Nine years ago, and perhaps not entirely aware of it, Katharine Birbalsingh stood on the Conservative Conference platform and risked her career by telling the truth about education in typical London schools. She got the sack, and the progressive establishment showed what it thought by honouring the head who had forced her out. When she tried to set up her Free School, local authorities in South London fought tooth and nail to deny her a site by refusing planning permission. When Michaela finally opened, five years ago, in an office block on a main road beside Wembley Stadium, its location was about as unsuitable as could be imagined. I’d only seen one school work successfully in such circumstances – Menorah High School, also in Brent – but I’d seen in Esther Pearlman what a brilliant head could do in those circumstances,and knew that Katharine would succeed.
The wonderful atmosphere I saw on my visit two years ago https://www.conservativehome.
Ofsted had been equally impressed, and noted exceptional progress across the ability range. But – early days, no results, many a slip. Barry Jones, the brilliant French teacher and Deputy Head, left soon afterwards to take his version of the Michaela message to Great Yarmouth. Not an easy person to replace, although another deputy (and special needs co-ordinator), Katie Ashford remained within a strong senior team. Would Michaela’s first GCSE results have the same impact as Mossbourne’s had in 2010, when it smashed the glass ceiling for Hackney pupils and inspired the revolution in Conservative education policy?
We now know the answer is yes. Or rather, YES! Katharine and her colleagues have hit the ball so far out of the park that we’ll never find it again. Social mobility depends on giving young people the skills they need to compete on equal terms, and for the most able, that means top grades and not passes. Level 9 on the reformed system is set at a very demanding level, with an average of 4.5% of the entry achieving it. Michaela pupils, who are not selected by ability, did not just match or even double that figure, but quadrupled it, with 18% of passes at level 9. Passes at L7+ were over double the national average. Overall pass rates were well into the nineties in virtually all subjects. Triumph is an understatement. Michaela is the first unequivocal success of Conservative Ministers’ determination to return schools to their proper purposes, and may well turn out to be the greatest.
Elsewhere, the positive picture of this year’s results has come as a disappointment to the government’s opponents in the Unions, who have called for a review of reforms. They have a point about the level of stress for lower-attaining candidates, which needs to be tackled by providing a gentler curve of difficulty in some examination paper. They discount, though, the negative effects of Labour’s grind of incessant coursework and resits, which in some cases was as bad or worse. Michaela’s provisional score on the statistical progress 8 measure is close to a record at 1.5, though this remnant of the LibDem influence in the coalition is less reliable, as some schools game it by choosing soft subjects in which passing grades are easier to obtain. Such manipulation is denying some pupils the chance to study a new language. The best way to stop it would be to replace Progress 8 with publication of each school’s full results by grade and subject, leaving parent and employers to take account of the context of the school for themselves. As the starting point for progress 8 is restricted to SAT test scores in maths and English at 11, it is hardly an indication of progress in any other subjects.
Nick Gibb gave a wide-ranging and effective presentation of the reforms on the Today programme, pointing to the first sign of improvement in the take-up of languages, and to the protection of candidates from wide fluctuations in results, a point that applies equally to A level. There is still proper concern at the quality of marking – the appeals system changes only a small proportion of grades, but makes each board judge in its own cause. It should be replaced by an independent system, responsible to Ofqual. More on this, and on other schools’ success stories, in the weeks to come, but in the meantime I look forward to raising a glass to Katharine Birbalsingh, her colleagues and pupils, in what must surely be their finest hour.