This in from Island resident and parent, Wendy Varley. Ed
As the mum of an 11-year old who’s due to move up to secondary school in September, I’ve been reading recent Ofsted reports on Isle of Wight schools with some trepidation. Cowes Enterprise College, Sandown Bay Academy and Carisbrooke College failed their inspections and are all in Special Measures, and will receive frequent Ofsted monitoring until they improve. Medina College “Requires Improvement”, and will be re-inspected within two years. (There is no longer any “Satisfactory” rating, by the way; a school that passes its Ofsted inspection either “Requires Improvement”, is “Good”, or “Outstanding”.)
Ryde Academy had its Ofsted visit last week and the outcome will be known in a few weeks.
Christ the King College was inspected in July 2012 and received a “Good” rating. It also got a good set of GCSE results last year. (Cue a scramble for places at a school that can select 90% of its pupils on religious grounds if it becomes oversubscribed. I predict a rise in the Island’s church congregations.)
A cluster of failing schools
Prior to the reorganisation, the Isle of Wight had no failing schools; now we have a cluster of them, though it must be pointed out that Ofsted’s goalposts have moved in the meantime. Schools get just one day’s notice before inspectors descend, inspections are short and sharp, and the judgement criteria have been tightened up.
Whatever, the stark truth is that, post-reorganisation, most Islanders do not have access to a “good” state secondary school, at least as defined by Ofsted.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel, though? I say yes. And I’ll explain why in a minute.
The background
But first, a recap on how we got into this sad state.
Back in 1998 when I first moved to the Island with my family, its GCSE results were about average compared to national figures, and most children attended their catchment-area school, so there was a full mix of abilities. I liked that set-up.
It was a refreshing change from the London borough we’d left behind, where parents obsessed over where their children would go at 11, vying to get them in to church schools; grammar schools in a neighbouring borough; or comprehensive schools a couple of miles down the road which were reputed to be marginally better than the ones right on their doorstep. Some, if they could afford it, bypassed the state system altogether and went private.
I felt lucky and relieved to be moving right away from that manic scramble for school places.
Good experience for daughters
My triplet daughters spent two years at an Island middle school, then went on to the nearest high school (deemed “good” by Ofsted in 2008), where they were happy and did very well. They all went on to attend leading universities. I had few complaints.
My son was born on the Island and started at our local primary school in 2006, just before the Council resurrected a simmering debate about the future of the middle schools. I had hoped that, if the reorganisation to a two-tier system did go ahead, with one change of school at 11, instead of two at ages nine and 13, things would have settled down by the time we applied to secondary.
The promises of school reorganisation
I sat through the Council’s Powerpoint presentations at consultation meetings, and saw the photos of “21st-century learning environments” – the sort we might have if the island took this “unmissable” opportunity to revamp our schools, bring them in line with the rest of the country (most places have a two-tier system), and simultaneously “raise educational standards”. These were the carrots that were dangled.
Parents knew it would not be so straightforward. Those who remembered the last big reorganisation during the 1970s, when the middle schools were introduced, pointed out how the transition years of that overhaul had blighted their education.
The reorganisation got the go-ahead in 2008, but the government’s new rules applied, in which the local authority could be a commissioner of schools instead of running them itself. The old high schools morphed into “new” secondaries: they were deemed new because of the increase in the age range they were providing for. Paradoxically, primary schools were allowed to add two extra years without becoming “new”, so nearly all are still run by the Council.
Out of council hands
Bidders were sought, and decisions made. Ryde and Sandown would become academies run by Essex-based Academies Enterprise Trust (AET). Cowes would be run by a local trust and become Cowes Enterprise College (CEC). Carisbrooke and Medina would remain separate schools but would federate, and be run by a different local trust, IIT (Island Innovation Trust), and have a joint sixth form (now at the old Nodehill building in Newport).
But around the time the schools were divvied up, the government axed the Building Schools For the Future (BSF) programme, and bang went the prospect of the island having gleaming new secondaries any time soon. The only one to be rebuilt immediately would be Cowes Enterprise College, which had already secured funding via a different route.
And so, our “new” secondaries opened in their existing buildings in September 2011, taking in not just one new year group, but three, due to the closure of the middle schools.
The result
It’s no surprise that all this had repercussions. Results slid, and in 2012 the Isle of Wight brought up the rear of the GCSE league tables.
And Cowes Enterprise College, which does have a £32 million new building waiting, still hasn’t moved into it.
Interestingly, Christ the King was the only school that was allowed to evolve without outside interference, being a merger of Trinity Middle and Archbishop King Middle schools. The head of Trinity remains CtK’s headteacher. I think there’s probably a lesson in there somewhere. There’s something to be said for continuity.
But from the perspective of a parent choosing a school for their child for September 2013, this has presented a challenge. And I sympathise hugely with those pupils who’ve already suffered some disruption to their education during the transition.
But I’m optimistic
So why am I now feeling more optimistic?
- Firstly, because my local primary school handled the reorganisation better than I could have hoped. My son has flourished there and achieved well. If that is being replicated in most schools across the island, then the primary end of the experiment is looking promising, and those pupils moving up to secondary in September have the potential to do very well.
- I haven’t visited all secondary schools, as we live nearest to Newport, so we focused on Carisbrooke, Medina and Christ the King. But when we looked round, my son and I liked the look of them. ALL of them. Despite the varied Ofsted verdicts they’ve had, they’ve all got real strengths. And I genuinely think that visiting schools is the best way to gauge which one will suit your child.
- Ofsted reports have commented on the lack of training and support given by the local authority during the reorganisation to middle school teachers who were taking up places in the new secondaries in 2011. And similarly, some of the high school teachers were not properly prepared for teaching year 7 and 8 pupils. But schools have now done lots to put that right.
- After several unsettling changes at the top, the headteacher vacancy at Carisbrooke College was filled permanently in January by an inspiring leader, who Ofsted suggests is pulling things together very quickly.
- Ofsted has recognised the good leadership and recent improvements at Medina College. It is especially good for music and performing arts. (If you’re in any doubt, go and see one of their school productions or their choir or ukulele orchestra in action.)
- Plans are afoot for Hampshire County Council to oversee children’s services and education on the island. Far from being upset at the prospect, teachers I’ve spoken to have said they’d welcome it. They’re crying out for our schools to have robust support and encouragement, having felt let down by IW Council.
- Finally, even the poor Ofsted judgments are a benefit if they serve as a wake-up call to everyone involved in our schools: leaders, teachers, parents and pupils. And it seems to me that’s what’s happening. Whatever the myriad problems of the reorganisation, we need urgently to put them behind us and crack on with making our schools work well for our children. After all, what alternative is there?
I think it can be done. I’m ready to do my bit by supporting my child at school.
I’m looking forward to September.
Image: Veronique Debord under CC BY 2.0
