Standards Not Tiers

A selection of the comments received on the release of the Cabinet proposals contained in Paper B and the related appendices:

"Have a guess which proposed secondary school is the only one down to have Maths and Computing as its specialism post-reorganisation and to be the lead provider of diplomas in Science and Humanities? Answer: Christ the King. So basically, if your child is academically- minded you will have to be religious (or pretend to be) to access the specialist school. Where is the “parent choice” in that?       It’s in Appendix L of the cabinet paper. Check it out." Wendy

"I have looked at the responses you have had so far and completely agree that much of the document is misleading, untrue or meaningless. I only finished going through it yesterday but managed to submit a question for Monday's meeting a copy of which I'll include at the end of this. The rest of staff at Solent are still against the council's proposals and very saddened by apparent apathy amongst some of our middle school colleagues from the rest of the Island - all I can say is that it is no wonder our school is one of the most successful schools given the passion for what we are doing from our staff team - part of the reason it would be a crime for pupils and standards if such a team is ripped apart.

• Appendix B 3.6 Most of this is untrue! During the informal consultation, meetings were not minuted as they were informal so voiced opposition was not noted. The questionnaire did not allow people to choose to support the current system, yet we were told the questionnaire was the only way views would be counted at this stage.At these meetings Councillors told us the decision to reorganise was based on opinion and evidence from Education Officers. During formal consultation, whenever questions about the need to reorganise arose the Education Officers would not discuss these and said that was a policy decision and had already been made by councillors and these meetings were only to discuss the impact of the proposals. This paragraph clearly contradicts my experience. 
• Appendix C 3.23  If the direct performance of any school is the responsibility of governing body and headteacher why are they not shaking up any governing body and headteacher of schools which are not performing well and keeping those which have proven to be successful?  Also in this paragraph it says that " ...the Authority can remove significant constraints within the current school organisation to the achievement of high standards." What does this mean? If they mean middle schools how would they explain the success of some middle schools.
• Appendix C 3.24 refers to Appendix J as offering a detailed response to questions over standards. Appendix J does not really offer evidence it gives no indication of timescales, they have chosen only two Authorities and the links they give to their websites do not give much information. This paragraph also refers to KS1 tests which as we know are marked differently and can not be fairly compared with KS2.
• Appendix C 3.25 constraints of two transitions on progress - surely two gentle transitions equal in constraints to one huge transition - I know what I would rather for my children.
• Appendix C 3.31  The Authority claims to be closely monitoring the movement and morale of staff. How are they doing this ? It is certainly not by communicating with those of us who will be most affected! They claim the risk to staff morale is recognised and emphasise that the risks to jobs is limited. However to those of us who will be "redeployed" they have not made very clear how this will happen and the Unions are unable to offer much clarity because they are not being involved enough. There is also a very high risk to job satisfaction if you have the ideal job now.
• Appendix C 3.44 "A key advantage of the proposed move to [two tier] is that children can remain much closer to their immediate communities for another two years of their education." Surely this is countered by an extra two years at a secondary school likely to be further away.
• Appendix C 3.52 It is great that in the Council's view they have the resources, capacity and expertise to ensure the delivery of a new school organisation for the Island but why should anyone trust the Council's view given their appalling track record.
• Appendix J  20 "Sir Mike Tomlinson argued children were too young to transfer to secondary school at age of 9." This may be true but good Middle Schools are nothing like this - the point of the Middle School is to transfer gradually between a primary and secondary system with year 5 an 6 being more like primary.
• Appendix J 27 Refers to period between 1992 to 2006 and later states these authorities are making improvements at KS2. If they are making improvements this has taken some of them a long time since 1992. No indication of time scale is given. I don't want my children to miss it out because they will be out of the system by the time improvements are made.
• Appendix J 28 "...management of transition needs to be improved." So surely it is down to managing transition carefully not necessarily reducing number of transitions.
• Appendix J 29 RECRUITMENT  Good staff on the Island are good enough for leadership positions. School system has little to do with recruitment from mainland staff - more likely to be due to lack of jobs for partners if they are not teachers, and not being the sort of place young,single people would come unless have a particular attachment to area.
• Appendix J 29 SUMMARY " movement to a two tier system will enable improvements at KS2 and KS4." This is merely speculation and should not be stated as fact.
• Appendix J 29 "...we anticipate an improvement in outcomes for key performance measures." If their anticipation proves incorrect it is our children who suffer - will they be compensated?
• Appendix O 1.3 They talk of the importance of communication and that it is paramount child comes first. Communication has been very poor so far and they need to say how they are planning to ensure child comes first.
• Appendix O 1.4 "Early surveying of staff preferences in respect of possible transfer within any new system" We were not given the survey until July and the decision they made was in March!
• Appendix O 1.7  "Some degree of ring fencing in the appointment process will apply..." Vague, meaningless - what does it mean? Are our jobs safe or not? I current financial climate this is stress we do not deserve to have to put up with!
• Appendix O 3.3 This gives no help to Middle school staff who do not fit into a neat year group box. Many staff in a middle school teach some lessons in other year groups - what about part time staff, specialist staff such as music teachers who wish to move to primary? None of these people have been given any clue of how they fit into this transition timetable.
• Appendix O 3.8 "... staffing appointments will initially be ring fenced to the Island.." What if there are not enough jobs - small schools are being closed where one teacher has had a small class across several year groups - as they are abolishing this then there will be less teachers required.

"I want to phone in next time and say that the reason I welcome an independent body is because the council officers made such a shambles of the consultation. I don't trust David Pugh and I feel as if there is more to this than meets the eye, it's like Tales of the unexpected!" A mum from St Helen's

"I wonder what number of responses counts as "significant"? I can't believe I was the only one to speak up for Nodehill, but there was no "significant" response, apparently... Do you see your or SNT's views reflected in the paper?" From a West Wight parent

"The change from 3 to 2 tier was not up for discussion, Wells said so as did Beynon and Pugh, they all said that the decision had been made and was not to be discussed in the consultations." Parent from St Helen's

"Point 3.7. Hah!" Parent from Arreton

"The question of responses is interesting. For example, although my letter covered several general points, I specifically wrote in support of Nodehill, and was startled to see that only one letter is mentioned (aside from the staff & governor representation). I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one to include support for Nodehill in my letter. My friend has confirmed that he wrote. So just from one enquiry I know that their figure can't be accurate. Not all the points I made in my letter are reflected in the report, so far as I can see at first reading.

"I'd suggest everyone look at the analysis (Appendix C) to check if their own letters about individual schools tally with the reported number of letters. A very large number of schools appear to have had no letters of support from anyone at all.

"I have to say that parents I spoke to on October 10 were completely oblivious to the the formal consultation deadline. Some thought the whole process was on hold until after next year's local elections. Some thought the informal consultation was the formal consultation, ie the process was finished. So I'm not surprised that overall the responses have been limited. But I am surprised that even some of the threatened schools, where you would expect awareness to be greater, appear to have attracted no responses whatsoever. Can that be right?" West Wight Parent