FAILING’ TAG SLASHES INTAKES

7/25/2008 11:00:00 AM

TES 25 July

Admissions to drop by up to half as parents shun schools on National Challenge hit list A high-profile scheme designed to rebuild the reputations of more than 600 struggling secondaries is instead scaring off prospective parents, adding to the problems of the troubled schools. The TES has spoken to heads who expect to lose up to half of the new intake as a result of the government’s National Challenge. Headteachers have warned the scheme, which ministers hoped would push up GCSE results in 638 secondaries by giving them more support, will instead trigger a spiral of decline as parents pull their children out. Being given National Challenge status – and the “failing” label that often follows – has seen many schools attract hugely negative local publicity. Joan McVittie, head of Woodside School in Wood Green, north London, said parental interviews and the number of pupils turning up for induction days suggested her Year 7 could be down by as much as half in September. She said she had suffered inaccurate newspaper stories suggesting her school would close in 50 days. But Mrs McVittie blames ministers for her school’s predicament. “It wasn’t the media that designated me a National Challenge school,” she said. “I have been caught in a political pincer movement.”
Sean Wyartt, acting head of Culverhay School in Bath, said September’s new intake was down by at least a third compared to the allocation he received in February and a major proportion of that was because of the National Challenge.

He said: “Unfortunately it is the more socially mobile parents moving their kids, so the ones who are left tend to be less motivated and interested in education. This has made our challenge even tougher.”
Julia Shepard, head of Beechwood School in Slough, said being part of the National Challenge had caused parents to look for other schools. “You can’t counter all the damage done in the community because people from the school will not be able to meet everyone face to face to set things right,” she said. “It is so upsetting, because reputations can be lost so easily.” TES

Secondary

£35BN REVAMP WILL PRODUCE GENERATION OF MEDIOCRE SCHOOLS

7/21/2008 7:17:00 AM

The Guardian 21 July

The biggest school building programme in a generation is on course to produce billions of pounds worth of "mediocre" facilities, an audit conducted by the government's own architecture watchdog has revealed.An estimated eight out of 10 designs for secondary schools proposed under the £35bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative are "mediocre" or "not yet good enough" and less than a fifth are considered to be "good" or "excellent".Among the problems discovered in a detailed review of 40 proposed designs for schools across the country are bullying hotspots in secluded yards, noisy open plan areas which make teaching difficult and classrooms which are too dark or prone to overheating on sunny afternoons. The findings from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) were released following a freedom of information request by the Guardian and represent the latest blow to a flagship New Labour programme which Gordon Brown had promised would deliver schools that are "the best equipped in the world for 21st-century learning". Every one of the country's 3,500 secondary schools is to be improved or rebuilt under the initiative by 2020. Ministers believe there is a positive link between pupil performance and investment in school buildings.The Commons select committee on education has launched an inquiry into the quality of the schools being built under the programme and its chairman, Barry Sheerman MP, said he was alarmed by Cabe's findings. He called on the government to throw out any design unless it is classed as good or excellent.Guardian

Lead Story | General | Secondary

SCHOOL BANS YOUTH SLANG AND SEES EXAM RESULTS SOAR

7/20/2008 10:40:00 PM

Sunday Telegraph 20 July

A school has banned its pupils from using "street slang" as part of a strict behaviour policy which is transforming its exam results. Pupils are not allowed to use the phrase "innit" or other examples of "playground patois" when talking to teachers. Formal language must be used at all times in communications with adults and pupils have been told that street slang should be "left at the school gates". The measure, along with a strict uniform policy, is part of a tough stance on discipline at Manchester Academy, in the city's deprived Moss Side area, has restored order. Since the school became an academy in 2003, exam results have improved from about 10 per cent of pupils achieving five good GCSEs to 33 per cent and the proportion who leave without a job or college course to go to is down from 26 to 6 per cent. "Language is really important and we have to make sure pupils realise that," said Kathy August, the head teacher. Sun Tel

Secondary

SIXTH FORMS’ CASH CRISIS

7/18/2008 8:56:00 AM

TES 18 July

Schools threaten to cut staff from under-16s to finance demand for places from older pupils

School sixth forms are facing serious funding shortfalls as the Government seeks to persuade pupils to stay in education beyond the age of 16, The TES can reveal. The Learning and Skills Council is funding only a 2 per cent rise in the number of teenagers staying at school beyond GCSE. But schools are predicting a 7 per cent rise, a difference many are warning could see sixth form places “rationed”. .
Deficits of more than £100,000 are being predicted in some sixth forms. Heads say it would be “immoral” not to provide teaching for students who want it. This looks likely to have a knock on effect for lower years at the schools affected as the pinch is felt at all levels. .
One secondary, Valley School in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, warns it may have to cut staffing for 11- to 16-year-olds because of a deficit of more than £100,000 in the budget of a sixth form centre it shares with another school. .Cox Green School at Maidenhead, Berkshire, has a shortfall of more than £140,000, meaning that the college faces going into the red to pay for its popularity. Ian Hylan, the head, said: “This is a travesty. We are being encouraged to help youngsters expand their opportunities and we will not turn any student away: to do so would be immoral, given the work we do encouraging students to stay on.” .
Until 2007, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funded schools according to the previous year’s level. This year, schools are asked to estimate the numbers they expect in the sixth form for 2008-9. .Last year, numbers enrolled in school sixth forms rose by 7,000 to 377,500. This year, the schools predict a rise of 28,000 to 403,500, which the LSC believes is an overestimate. It is believed to be funding only an extra 6,500 places. TES

Secondary | FE/HE/ Skills

ACADEMIES FOR ALL

7/16/2008 7:19:00 AM

Leader; The Times 16 July

The biggest educational investment programme of the age could achieve an historical social breakthroughThey cost £25 million each to build. Their airy spaces inspire. They are, on average, three times oversubscribed. After shaky starts in some areas their GCSE results are improving twice as fast as the national average, and they get a fresh burst of endorsements in a booklet published today by the CentreForum think-tank. In it, Lord Adonis says of city academies that they are the future of secondary education, “and it works”.It had better. This Government has committed itself to academies so deeply that it has committed its successor to them as well. Eighty-three have been built since 2005. Fifty more will open this year, 80 more next year and 100 more in 2010. As an infrastructure programme, but also as an educational innovation, academy-building already eclipses most initiatives of the past generation, and “academisation” is the likely fate of many of the 630 comprehensives identified by Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, as failing.So far, so good. In three short years the academy model has confounded many of its sceptics. It has shown that new buildings, a fresh ethos, close sponsor involvement and, above all, independence from direct local authority control, can transform the chances and attainment levels of pupils previously ill-served by the worst urban comprehensives.But the academy programme is in danger on two fronts. It is at risk - not suddenly, but gradually - of losing the very autonomy that distinguishes academies from comprehensives. As they become more widespread, the urge of Government is to exert greater control over them, deterring precisely the sponsors from businesses and universities that academies need to thrive. Ministers, meanwhile, are losing sight of this programme's most visionary goal, which is to transform secondary education not just for the underperforming few, but for the many.Today's report calls for an acceleration of academy-building beyond the current target of 400. Even without such an acceleration, academies will soon teach more pupils than all those represented at the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference of leading private schools. Almost all these pupils have moved from failing city schools to academies built specifically to replace them. Almost none come from comprehensives that are merely coasting. Academies, in other words, are being used as costly, targeted tools to fix very specific problems. There is an unfashionable cross-party consensus that they could do more. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Blairites within Government agree that a radical relaxation of rules on the supply of state-funded education would draw new providers into the academy system from both voluntary and private sectors. The Tories, in particular, speak of “an avalanche of philanthropy” worth billions of pounds, waiting only for guarantees of freedom from local authority meddling. More and broader provision would make a reality at last of competition and parental choice. It would also bring closer this Government's holy grail of wholesale middle-class defection from private to state-funded schools. But it will only happen if those schools are truly independent in terms of staffing and curriculum Such schools exist - in Sweden, where anyone can bid for public money for a school, and can profit from running it. They do not exist in Britain. Nor will any major party back the thorough deregulation of supply for fear of being branded privatisers. The Lib Dems come closest, but all should be bolder. More academies with more independence will not mean privatised education. It will mean choice for parents in Middle England as well as inner cities, and higher standards for all. Times

General | Secondary

EDUCATION: TOP JEWISH SCHOOL CLEARED OF DISCRIMINATING AGAINST PUPIL

7/4/2008 7:17:00 AM

The Guardian 4 July

Britain's top Jewish state school did not racially discriminate against an 11-year-old boy when it rejected his application on the grounds that his mother's conversion to Judaism was invalid, a high court judge said yesterday. Mr Justice Munby heard how the JFS, in north London, refused a place to the boy, known as M, because its religious authority ruled that the boy's mother had not converted to a branch of Judaism recognised by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR), which offers guidance to the school on a pupil or parent's Jewish status. The Orthodox movement insists the faith be passed through matrilineal descent. M's father was considered Jewish but his mother, who converted to Judaism after M's birth, was not. Dismissing the claims in a 73-page judgment, Munby said the heavily over-subscribed school was not breaking race discrimination laws by giving preference to children born to Orthodox Jewish mothers, adding it was a religious rather than a racial issue. "The core aim of JFS is to educate those whom it, in common with the OCR, considers to be Jews, irrespective of their practice or observance, and in an ethos which is avowedly Orthodox Jewish. That is JFS's aim and that, in my judgment, is in principle an entirely legitimate aim meeting a real need."Guardian

Lead Story | Secondary

EDUCATION: TOP JEWISH SCHOOL CLEARED OF DISCRIMINATING AGAINST PUPIL

7/4/2008 6:38:00 AM

The Guardian 4 July

Britain's top Jewish state school did not racially discriminate against an 11-year-old boy when it rejected his application on the grounds that his mother's conversion to Judaism was invalid, a high court judge said yesterday. Mr Justice Munby heard how the JFS, in north London, refused a place to the boy, known as M, because its religious authority ruled that the boy's mother had not converted to a branch of Judaism recognised by the Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR), which offers guidance to the school on a pupil or parent's Jewish status. The Orthodox movement insists the faith be passed through matrilineal descent. M's father was considered Jewish but his mother, who converted to Judaism after M's birth, was not. Dismissing the claims in a 73-page judgment, Munby said the heavily over-subscribed school was not breaking race discrimination laws by giving preference to children born to Orthodox Jewish mothers, adding it was a religious rather than a racial issue. "The core aim of JFS is to educate those whom it, in common with the OCR, considers to be Jews, irrespective of their practice or observance, and in an ethos which is avowedly Orthodox Jewish. That is JFS's aim and that, in my judgment, is in principle an entirely legitimate aim meeting a real need."Guardian

Secondary

NEW HURDLE FOR ACADEMY SCHOOLS

7/2/2008 8:20:00 AM

FT 2 July

All schools in Sheffield that want to become an academy or trust school will have to ballot local parents, in a national first announced by the Liberal Democrat council. This suggests academies, which have been bitterly opposed by many education experts and weighed down by a long and bureaucratic process of approval, could face yet another hurdle.The first ballot - both for Sheffield and for the country, according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families - will be for parents at Parkwood High School and its feeder schools. It is due to become an academy in September 2009.Andrew Sangar, councillor and cabinet member for children's services, acknowledged that plans for the Parkwood academy were so far advanced that even a No vote was unlikely to make a difference. He acknowledged that a No vote by parents could never be legally binding, because of national academies legislation. But Mr Sangar said that "in a more typical case", where a ballot was held and ended in a No before academy or trust plans were so well-advanced, "we would talk to the school and governing body, and say, 'we don't think at this time you should have one'".FT

Lead Story | Secondary

FIRST SELECTIVE SCHOOL AGREES A PARTNERSHIP WITH FAILING NEIGHBOUR

6/29/2008 9:27:00 AM

The Independent 28 June

A leading grammar school will become the first selective state school to sponsor a secondary modern which is gearing up to become one of the Government's flagship academies.The Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, will join forces with neighbouring Tunbridge Wells High School. The latter is on a government "hit list" of 638 failing schools which have fewer than 30 per cent of pupils passing five GCSEs at grades A* to C. Schools on the list are threatened with closure if they do not improve standards.Last week, the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, published government plans to raise performance, and highlighted the high percentage of secondary modern schools on the hit-list. Kent County Council, which still has an entirely selective system, had 33 schools on the list – the largest number of any local authority.Although Mr Balls made clear that he disapproves of selective education, he is keen to use grammar school expertise to improve secondary moderns.Independent

Secondary

REPORT REVEALS RISE IN GRAMMAR PUPILS AS CLASS DIVISIONS WIDEN

6/27/2008 7:10:00 AM

The Guardian 27 June

The number of pupils taught in grammar schools has increased by nearly a quarter in the past 10 years, according to government research that also suggests the state education system has become more segregated along class lines since Labour came to power.Some 156,800 pupils were taught in selective grammar schools last year - 28,000 more than in 1997.On average each of the 164 grammar schools has grown by 170 pupils.Since 1998 the government has promised no new grammar schools and legislated for communities to trigger a ballot to abolish selection locally.The schools secretary, Ed Balls, criticised grammars last week and said he did not support selection. He announced £1m for every low-performing secondary modern - schools which neighbour selective grammars - to form partnerships with other schools to raise standards.Guardian

Secondary

FAILING’ TAG SLASHES INTAKES

£35BN REVAMP WILL PRODUCE GENERATION OF MEDIOCRE SCHOOLS

SCHOOL BANS YOUTH SLANG AND SEES EXAM RESULTS SOAR

SIXTH FORMS’ CASH CRISIS

ACADEMIES FOR ALL

EDUCATION: TOP JEWISH SCHOOL CLEARED OF DISCRIMINATING AGAINST PUPIL

EDUCATION: TOP JEWISH SCHOOL CLEARED OF DISCRIMINATING AGAINST PUPIL

NEW HURDLE FOR ACADEMY SCHOOLS

FIRST SELECTIVE SCHOOL AGREES A PARTNERSHIP WITH FAILING NEIGHBOUR

REPORT REVEALS RISE IN GRAMMAR PUPILS AS CLASS DIVISIONS WIDEN

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