The Medway Council Member with responsibility for Children’s Services, Mr Les Wicks, has lost his job in a reshuffle of the Medway Council Cabinet this week. His departure will be widely welcomed by the many families who have been dissatisfied with the quality of education provided by Medway Council, and Mr Wicks’ refusal to accept responsibility for those failures. The Council Leader may have been influenced by an 800 person petition to get rid of him, and regular demands from the Labour side for his resignation, but his dreadful performance at a Medway Council meeting in February will surely have been a more important factor.......
Read more...

There has been considerable discussion in the media in the last few days following reports claiming that children born in the early part of the school academic year, which runs from September to August, do the best in school, and in life. As a June birth I had a particular interest in this topic, especially when there has been reference to 11 plus testing also giving this advantage. Last year I collected the relevant figures for the Kent and Medway 11 plus tests for 2012 entry, and give these below, followed by my conclusions. However, in summary, where there are multiple choice tests which are age standardised, there is little difference. But when written work is also taken into account…
Read more...

Wye Free School Free schools come first this month, with Wye Free School appearing to be in a state of uncertainty as to its future. WyeWeb, the local community website, has published a letter reportedly sent to a local landowner by a firm of consultants acting for the Department for Education. This seeks to find out if he is willing to sell or lease land "for educational purposes". Given that at present the Wye Free School only has claim to  the Kempe Centre, a more building which belonged to Wye College, on a lease for just three years it is reasonable to deduce that the DofE is desperately trying to provide a long term future for the school. This is a long…
Read more...

The following article triggered great media interest, being the main Radio Kent story for Wednesday 8th, and a  major story on ITV Meridian that evening.  It was also featured in a controversial article in the Kent Messenger.  When OFSTED published its annual Report back in November, there was strong criticism in the media of the woeful performance of Kent and Medway Primary schools, which I covered in a previous article.  This told the story up until August  last year, when OFSTED introduced a new 'tougher' inspection regime. Amongst other changes, it replaced the 'satisfactory' category of Inspection outcome by 'requires improvement'. The 'inadequate' category still has two subdivisions: 'Serious Weaknesses' & 'Special Measures'. The change was preceded by a new…
Read more...

We are now well into the secondary school admission appeals timetable, with upwards of 1200 appeals being heard for Year Seven places in Kent selective and non-selective schools  between April and June. Overall it is likely that some 40% of these will be successful, although the proportions can vary widely from school to school, and for individual schools from year to year.  In my experience whatever the result, the overwhelming majority of parents find that the appeal process has been conducted in a professional and fair manner, with parents put at their ease as far as possible to enable them to put across their points confidently. However, in a small minority of cases, there are problems with the appeal process,…
Read more...

Now including Updates on St Edmund's and St John Fisher Two recent failed OFSTEDs at St Edmund's Catholic School (secondary), Dover and St Phillip Howard Catholic Primary School, Herne Bay have seen the schools heading in very different directions. Also, a question. Why does a struggling Catholic School in Medway set out to discourage non-catholics from applying? St Edmund's, which was a Voluntary Aided School run by the Archdiocese of Southwark Education Commission, but coming under the aegis of KCC, is to be turned into an academy, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Southwark. Even before OFSTED Early action was taken by KCC, issuing a warning notice which saw positive changes noted by OFSTED. It is difficult to see why the Archdiocese…
Read more...

I now have details of the popularity of individual primary schools in Kent & Medway for entry in September, headlines described below. This article is about Kent placements; a Medway one will follow as time permits. : Most oversubscribed primary school (above) is an OFSTED Outstanding Catholic school in North Kent Kent County Council is to be congratulated on taking timely action in expanding a number of primary schools in areas of pressure, as distinct from trying the late inadequate fixes of the last two years.  653 additional places have been added, although this is partially balanced by the removal of 269 places from other schools, in most cases where there are surplus places. As a result, .........
Read more...

It is no surprise that Chaucer Technology College has been placed in Special Measures by OFSTED. Parents recognised some years ago that there were serious problems, and this once heavily oversubscribed, successful and popular school has seen applications slump over the past two years with only 90 of its current 235 Year 7 places filled. For next September, the school made the decision to reduce the number of empty spaces by the simple device of reducing the capacity to 150. However, at just 81 even fewer offers have been made for next September, including 8 allocated by the Local Authority; a figure that will surely shrink further as children bale out into places at more popular schools. Iworte about this…
Read more...