The Academy, Selsey rated inadequate by Ofsted

Sad news for The Academy, Selsey in West Sussex. 'Inadequate' Ofsted rating March 2013. It opened on 1 September 2011 as a sponsor-led academy, as a part of The Kemnal Academies Trust. This is yet more evidence that academy status does NOT improve standards or benefit our children.


Read full report here.

With threats and bribes, Gove forces schools to accept his phoney 'freedom'

Guardian, George Monbiot, 5th march 2013

Through its academies programme, the government is creating a novelty: the first capitalist command economy

So much for all those treasured Tory principles. Choice, freedom, competition, austerity: as soon as they conflict with the demands of the corporate elite, they drift into the blue yonder like thistledown.

This is a story about England's schools, but it could just as well describe the razing of state provision throughout the world. In the name of freedom, public assets are being forcibly removed from popular control and handed to unelected oligarchs.

All over England, schools are being obliged to become academies: supposedly autonomous bodies which are often "sponsored" (the government's euphemism for controlled) by foundations established by exceedingly rich people. The break-up of the education system in this country, like the dismantling of the NHS, reflects no widespread public demand. It is imposed, through threats, bribes and fake consultations, from on high.

The published rules looked straightforward: schools will be forced to become academies only when they are "below the floor standard ... seriously failing, or unable to improve their results". All others would be given a choice. But in many parts of the country, schools which suffer from none of these problems are being prised out of the control of elected councils and into the hands of central government and private sponsors.

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Dear Mr Gove: Michael Rosen's letter from a curious parent

Michael Rosen, The Guardian, 4th March 2013

How is having targets for four-year-olds 'improving children's lives'?

I see that the education select committee has asked you and your permanent secretary to reappear before them. I was surprised by your response: you seem to think that this is a waste of time. You wrote to the committee saying you were free to answer their questions: "Then, perhaps, the Department for Education team can get on with improving children's lives and you can consider where your own energies might be directed."

I had no idea that it was your job to tell the select committee what they should be doing. Isn't the idea of you telling others about how their "own energies might be directed" laughable?

I've been in several parts of the country that are reeling from the chaos of your top-down transformation of the structure of education. As was predicted, an academy can fail an Ofsted inspection. The problem is that you seem to think that turning a school into an academy is a cure and, following from that, you don't seem to have imagined a scenario in which the cure could fail or that the cure itself might ever need curing.

So what happens when an academy fails? Presumably, as your "energies" are "directed" towards this by the red light flashing on the map in your office, you as sole commander of Academy England issue instructions: "Switch sponsors! Chuck out AET, bring in Harris! Hang on, I sent Harris to that other place. How about a superhead? Any superheads around? No? Why not? No one wants to apply for the job? Tell the head in the next-door school, she's got to do the job or she's out on her ear. Federate!

"Now you're telling me that if she becomes superhead the deputy head doesn't want to be a stand-in head? OK, this is the plan: who's the local authority? Right, this might be tricky, but I want you to sidle up to them, tell them that I've never been against local authorities and see if they can ... er ... provide some assistance to this academy ..."

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Secret memo shows Michael Gove's plan for privatisation of academies

The Independent, Jane Merrick, 10th February 2013

Fresh from his GCSE U-turn, Education Secretary wants to start selling off state schools

The full extent of Michael Gove's plans to revolutionise education are revealed today in a secret memo showing he is considering outright privatisation of academies and free schools. All academies and free schools in England, which are the Education Secretary's personal obsession, would be free to become profit-making for the first time, and be entirely decoupled from Whitehall control.

Leaked documents of the minutes of a meeting of top Department for Education officials on the future of funding the academies programme have alarmed teaching unions and the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg last year ruled out any expansion of the private sector in state schools.

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Portslade academy - another controversy

Argus,  Peter Truman, 9th February 2013

Pupils told "don't come back"

A controversial head has been  accused of “wiping his hands” of  underperforming A-level students after  25 were told to leave midway through  their courses.
 

The pupils at Portslade Aldridge Community Academy’s sixth form have been  told they will not be welcomed back to  complete their courses in September.
 

Instead bosses said they would find  them places at other colleges in the city where they would be “better served”.

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Worthing Herald front page news

Good to see Worthing Herald giving this scandal the coverage it deserves in this week's issue, Thursday 7th February.

Linda McVeigh, parent at the school, feels the school has "hit rock bottom" and points out that "the pursuit of academy conversion is a costly distraction and that structural change does not lead to better results". 

The damning Ofsted investigation took place just days after the school was granted academy status.

Argus: Worthing school falls into special measures

The Ofsted report will be published tomorrow, 5th February. Current parents at the school have been invited to attend a briefing at the school on 7th, although Chair of Governors, Tony Cohen, will not be present. Pre-submitted questions will be addressed but not questions from the floor.

We are sure that parents have many questions and concerns to raise for the governors' attention and would encourage you all to submit these as soon as possible.



Argus, 3rd February 2013

A high school has been put into special measures after a damning report by inspectors.

A team from Ofsted said Worthing High School, which has just become an academy, was failing to help pupils achieve their potential.

Inspectors rated Worthing High as inadequate, the lowest level possible, in three out of four categories while the fourth was rated as “requires improvement” – the second lowest level.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for the school refused to comment until the inspection report was officially published on the Ofsted website on Tuesday at 9am.

She said headteacher Carolyn Dickinson would also not discuss the issue.

West Sussex county councillor Bob Smytherman called for the governors of the school to resign and said they should “hang their heads in shame”

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