Academy heads pay the price for snap inspections
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ne in four academies have seen their headteachers depart during the past year – prompting fears of a leadership recruitment crisis.
WHITE PUPILS PERFORM AS WELL AS OTHERS
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The research, by UHY Hacker Young, a firm involved in auditing academy accounts, shows the figures are higher when it comes to secondary schools with nearly one in three heads leaving. The survey of 100 academies showed that while some of the departures were due to retirement, tougher inspections had led governing bodies to remove existing heads.
claim that standards in London schools only soared as a result of the capital’s ethnic mix is dismissed in A trial of “no-notice” inspections research released in February.
Analysis of the dramatic rise in exam passes shows white pupils’ performance improved just as much as any other ethnic group’s. The report, by the CfBT Education Trust, shows that a decade ago white pupils in inner London performed over four points worse that the rest of England. Now they are
Reported in the Independent on 23 February performing better by almost the same amount. Earlier analysis from Bristol University had concluded that lots of pupils from ethnic-minority groups was key to a successful school.
Boris backs Southwark Fire Station as a free school site
The Mayor of London is preparing to intervene in the sell-off of the former Southwark Fire Station to ensure that a new secondary ‘free school’ is opened at the Southwark Bridge Road site. A year since the Fire Station closed its doors, papers published on Friday 19 February show that the Mayor of London intends to use his power of direction to instruct the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority to accept a bid for the site that includes a new secondary school and housing even though it is not the highest cash offer.
resulted in 23 of the 40 schools inspected by education standards watchdog Ofsted being downgraded. UHY Hacker Young said the situation was putting potential heads off from applying for the top job – and could cause an imminent recruitment crisis. The figures come after the Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised that an incoming Conservative Government would look at transferring up to 3,500 schools that are considered by Ofsted to “require improvement” to academy status. Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the study “absolutely squares up with what we’ve been saying – increasing numbers of headteachers are losing their jobs”.
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HIGHSHORE LINKS WITH BUSINESS
Flexible term dates could spell cheaper holidays for parents
Families with school age children could benefit from cheaper holidays thanks to a majority of headteachers planning to immediately use new powers to change term dates to allow off-peak travel.
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ighshore School held its first business links networking lunch on Friday 6 February. People attending included local council members, business representatives from KPMG, Harrisons Caterers, IES Computing, Borough Market, Greensky and the South London gallery. Also represented were voluntary organisations such as Community Service Volunteers. Neighbours including St. John the Divine Primary School and Anish Kapoor Studios together with Governors, staff and parent representatives enjoyed an excellent buffet lunch all of which was prepared, cooked and served by Highshore pupils. This will become a termly event, where businesses can network with each other and see for themselves the difference that work experience programmes make to pupils.
Learn more about mental health and well being
Maudsley Learning is a Community Interest Company based in Southwark that supports and provides accessible learning in mental health and wellbeing. It is a subsidiary of the Maudsley Charity which is part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. There are two workshops taking place at its ORTUS learning and events centre in London. Strategy and planning day for school leaders - 23 March 2015 (09:30 - 15:30) This workshop explores ways of protecting young people’s mental health, considers mental health issues and sets direction on how to make a difference. Mental Health First Aid Youth - 27th-28th April 2015 (09:30-16:00) MHFA (Youth) is an internationally recognised course designed specifically for people who teach, work, live with or care for young people aged 8-18. Attendance on this two day course leads to certification as a Youth Mental Health First Aider certificated by MHFA England. Contact: Jonathan Price, Sales and Marketing Manager, Maudsley Learning on 020 3701 1641 or 075 5209 3372 www.maudsleylearning.com
The development follows a long running campaign by parents demanding the right to take their children out of school for term-time breaks. Holidays have been a contentious topic ever since the Government stopped headteachers from allowing pupils to skip classes. Holidays are around 40% more expensive during school breaks, and headteachers previously had the power to allow up to 10 days of term-time holiday. But a change to that rule in September 2013 resulted in a number of high-profile cases of parents controversially being fined or taken to court for attending family weddings or funerals. More than 60,000 families have been fined by councils for taking children out of school without approval and dozens of parents have been convicted by magistrates’ courts after refusing to pay penalty charges of £60 per child, rising to £120 if not paid within 21 days. From this September, however, headteachers will have the power to set holiday schedules – and a new study by The Boston Consulting Group suggests that almost 70% of headteachers intend to make immediate changes to schedules. More than 60% said they will consider changes to allow families to enjoy more affordable holidays and also help align school holidays to religious and cultural festivals.
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TEACHERS SAY THEY’RE OVERWORKED
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icky Morgan may regret asking teachers to tell her if they had any problems with their workload. Just three months after she made the request, the Education Secretary’s department has received 44,000 responses from teachers taking the opportunity to tell her they are working too many hours.
As well as familiar complaints about bureaucracy, target-setting and too many government initiatives, they also raised some more unusual issues: being required to mark different sections of a pupil’s work with different coloured pens, having to write detailed feedback notes in the books of pupils who were too young to read them, and being told to make recordings of any verbal feedback they had given to pupils in case of complaints. Ms Morgan and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, responded to the complaints by promising to give a year’s notice in future of any significant changes to the curriculum and qualifications. They also pledged not to make changes midcourse to qualifications. Education standards watchdog Ofsted – the source of many a grievance over workload – has undertaken to provide a simplified version of the handbook, which sets out what inspectors need to see when they visit a school. Ofsted also promised to hold a review of teachers’ workload every two years from 2016.
Check your emails
Nicky Morgan
Please ensure you check your emails regularly for communications from the Headteachers Executive. The mails invariably contain important information, but we know from the email monitoring that mails are being missed. If you have spam filters, make sure your Heads Exec mails are allowed.
What is private fostering? Private fostering is where a child is cared for, for 28 days or more by someone who is not a close relative.
It is vital that Southwark Council is notified whenever a child under the age of 16 (or 18 if they have a disability), is being privately fostered so that we can ensure the child is being looked after properly and offer help and support to the family. If you or your child is in a private fostering arrangement, or if you are aware of a child in a private fostering arrangement in Southwark, please notify us by emailing MASH@southwark.gov.uk or calling 020 7525 1921.
www.southwark.gov.uk/privatefostering
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PATH PROGRAMME RECEPTION Speech Bubbles WITH ROB WILSON, MINISTER FOR builds confidence CIVIL SOCIETY Tuesday 17th March 2015 from 3:45 pm—6:00pm at Microsoft Ltd, Cardinal Place, 80-100 Victoria Street, SW1E 5JL Headteachers are invited to a reception with Rob Wilson, Minister for Civil Society, introducing and celebrating The Path Programme. This special initiative is part of The Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund and partly funded by the Cabinet Office. The overall aim of the Path Programme is to ensure that any young person that wants to avoid being involved in or exit from a gang is able to do so safely. Starting in three London boroughs (Brent, Camden and Lambeth) we are working with local trusted community organisations, offering some funding to ensure that they are able to continue their vital role in offering support and guidance to young people. Beyond this, we’re also aiming to en-
Drama can improve children’s communication, confidence and wellbeing. Taking part in Speech Bubbles leads KS1 children to develop new skills.
sure that these local organisations can work together in a more formal way through local coordination work as we know this can be vital in unlocking more positive opportunities for the young people involved. We’re in the early days of this work but we’re excited to share with you what we have been doing so far and start further conversations about it.
“Major and very measurable improvements in speech language and communication, major positive changes in relationships with self and others and confidence and motivation back in class.” Dr Jonathan Barnes, Keynote speech to the International Society for Education in Art, June 2013. Speech Bubbles is now actively seeking schools who are interested in running Speech Bubbles in 2015-2016 academic year and will be running free taster sessions in March for Head Teachers, SENCOs and KS1 staff. If you’re interested in finding out more please contact Speech Bubbles on 020 7237 4434.
We believe that Southwark’s Got Talent and we are looking for stars from our schools to sing, act or play at our celebration dinner at the Hilton London Docklands Riverside in Rotherhithe on Friday 12 June. Anyone from your school can perform (staff or children) and we would love to showcase your art! At last year’s inaugural School Leaders Conference, delegates were treated to an outstanding set from Dulwich Wood school’s headteacher Colin Lavelle with his excellent electro folk band. So, we know there are people in our schools that can perform on stage as well as in school. Just contact Yolanda@headexec.com to put yourself or your school staff or pupils forward for their big chance to put on a show.
SEND US YOUR NEWS!
HEADS UP is published monthly during term time by Southwark Headteachers Executive. We would love to hear from you, so tell us your news:
Yolanda Houston T: 01797 364366 M: 07770 347616 E: yolanda@headexec.com
For all your information needs visit www.southwarkheads.org.uk