Quote dr_feelgood="dr_feelgood"And now thanks to Gove's meddling it looks like NI and Wales will have a different examination system to England.'"
If he was in front of me now I think I would knock him out. It looks as though OFSTED have been briefed to ensure all non academy schools are deemed failed as soon as possible.
My daughter was informed at 10am yesterday that 3 OFSTED inspectors will be turning up at 8am today to do a 3 day inspection, targetting the SATS groups (SATS are this week as if they didn't have enough to contend with). They were given a list of things that the inspectors would need to see, which would include literacy and numeracy workbooks from 2 kids at, below and above the required levels, these books would have to be marked up and all paperwork complete up to finish of business yesterday.
Because these are not needed for this weeks SATS the teachers were going to do them over the half term closure (they no longer regard these breaks as holidays as they tend to work everyday of them), but she (and her colleagues) started to do them last night. At around 9:30pm her head teacher got in touch to say that the inspector in charge had rang to say that they now needed to see ALL numeracy and literacy workbooks at 8am along with a stack of other work that would generally not be required until after the next half term, which now means they will have to get into school at 5am to get this done.
Last year her school was given 'outstanding' status and my daughter was rated the same having averaged a 6 point improvement as an average across her kids, but because of the make up of the school very few had achieved 'expected levels' for their ages (over 70% are from overseas and have English as a second language, some of the girls from Islamic countries have had NO education whatsoever up until a few months ago). Gove has now changed the goalposts and ALL kids must be at the required level no matter what the circumstances, so my daughter will now be benchmarked against a teacher from a leafy, middle class suburb of Surrey and whose kids can probably read and write when they enter pre-school at the age of 4. Some of my daughters 6 year old hadn't heard a word of English until they enrolled at her school and a high percentage are in desperate need of an SEN assessment (which is refused most of the time).
She has been tapped up by a few schools where she would have an easier time of it in areas of mostly middle class families with little or no SEN needs, but she has always refused because she knows these kids she teaches need good teachers who care and she is reluctant to abandon them, but she fears that although they know they have maintained (or bettered) there standards since last year it is inevitable that they will be deemed a failing school under the new Gove directive and be forced (against the will of parents, teachers and governors) into academy status.
I am no educational expert, but I think Gove is a danger to the future of our kids, especially those at the bottom of the academic pile as these academies will be able to pick and choose who they want and a kid from a third world country who cannot speak a word of English and have some form of SEN such as autism will not be high on the agenda for a place.
