The Michael Gove File

[spanglechick]

This is rather wonderful.

 

[eatmorecheese]

This is rather wonderful.

Wonderful

 

[existentialist]

This is rather wonderful.

Widely shared.

 

[Orang Utan]

That's great. Good on her. If she had worked in my school, my head would have made Ms Green dye her hair and take out that ring.

 

[spanglechick]

That's great. Good on her. If she had worked in my school, my head would have made Ms Green dye her hair and take out that ring.

heh - i get away with my vertical strip, and we're very corporate (she would't be allowed the rest of her outfit). The nose ring though... must be a very trendy school.

 

[Orang Utan]

I'm supposed to wear a tie and jacket even if it's hot.

 

[DotCommunist]

nice dig at osbournes infamous coke-bowl photo in that.

 

[spanglechick]

i like the bit about how redrafting isn't cheating:it's editing - and even war and peace would be a very different novel if it hadn't had at least one quick going over.

 

[existentialist]

I know this isn't specifically about Michael Gove, but this is a thread that I know harbours a serious contingent of teaching staff...

I'd like to invite the teachers on here to share a moment of solidarity with my colleagues in the Pupil Referral Unit, who found out yesterday that the county council is closing the unit and making them all redundant from September.

This is a group of staff who have done a thankless task, looking after the kids the schools weren't able - or were unwilling - to "hold", and working with an incredibly challenging client group with warmth, compassion, and a level of care way beyond the call of duty. This was my first gig as a schools counsellor, and I came in after another counsellor had comprehensively botched the whole thing: despite that, and their understandable suspicions about another do-gooding counsellor type coming in and telling them how to do their jobs, they gave me the benefit of the doubt, and we began to work collaboratively and really productively together. They "got" that I could be part of what they were doing, and that they could also be part of what I was doing. They were prepared to learn from what I could show them, and I learned a lot from them: it has to be one of the most mutually valuing and collaborative experiences I have enjoyed in my entire 30+ years' working life.

And now, not only are they thrust into a situation where their future prospects - many of them are in their late 40s or older and highly unlikely to find a relevant post anywhere in the area - are deeply uncertain, but they have to stand by as their students, troubled, damaged, often violent, and hugely challenging, are thrown back into the maelstrom of mainstream education. They know, as do I, that for all their aggression and bravado, most of those kids are unsure of themselves, self-doubting, and very, very used to failure - something they know they are doomed to back in the mainstream, in classes where the staff simply don't have the time to dedicate to the kind of close one-to-one attention they will need.

So, yet another service, until now so valuable in bringing out the best in a group of kids that the system had written off - they even opened a PRU sixth form, for heavens' sake! - has been sacrificed on the altar of short-term cost savings and a one-size-fits-all education system that actually doesn't fit anybody.

Those teachers' dedication and commitment has been, blatantly, disrespectfully, and coldly, thrown back into their faces. It is disgusting.

And spare a thought, too, for the teachers in the schools to which those kids will be sent. Their job, challenging enough as it is, just got a whole lot more difficult.

So perhaps this isn't all that off-topic for the thread, after all - straitjacket education policies, and teachers being expected to do the impossible. Michael Gove, you clearly have your admirers. Well done.

 

[spanglechick]

oh FFS! that's terrible.

 

[existentialist]

oh FFS! that's terrible.

And it is not the half of it. I have to be careful what I say, but my employer hired a bully in June last year as head of the service - a bully whom it took 8 years to get rid of from her last post, and whose colleagues celebrated her departure with a champagne party.

She has bullied the behavioural support service to within an inch of its life, and she is in the process of eviscerating the counselling service. And it is not what she is doing that is so bad, but the way it is being done - with intransigence, lies (yes, lies), divide-and-rule policies, bullying, and a cold and completely unvaluing and uncaring attitude towards the skilled and dedicated professionals in her department.

Indeed, one of the reasons that I am breaking the habit of a lifetime by not resigning by dancing on her desk singing the "fuck you" song is because I actually want to do her as much professional harm as I can, and I can only do that by hanging on as long as I can. I think they already have the knives out for me - I am sure they know who the mouthpiece of our service is, and they will be watching me like a hawk for anything they can bust me on. I'm watching them like a hawk, too, though, and I don't plan on going without at least a bit of a fight. No compromise agreements for me, thanks all the same

I don't have kids of my own, and I never thought I would. But I suddenly find myself with a "family" of a hundred or two of the little sods , and I love them dearly. And I hate what is being done to them. And what is being done to the people who, like me, feel a sense of personal and professional duty to them.

 

[savoloysam]

Top rappin

 

[existentialist]

Top rappin

Har, is that like "cool story bro?"

 

[savoloysam]

Har, is that like "cool story bro?"

Just needs some beats and it's a hit!

 

[existentialist]

Just needs some beats and it's a hit!

Yeah, I can see what you mean. I think it works pretty well beatsless, though - she doesn't hammer the rap/poem into a rhythm, and I like that.

 

[Orang Utan]

Great posts existentialist - there's no doubting your love and your dedication. Glad you're hanging on. We need people like you not the bullies and drones

 

[StoneRoad]

existentialist - that's insane.
Closing the PRU is going to waste more money than it would save.
Those kids and mainstream schools don't mix, already proven by them being in the PRU. So putting them back before they are ready would just not work - probably doing more harm overall.

 

[gaijingirl]

existentialist - I liked your post for the passion. I see this sort of thing happening a lot and thank goodness for people like you. Such a sad post - so terrible for your colleagues.

 

[Dr Jon]

And it is not the half of it. I have to be careful what I say, but my employer hired a bully in June last year as head of the service - a bully whom it took 8 years to get rid of from her last post, and whose colleagues celebrated her departure with a champagne party.

She has bullied the behavioural support service to within an inch of its life, and she is in the process of eviscerating the counselling service.

Sounds like an ideal candidate for a tab of acid and a handful of laxatives in her coffee?

 

[existentialist]

Sounds like an ideal candidate for a tab of acid and a handful of laxatives in her coffee?

Don't tempt me...

 

[existentialist]

existentialist - that's insane.
Closing the PRU is going to waste more money than it would save.
Those kids and mainstream schools don't mix, already proven by them being in the PRU. So putting them back before they are ready would just not work - probably doing more harm overall.

They went to the heads a week or two ago, with handfuls of risk assessments, and said "would you have these pupils back?". To a man/woman, they said "no".

Those kids are going to go back into mainstream education with a sword of Damocles hanging over them - they will be presumed to be exclusion-ready, and the slightest infraction will, I am sure, have them off school premises so fast their feet won't touch the ground. Partly, perhaps, because the heads and senior management will feel alienated by the fact that their wishes, like ours, and those of the PRU's staff, remain completely unheard, and won't necessarily be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate the behaviour of young people they'd already said weren't safe to be in their schools.

Some of those PRU kids were there because of really quite dangerous/violent acts, not just refusing to do their homework.

I think it's high time we got the Children's Commissioner involved.

 

[StoneRoad]

They went to the heads a week or two ago, with handfuls of risk assessments, and said "would you have these pupils back?". To a man/woman, they said "no".

Those kids are going to go back into mainstream education with a sword of Damocles hanging over them - they will be presumed to be exclusion-ready, and the slightest infraction will, I am sure, have them off school premises so fast their feet won't touch the ground. Partly, perhaps, because the heads and senior management will feel alienated by the fact that their wishes, like ours, and those of the PRU's staff, remain completely unheard, and won't necessarily be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate the behaviour of young people they'd already said weren't safe to be in their schools.

Some of those PRU kids were there because of really quite dangerous/violent acts, not just refusing to do their homework.

I think it's high time we got the Children's Commissioner involved.

I agree with you - and it is not just the kids from the PRU that will be affected - the other kids (and their education) may - no, actually I think that they will - be affected by their presence, and all that follows on from that.

 

[existentialist]

I agree with you - and it is not just the kids from the PRU that will be affected - the other kids (and their education) may - no, actually I think that they will - be affected by their presence, and all that follows on from that.

Yes, most definitely. The leverage effect of one disruptive kid is phenomenal, and that's a "normal" disruptive kid. A lot of those young people in the PRU are from severely dysfunctional families, with parental mental health and drug/alcohol abuse, neglect, emotional/sexual abuse, their own mental health problems, being young carers, fostering, etc all being factors on top of any other stuff like special needs, learning disabilities. It is sheer lunacy to do what they're doing - but that's what this cow is doing: she has a Plan, and she is pushing it through regardless, and at any cost.

And the cost will be huge, in all kinds of areas.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

(((existentialist )))

i'm out of touch with these things, but wtf is supposed to happen with these kids if / when they get turfed out of mainstream school (presumably again, since they have been at a PRU)?

surely LEAs have some obligations in this respect?

 

[existentialist]

(((existentialist )))

i'm out of touch with these things, but wtf is supposed to happen with these kids if / when they get turfed out of mainstream school (presumably again, since they have been at a PRU)?

surely LEAs have some obligations in this respect?

I'm not sure of the finer details, and I would love to hear from people who know. As far as I know, the school is responsible for providing full-time education after the sixth day of the exclusion. How on earth that is usually provided, I have no idea - I know that, where pupils were excluded from the PRU, arrangements were made for "home tutors" to see them in a "neutral" venue such as a youth centre, but it certainly wasn't full-time. With the PRU going to disappear, I don't know whether that means the kids would get that, but that'd seem mad, as it's 1:1 and presumably far more expensive than the PRU.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I'm not sure of the finer details, and I would love to hear from people who know. As far as I know, the school is responsible for providing full-time education after the sixth day of the exclusion. How on earth that is usually provided, I have no idea - I know that, where pupils were excluded from the PRU, arrangements were made for "home tutors" to see them in a "neutral" venue such as a youth centre, but it certainly wasn't full-time. With the PRU going to disappear, I don't know whether that means the kids would get that, but that'd seem mad, as it's 1:1 and presumably far more expensive than the PRU.

I thought that in the event of a permanent exclusion, the pupil in question becomes the responsibility of the LEA, not the school.

And if government policy continues as it seems to be, and LEAs don't actually have any schools left, not quite sure how the heck they will do that without some sort of specialist service...

 

[StoneRoad]

(((existentialist )))

i'm out of touch with these things, but wtf is supposed to happen with these kids if / when they get turfed out of mainstream school (presumably again, since they have been at a PRU)?

surely LEAs have some obligations in this respect?

Tutoring under "Education other than at school" schemes - which tba are really intended for more medically based situations rather than the kids who end up in PRUs. Most schools have neither the specialist staff nor space to have their own / internal PRU - and to do so would surely be duplicating what ought to the LEA provision.

 

[chilango]

I work (broadly speaking) in these fields at the moment. Many kids are falling through the gaps. Those that aren't may end up being tutored at home (or not), enrolled on some sort of distance learning program, or similar.

in some cases provision is being de facto outsourced to charities and the voluntary sector.

 

[Awesome Wells]

According to someone I know who buys laptops like they are going out of fashion, kids have to have them/netbooks/ipads or whatever for school. That can't be right? It's a far cry from exercise books and pens an jumpers for goalposts of ocurse.

 

[eatmorecheese]

existentialist this is horrific. It makes me wonder about some of the professional "values" these decision makers hold. Reminds me of my brother working in an academy behavioural support team as a mentor and being told by the Principal, "If you want to be a social worker, go and become one. This is a school".

Because of local authority cuts, I find myself in a position where I am acting as an adviser to schools on support planning, CAFs, accessing family support and the rest of it. The idea is that my local authority wants schools to take on more of these responsibilities as council provision has been cut back markedly. Naturally, there is much resistance to this from many schools; others seem not to give a shit. A Deputy Head told me last week that they are allowing problematic pupils/families to fester in the hope that they will eventually meet social care thresholds, rather than planning any form of early intervention (and persuading the parents of children with persistent non-attendance to sign undertakings that they will home school their children, even when they have no capacity to do so, because it reduces the exclusion rate).

Frustrating for me, because my previous role was intensive casework. Now I have to just "advise" SENCo's, EWO's and the like on the steps they should take. The needs, wishes and goals of the school may differ from the needs, wishes and goals of the young person or family might identify.

Sending solidarity to you and your colleagues. You are right. Say it and keep saying it. Too many wankers are playing professional politics with vulnerable children and families' lives.