Guest blog by ‘Pamela Stephenson-Connolly’
For
those who like closure in their stories these are frustrating times. With only
2 weeks of the school year left it has been announced that, due to illness,
Copland’s final Ofsted inspection visit will not now take place. This will mean
that the HMI’s written report of the
visit may have to be put back on the shelf for a while. This is quite
unnecessary, however, as the 3 reports published after earlier visits this year
indicated that the actual inspections had little influence on the final
reports, the content and assertions of
which were overwhelmingly determined by the DfE/Ofsted’s pre-written narrative
of which the reports simply formed a
part. LINK to http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/copland-is-getting-goves-reverse-trojan_11.html
The
nature of the narrative arc was set in the first Ofsted report this year (‘the
interim headteacher and associate headteacher and very strong governance of the
IEB are driving change well’) and it soon became clear that the reports’
principle purpose was to portray the
‘saving’ of a school by Gove, his ‘useful idiots’ Pavey, Marshall, John, Price
and the rest of the IEB, through forced
academisation, ‘tough’ but necessary action, (60 staff and half the curriculum
axed), and finally the salvation that would be The Ark Rescue (and thence
onward ultimately to privatisation). The report on the final inspection, now
postponed, would have provided the climactic instalment.
There
are some, however, who are sceptical about the official reasons given for the
cancellation of the inspection and support their case by reference to the tone
of fevered over-excitement in the last report in March ( ‘We can see hope now.’ This new-found
optimism is palpable!’ etc). These sceptics contend that this March report in
fact read more like the climax (‘richer quality of
learning…yes!…rigour…yes!…challenge…yes!…more this, more that…...yes yes!… more rigour still…. yes yes!….best practice…yes yes
yes!………..cutting edge……more more more! …….yes yes yes! …ooooohhh ……’ etc) and that the inspectors reached this climax
too early. In a kind of Ofsted premature ejaculation they came too soon to what
they should have delayed until later, ie the final triumphant inspection report
written to justify the whole year’s evisceration of the school, its curriculum,
its staff and its soul. The inability to defer gratification left Ofsted with
nothing left in the tank for the final report, hence the cancellation.
The
rumour surrounding this theory now joins a litany of other half-believed
stories which have circulated in recent months at the school. Here’s a sample.
Rumour 1. Subject: No Ofsted Inspection (Alternative
explanation 1)
According
to this one, after the Trojan Horse fiasco, nobody believes Ofsted anymore and
Copland’s new owners, Ark, didn’t want
their new property tainted by association. Ark wide-boy and Tory party
contributor Lord Fink had a word with Cameron who told Gove, ‘No inspection or
I’ll unleash Theresa May on you and you stay on the naughty step for another
month’. ‘Sorted, Dave’, was apparently
Gove’s reply.
Rumour
2. Subject: New School House Names
Apparently, the Ark functionary who decided to impose the
name Harold M.Elvin Academy on the new school is determined to continue this
theme in other areas. Accordingly, the new school house names are to be
similarly influenced by stars of 1970s Philly Soul and will be called
Delphonics, Stylistics, O’Jays, Spinners, Trammps, Sweet
Sensations
Plans to change the boys’ school uniform to wide-lapelled
velvet jackets, flares and platform shoes with contrast laces and to adopt
‘Betcha By Golly Wow’ as the school motto were considered a step too far, however.
(The proposal for
‘Backstabbers’ to be the Leadership Team Motivational Song for the new Ark era
was nevertheless accepted unanimously).
Rumour 3. Subject: No Ofsted Inspection (Alternative
Explanation 2)
This
rumour claimed that the final Ofsted inspection would, in fact, still take
place and it would be on Thursday 10th July when almost all the
staff would be on strike and the school would be closed to students. An
inspection of an empty school would achieve 2 objectives. Firstly, the
incidence of pupil misbehaviour would be substantially less. (The March Ofsted
report’s claims that ‘behaviour is much improved and the school is a more
respectful place…’ were laughed at by
staff who know the reality. ‘The worst it’s ever been’ was what I was told by
one experienced teacher in a position to know and with no axe to grind. Hardly
surprising when support staff, student supervisors and an entire mentoring
department have been scrapped this year and the remaining hard-pressed staff
regularly receive messages asking them to help out ‘as we are rather understaffed
today’. No kidding!).
The
second reason to visit on a strike day would be so that the HMI could see at
first hand one great growth area at Copland which is a direct result of the
IEB/Marshall regime. Up until last September Copland’s annual loss of teaching
days through strike action averaged less than 1 day per year. This year, since
the imposition of IEB/Marshall, that figure has improved by about 800% year on
year. Having shot their bolt over teaching and learning standards in the March
report, Ofsted could have at last begun to retumesce on this one great sign of
progress. ( ‘We can see solidarity now. The new-found disillusionment and
militancy is palpable!’). It would have made enjoyable reading.
Copland
will close next Wednesday and that’s not a rumour. None of the staff forced out
over the last year have received any kind of recognition from IEB/Marshall: no
leaving ceremonies, no presentations, no collections, no leaving speeches, no
spoken thanks, no written communications of gratitude for their contribution.
Nothing. Instead, those taking ‘voluntary’ redundancy have received a letter
which begins with the sensitive formulation: ‘I write to confirm your dismissal
from the services of the school on the grounds of redundancy’.
In a
way this is a fitting end to a decline which began with Ofsted failing Alan
Davies’s Copland on Safeguarding. (Failing to safeguard the students, that is,
not the public funds in the school budget. Ofsted had been quite happy with
Davies/Evans/Patel’s financial management of the school, as had Brent Council.
It was the staff who blew the whistle on the £2.7 million scam and the staff
who suffered the consequences: a series of clueless appointments at senior
management level (with new managers primed by Brent to regard the staff as ‘the
problem’), and a refusal by Brent either to pursue the missing money or to
balance this refusal by acknowledging its responsibility for the resulting
budget deficit).
So
it goes. For the moment, the city boys, the privatisers, the self-seeking
‘non-political’ careerists and the bullshitters are in the ascendancy. Schools
as exam-grade factories will dominate for a while. But they’re only a
manifestation of a particular point on the greater narrative arc of our
society. If Copland’s teachers have achieved anything in the school’s varied
and mostly honourable history it will have been to have helped produce kids who
will grow into adults who will appreciate the limitations of this essentially
sterile ‘vision’ and come together to do
something positive to change it.
I
wonder where that would feature in an Ofsted inspector’s checklist of teacher
achievements.
