School governors and academies

Lovely message from him last night as I was making fun of Grandad and his pessimism, and he texted back " Grandad could go to the moon and back I love him"

Getting there!!!

Text him with good morning and upbeat message about how good he will feel this afternoon having achieved the thought that he has done his best in the exam, and he texted back saying he rather thought he might be a 4 ?

We are in text contact now so he's set up a code as to how he's feeling. 1 for utterly dreadful and 10 for delirious.

He's at a 3 at the moment which seems an improvement on this afternoon. So I feel marginally better.
Exams all week and next, so hopefully after that his rating will rise!!!! Honestly you think you've done your job once your children leave home!

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Same as my middle granddaughter, whitewave.
She ended up giving up one of her best subjects because it was taking up far too much time. She was expected to get an A* in it, but all her other subjects were feeling the pressure. She's happier now - or was the last time we spoke.
On top of that, there's the pressure of going to interviews at 6th form college when all the time should be spent on GCSEs.
It's time the schools rebelled against all this top down pressure.

There does seem to be something wrong with the system. I've just come back from visiting DD. Eldest GS is usually a happy confident young man. But instead the last couple of times we have seen him he has been busy holding back tears and utterly miserable panicking about exams. He is a year off GCSEs or whatever they are called these days. His life seems completely full of exams month after month. It seems the pressure is ridiculous, and apparently he is not the only one feeling like it. DD is in contact with other parents and they dont all go to the same school and she hears story after story, of really bright children refusing to go to school, children self harming, etc. What ever is going on?

AS an onlooker from abroad I can hardly believe what is going on now in schools, what is planned to happen and how that will be controlled in a way that makes education for the nation's children better than it is today or was yesterday.

DH came to the North West in 1990 to oversee the teaching in N.W.England of German and to help the teachers and the LEA. he cost nothing and was paid by the German Foreign Office. He lectured in Manchester, Stockport and at Chester College. We stayed for 5 years and during that time I met some people from Offstead etc at cocktail parties. One told me that to get my education (a Sheffield grammar school) I would have to pay quite a lot nowadays.
DH saw many school buildings in bad repair but was over whelmed by skill of the teachers and their enthusiasm in day to day teaching inspite of broken windows in classrooms.
Reading this long thread I am appalled at what the government plans for future education and am certain on one thing. In 50 years I doubt if the receivers of this schooling will be able to write such perfect English and to express themselves so well as the contributors to this thread!
Do we not need a Labour government next time?

It really makes me want to weep. The most important thing we can do is to bring up happy and confident young people, but the system that educates them is in chaos.

It blows my mind how the politicians can think they know better than professional teachers what is best for the children. Their persistent meddling and micro-managing is wrecking the whole system.

Not surprising whitewave when you consider that when Gove became secretary of state for education he banned local authorities from planning any new schools. His bright idea was indeed that "free schools" would provide the needed places in future. He must have blithely waved aside any objections such as "will the places be in the right areas?" "won't it be difficult to find suitable buildings?" and approved all kinds of groups to start free schools in all sorts of unsuitable accommodation (such as office building on a business park right next to a motorway). The main difference between a "free school" and an "academy" is that academies were basically existing schools, reopened with the same staff but a new name. Free schools were starting from scratch with no building, no staff, no pupils and no equipment. So a great deal of money was spent providing relatively few places. There have been some notable failures.
www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/15/legal-battle-why-free-schools-succeed-and-fail
The children who were being conceived back then now need school places. LAs were able to do some planning based on the number of births in the area - and knew roughly the number of places needed 4-5 years ahead. That was sabotaged by Gove.

It is nonsense - and nonsense that nobody voted for as it was not in the Tory manifesto- to insist all schools are forced to become academies. Why should a good school be disrupted when there is no evidence whatsoever that academies perform better overall?

It is even more absurd to remove the requirement for parent governors. Some years ago our local comprehensive did not have a single parent on the governing body. The governors all sent their own children to private schools, as did all the Tory councillors on the Education Committee. The school was very deprived of resources and our county had the worst pupil/teacher ratio in the country.

As they retired they were replaced by a new team of governors, most of whom were parents (not just the two who were elected as parent governors). At the same time the LIberals took control of the County Council and prioritised education, perhaps because many LIberal councillors also had children in their local schools. The result was a dramatic improvement.

I believe we need governors who are demonstrably committed to the success of the school - and what better way to demonstrate that than to send your own children there?

When my grandson was in primary school, he took the SATS along with the rest of his class as the staff did not want him to feel left out.
He actually got a grade in maths. The staff were so proud of him, but it was his fantastic one to one TA that helped him all the way through.
English was a write off though.
I agree with whoever said that if she had children in SATS year, they would be ill that week. Hopefully by the time my granddaughter reaches year 6, SATS will be a thing of the past.

Headlines this morning

40000 shortfall in school places.

Government says these will be filled by free schools.

What planet are they on?

The whole system is in disarray. Some examples (speaking as a school governor):

- teachers are sick of SATs and feel it is destroying true education and is forcing them to compromise their professionalism.
- primary schools (especially in rural areas) are chronically underfunded.
- OfSted is under so much pressure that they cannot do their jobs properly. The situation I inherited as a governor was a failed link with an academy (as requested by the government) and falling standards. Over the last two years we have revamped the management and turned the school right round, so that it is regarded as an excellent school by educationalists in the locality. But the previous OfSted rating still stands because they do not have enough staff to do another inspection - so the inaccurate and misleading assessment sits out there in the ether till they get around to visiting.
- SATs are a fiasco - I hear children in the top class read each week and I know that some of them would be hard pushed to even read the questions on the SATs papers, let alone understand them, as there is a large group of young people with special needs there. We are working hard to help them to achieve what is appropriate to their abilities and to feel proud of those achievements - enter SATs stage left to make them feel like failures.

Oh I could just go on and on.... it is a farce. Nitwits in Whitehall are pushing through their own back-of-the-envelope ideas and those at the coalface who have the best interests of the children at heart and really know about education are rapidly losing heart. I am still incandescent with rage at NM wagging her finger at one of the teaching unions and telling them to stop moaning and highlighting the negatives, and be proud of their profession - they were once proud Nicky, they were - but no more.

I reckon she is getting pushed from elsewhere. She used to work for Osborne before she was promoted. Osborne wants to cut the amount of funding for state education. This is part of his grand plan to cut all public expenditure and so cut taxes for the affluent.
So first get rid of the local education authorities, then snip away at the funding for schools. Primary schools have always relied on funds from local governments to fund any major building repairs or replacements. Those of us who remember the Thatcher years may also remember the desperate state of school buildings by 1997.

Almost certainly be a u- turn. Next they will be saying that we are a listening government as an excuse for the the u - turns they have done.?

The resignation has made it into the Guardian.
And look at this article from someone who runs an academy chain.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/16/teacher-shortages-of-greater-concern-than-full-scale-academisation

Ready for the next big u-turn?
Also ready for Nicky Morgan to say it's not a u-turn as it was just a white paper for discussion?
I wonder if she will learn her lesson.

Djen - I saw that head's letter on Facebook. The second paragraph describing the 'setting up to fail' truly shocked me. Cruel, abusive and near criminal is how I read it. AIBU?
After many years I have given up marking KS2 English SATs as they are now soul destroying, every spark of creativity crushed as children jump through hoops.

49% of teachers want to leave.

A greater percentage of doctors want to leave the NHS.

This is a government that never listens to ordinary people, despite the number of times they have said they will listen and learn.

I hope many more heads follow that head's lead. They have had problems recruiting heads for a long time.

I have yet to meet a teacher who regards SATs as a good thing for education. It is beyond my understanding why they do not boycott them - they can't sack all the teachers!

If I had children in primary school now, they would definitely be sick on SATs day.

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14431604.Primary_school_headteacher_resigns_in_protest_of_SATS_exams__setting_children_up_to_fail_/?ref=mr&lp=5

A head has resigned in protest at SATs, and all the parents and teachers interviewed support him.
They say they are worried that education is going to be run by businessmen rather than people who understand education.
I have never understood why businessmen want to run schools.
What do they get out of it?

You can still get HR, finance, legal and property services from the LA....but.........you have to pay for them in the form of Service Level Agreements that the govs choose to buy in to. And they cost-a-load! But not to be skimped on!

You get money given with one hand and then taken away with another.

Good idea. I once sat on an appeal as a favour to the LA. The primary school admin officer had been sacked. The whole governing body had debated the matter !!!
So 2 of us from other schools gave up a day and a half to hear it. We upheld the appeal. This was possible because the LA had a very good governor support team who knew governors across the borough and knew the strengths and weaknesses of the individual GBs and knew many of the individuals. They supported governing bodies through headship recruitment and organised training. They also sent out email updates on changes to legislation etc to all governors. Many of these teams will have already disappeared and the rest will go.

You can now borrow governors from other schools to join in such panels. We have an agreement with another local school to do this if ever required.

Yes that would be a stretch *Penstemmon". You need 7 to follow a disciplinary route with a staff member. One Chair to act as a listening ear for head. 3 for initial hearing. different 3 for an appeal. Exclude the ones who have personal knowledge of the events/staff member and you can rapidly find yourself struggling for numbers.
I remember one parent governor who put herself forward (there was never an election due to lack of interest) - it became apparent quite soon that she had limited literacy.

Re Church Schools: The local Diocese Education Board has set up an Academy Trust Board and this now runs a number of primary schools and a secondary school.

On the GB (not church school) where I am chair we have three parent governors: a barrister, a finance director and a person who runs their own international energy business. In addition there are 3 co-opted: me (educational professional) , a person who runs their own PR /comms business and a local historian/artist (& eccentric!) and a LA appointee who works in an HR department of a media company and is a local town councillor. There is also a teacher and the headteacher. The 10 of us struggle to cover all that is expected despite all being fairly well educated/used to being busy /reading complex documents etc. If we had fewer governors I am not sure how the work would be covered!

You'll probably find that faith schools are given special treatment. Blair and Cameron both terribly keen. They are already, in effect, a kind of academy, with the religious organisation being the "sponsor".
In middle-class areas the governors with special skills tend to come from... the parent body. People with a managerial or professional background are certainly needed if the GB is to be anything other than a box ticking chore for the head. One of the biggest contributions I used to make was in HR as the Head had little training in this area, and many tricky issues to deal with. The first head I worked with, when asked "Where are your personnel policies" looked around his office in bemusement and then pointed to a row of dusty lever-arch files and said he supposed they were them. The next head was rather impulsive and many times I said to him "Have you read the policy ? It's there to cover your arse as well as protect the staff member. Now follow it to the letter"
My knowledge was also handy on the two occasions when I had to chair an appeal panel (we sacked 2 teachers - a big deal for a bunch of volunteers) .
You also need at least one person with a senior management/financial background who can scrutinise the accounts and ensure that everything is being done properly. (my friend was a governor in a primary where the head did not want governors to see the accounts before the meeting in which they had to be signed off...) Budgets in bigger schools can be several million per year.
It would also be useful to have someone who knows something about buildings and their management.
So this is one of the few things I agree with NM about - you do need these kinds of skills. The problem comes in schools where the parent body doesn't have those skills. Not many people who dont have kids in a school willing to give up the necessary time.
In the good old days the head had backup in the LA - their HR experts, their legal team (I did speak to them once when dealing with a complex complaint by a parent) their finance team, their estates dept (who could advise on buildings - like the night the school concert was interrupted with then news that contractors had discovered a serious structural defect in all the corridors- I thought someone had died when the head and I were called out - and it was the authority's estates manager who'd turned out at 9pm ) and so on.
The LA were up the road and could pop in if needed. An academy sponsor may have some of these skills but they may be in an office 6 counties away.