because it has been below SAT 'floor targets' (invented and set by New Labour) for several years (though the most recent figures show that has risen slightly above the 'floor target'). Incidentally, I have always thought 'floor target' a ridiculous concept invented by someone who is careless to the point of brainlessness in their thought and language - who ever aimed for a floor target? Someone should remind Lammy where all this manic dismantling of a good state education system started. Unless he's able to prove that he always opposed this madness, he really ought to keep his mouth shut.

Exams - what are they good for?

Obviously, if some schools have been able to gain an advantage for their students by attending a course with an indiscreet examiner that is unfair to students whose teachers have not been given 'inside information' about the questions they can expect. However, a much more important question is surely whether exams should be trying to find out what examinees know, or what they don't know. To put it another way, every examinee should know what to expect from a particular exam.

The best way of assessing students' work is, as has been proved time and again, by coursework over a period of time. There are all sorts of ways in which the teacher's assessment can be moderated, and I can see no problem about some of the coursework being done under 'exam conditions'. Any system which purports to test two years of students' learning by an exam at the end of that period is not fit for purpose, especially if that test will be marked by harrassed, poorly paid, and often under-qualified teachers in their 'spare time'. I speak as a parent whose son had two A level results upgraded on appeal. If everyone was as fortunate as we were in being able to pay out over £100 for each appeal, the whole system would pretty quickly be shown to be worthless.

The lies continue

I complained to the BBC about the dissemination of the Mossbourne lie - that Mossbourne Academy 'replaced' Hackney Downs School (see previous post).

Here's the reply I received:

I understand you’re unhappy because you felt it was inaccurate to state on the programme that Mossbourne Academy replaced Hackney Downs School.

Mossbourne Academy was built on the same site as Hackney Downs which was why we stated that it replaced it. Mossbourne rose from the ashes of Hackney Downs in 2004 with a new building on the same site, educating kids from the same area, and with the same problems.

Nevertheless I do fully appreciate your concerns with the programme therefore I'd like to assure you that I've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s made available to all BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions on future BBC programmes and content.

Once again, thank you for contacting us.

I've replied, suggesting that they are merely repeating the same PR blurb that all the media are using, or they are all copying the same original story. The phrase 'rose from the ashes' appears almost as often as 'the worst school in the country'. You can imagine that the students burnt the school down! And then nine years later a new, infinitely better school 'rose from the ashes' (which were still around after all that time, imagine!), educating kids from the same area (but there are all sorts of kids in 'the area', even girls - HDS was a boys school - so that's one very significant difference) with the same problems. How does the BBC know this?

The whole story stinks and I'm certain that, at some point, this will become clear even to our hopelessly idle media.