Update: In spite of claims that the two Trust Primary schools are proving popular with parents, recent data shows that Morehall Primary has 75% of its Reception places empty on allocation for September, the highest proportion in the county (along with two other schools), with Martello Primary not far behind at 63%. 

Turner Schools, a small academy Trust with a CEO being paid the disproportionate £140,000 – £150,000 a year, has appointed a Deputy Chief Executive Officer, on a salary likely to be above £120,000, to enable the CEO to focus on curriculum matters. His salary will be met from a Grant  of £143,100 from the government’s Multi Academy Trust Development and Improvement Fund, at no cost to the school, as explained in a letter to staff. Such grants are only available for MATs which have a “proven record of working with underperforming schools to improve performance” . This should surely have ruled Turner Schools out, given the damage they have wreaked on Folkestone Academy, as demonstrated in various articles on this site, most recently here

The letter provides three reasons for the appointment, explored below:

• To join our mission to deliver a powerful education that overcomes educational underperformance.
• To provide executive principal function when and where needed in our trust schools
• To create additional capacity to enable the CEO to focus on curriculum.

Update: Shortly after I wrote this article about the www.trevorbeeson.com website, the site was withdrawn from the internet, together with any links. I retained a download of the key page which was a justification for Mr Beeson's actions, and which prompted this article, which you will find here.

Trevor Beeson, Founder and CEO of the late Lilac Sky enterprises, has published a defence of his actions  called 'Lilac Sky: Final Chapter' on his new website (which does not appear to have a direct feed to the article!). Amongst other matters, the site advertises Mr Beeson's latest company offering his professional services which is not registered with Companies House, so there will be no scrutiny of the accounts (see below).  This unique document is the most original I have seen in my professional career. My article is written primarily to look at some of the issues raised in that defence and elsewhere on the site.

Mr Beeson's four previous companies (one in the name of his partner), have been through a total of five additional name changes between them, two of which had the same name at different times, and have all now been dissolved: one liquidated by a petition from HMRC;  one via voluntary liquidation owing £917,000; one struck off for non-filing of accounts - a situation that appears to have been prevalent in all four companies. Consideration of the three where there there were historic accounts show large outstanding loans to Mr Averre Beeson (which may have been repaid outside the formal records),  and in one case sizeable dividends. In addition there is considerable and confusing 'cross-fertilisation'. Mr Averre-Beeson also founded Lilac Sky Schools Academy Trust (LSSAT) in 2012 which paid 'extortionate'  costs to Lilac Sky companies (as confirmed by the Trust's own Annual Report, see below) before crashing with a net deficit of £1,329,631. 

The Trust's shocking performance has been chronicled extensively in these pages, and is the subject of an ongoing three year investigation by the  Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), partly triggered by the loss of a payment of £537,000 by government which was simply swallowed up before the Trust was closed.   

I spend an hour on Wednesday evening, at the Radio Kent studio in Tunbridge Wells talking on the Graham Jones show, in company with Sally Lees, Principal of the Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre. Not surprisingly, our main topic was secondary school transfer and what to do if children had not been awarded one of their preferences. Naturally we widened the discussion including what makes a good school, whether parental choice was a good thing, why there were 837 Kent children with none of their choices, and how to increase provision to cope with rising rolls. The discussion was given a spice as we two guests tended to have a different perspective on a number of issues!

Kent County Council has been awarded one of 39 new Special Schools to be opened across the country, following a bid to government. This will be built on the Isle of Sheppey, on land adjacent to the new Halfway Houses Primary School site,  and is planned to focus on children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs aged 11-16. Under current regulations KCC will now need to set up a tendering process to select a Sponsor from an existing academy chain to run the new school. As explained below, this can be a drawn out and uncertain process, with the opening date not yet fixed.

This follows approval in January for the Aspire School, Sittingbourne a new Free School for children with autism or speech and language difficulties to be run by Grove Park Academies Trust, currently comprising Grove Park Primary School. It will be built on council land not far from Grove Park, both schools in Bobbing. The Aspire School came into existence because of the vision of parents as long ago as 2013. The original vision was for high functioning autistic children aged 4 -16, although final details have not yet been settled, and it is now looking likely to be for primary aged children, opening at the earliest in September 2020.

Last week, I was part of an invited audience  to a private showing and debate on the Channel Four programme, Skipping School, about Home Education issues. This featured Anne Longfield, Children's Commissioner for England (CCE), who has now published a Report containing five important recommendations. The discussion highlighted some key concerns, although being dominated by the plight of children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who made up an estimated 22% of children on EHE (Elective Home Education). Unforgiveably, there are no central statistics on any EHE matter, but it is clear that a high proportion of such children have not chosen this route but have been forced down it by schools being unable or unwilling to make provision for their needs. 

Considerable concerns were expressed about the practice of off-rolling and exclusion, along with evidence of the practices in too many schools. 

There is not even a required register of children on EHE, let alone any monitoring of what if any education they are provided with, although its introduction has been and would be strongly resisted by the vocal and in some cases aggressive lobby of families who may have chosen EHE for philosophical reasons.

One particular revelation (to me at least) was the statement that the Regional Schools Commissioner may only intervene with academies that are causing concern if they are inadequate, primarily because of funding issues (although there have been a couple of counter examples recently). Otherwise, they need to be dealt with directly by the Department for Education. 

See Follow up Article here.

The Children’s Commissioner for England (CCE), Anne Longfield, has published a Report entitled ‘Skipping School: Invisible Children’. Apart from its dreadful and misleading title, it provides an excellent summary of the issues surrounding Elective Home Education (EHE). The Report also looks forward to ways of reducing the numbers of those Home Educated, apart from families who freely choose to and are capable of providing a good alternative.

Sadly, a 'Dispatches' programme on Channel Four lost the plot and focused on describing in graphic terms families who were not coping with Home Education in their first weeks out of school. I made a contribution to the programme with which I was pleased and which drew on my most recent article about EHE, but I was not expecting the direction the programme took and so my piece stood isolated.

Update: It has been pleasing to receive thanks from several Medway schools for this information. I think they are trying to tell me something!

You will find here KCC's Advice to Schools on possible initial effects for them in the event of a No Deal Brexit arriving on March 29th.

As one new to this aspect of the Brexit debate, I found the three diagrams at the foot of the table especially illuminating. These deal with the proposals to funnel, park, and stack lorries through Kent in the event of a No Deal Brexit. 

INDEX, A Lifestyle Magazine which publishes two editions in East and West Kent, has drawn up its own Alternative New Year’s Honours List  for ‘Outstanding Men and Women of Kent - unsung heroes who go mostly unrecognised, who excel in their diverse fields and give unconditionally’.

I feel honoured to be included in both editions along with: Tammy Beaumont, the Kent and England cricket star; and John Warnett, the Radio Kent presenter. The East Kent list also includes: Victoria Pomerey, Director, Turner Contemporary; Razia Shariff, CEO of Kent Refugee Action Network; Peter Taylor Gooby, Trustee of Canterbury Food Bank; Rosie Turner, Director, Canterbury Festival; Rt Revd Trevor Wilmott, Bishop of Dover; and posthumously, Peter Firmin, Artist and Puppet Maker. For West Kent there are: Rt Rev Simon Burton-Jones, newly appointed Bishop of Tunbridge, previously Archdeacon of Rochester Diocese; Deborah Gjeloshaj, Founder of Kitchen Opera, bringing youth opera to West Kent; Alex Green, Executive Director at the Tunbridge Wells Trinity Theatre, together with Arts community work; Richard Hughes, a drummer with pop group Keane and now human rights activist with Amnesty; and Olga Johnson, Co-Founder of Nourish Community Food Bank.

Update: In spite of using the Turner School headhunters, Saxton Bampfylde, the Trust has been unable to appoint an Executive Principal for the Academy. See below. 

I make no apologies for yet another table topping statistic for Folkestone Academy after it ran up a debt of £708,707 in 2017-18 for overestimating its pupil roll for last year, the highest figure in the country, as confirmed by SchoolsWeek. A spokesperson for Turner Schools trust, which runs four schools including Folkestone Academy, pointed out the calculation was made in November 2016 before the school transferred to the trust. 

However, it is clear that the reason the school saw a fall of 50 Sixth Form students (or 21%) leading into the year 2017-18  is because of decisions made by Turner Schools  after it took responsibility for the school in April 2017, as it chased higher academic performance. This will have been exacerbated for 2018-19 by the sharp fall in GCSE provisional performance, with Progress 8 diving to -0.78 from -0.22, sixth worst in the county, and Performance 8 falling to 31.0 from 36.4, fifth worst in Kent after over a year of Turner Schools' control. 

The academic ambitions of the Trust are clear from a quotation by Dr Jo Saxton, CEO of Turner Schools, and from many other quotations: ‘This past summer, 101 students went on to university but only one per cent went to a Russell Group university. Some are dropping out of university before finishing their degree’. These ambitions may be laudable but surely the Trust has to secure its base instead of collapsing it along with young people’s education and aspirations, before driving ahead without foundations. These would include a lawful admissions policy for Sixth Form admissions (see below). 

My previous article recorded that the school had by far the highest number and rate of Fixed Term Exclusions of any school in Kent.

Parents of pupils at schools in the Leigh Academies Trust and The Williamson Trust have now been sent a letter outlining details of the agreed 'merger' between the two Trusts. I have written previously about the proposal, and the letter offers no further information about how the new arrangements will work.

However, the letter is very revealing in one sentence:  'Directors of both trusts and the Regional Schools’ Commissioner have agreed that Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School, The Hundred of Hoo Academy, High Halstow Primary Academy, Allhallows Primary Academy and Stoke Primary Academy can join LAT from January 2019'. This explicitly confirms my previous view that this is a takeover, with the Williamson Trust schools about to 'join LAT from January 2019' .

Update: This went ahead as reported here, with the six of the seven Deal schools academising simultaneously in March 2019. Kingsdown and Ringwould CofE Primary has either pulled out, or is delaying conversion. 

I was invited to comment on Meridian news yesterday (Wednesday)  about the most sensible proposal for a Multi Academy Trust I have come across for a long time. Unfortunately, it may fail through being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Seven primary schools all local to Deal, who form part of the Deal Learning Alliance, a community of local schools already working together, are proposing to come together to form Deal Education Alliance for Learning Trust ( DEALT). Most of the schools provide a large amount of information on their websites, for example here, which leaves one in little doubt about the reasons for the proposals. The schools have also held a number of meetings for parents, all focused on the proposed Trust being there to support the local community.

There is one strong negative influence which should not play a part in the debate but inevitably is doing so and will continue. This is the debacle of the Goodwin Academy, the secondary school in Deal which was brought to its knees whilst still a KCC school, aided by advisers from SchoolsCompany. This organisation, run by an entrepreneur, then took over the school as an academy and helped it even further down leaving it with massive debts. Much of these were incurred by large fees paid out to the Company, others by gross financial mismanagement, The current proposal has no similarity with this scandal, although campaigners against the proposal try and make a link. 

The name Medway UTC will disappear on 1st November to no one's regret as it morphs into a new Waterfront University Technical College sponsored by The Howard Academy Trust, which has supported it for some time. This comes with the added bonus that it won't be inspected for another three years, although as an Ofsted failed institution it would otherwise have been closely monitored for several years to come. This follows one of the worst Ofsted failures in Kent and Medway for some years, dreadful GCSE results for 2018, and large numbers of students and staff bailing out of what appears to be a sinking ship, as described in my previous article. 

I have still not seen a hint of apology or sense of proper shame by the Trustees and Governors of the UTC for their failure to provide young people of Medway with an adequate education, although the Ofsted Report castigates their performance. How many students futures ruined? We shall never know and they will soon be conveniently forgotten. 

Update: See recent development at foot of article

I don’t normally comment on private schools, but the closure of St Christopher’s in Canterbury over the summer surely deserves a mention at a time when scrutiny of the Kent Test taken in private schools is in the news.

The school has now been found Inadequate in two consecutive full Ofsted Inspections, most recently in April this year, the first of which I covered in a previous article entitled ‘Buyer Beware: Four Private Schools failed OFSTED Inspection’. The other three have since improved their standards under new leaderships.

The first of the two key issues in both Inspections was poor leadership, the headteacher, known as ‘The Master’ also being one of the proprietors of the school, ‘A substantial number of staff have lost confidence in the school’s proprietors and leaders’ in 2018, echoing concerns in 2014. Secondly, both inspections describe a culture of poor management of complaints and allegations which, along with inappropriate behaviour, saw the school fail on Safeguarding twice, the second time apparently oblivious of previous criticisms. There is also a range of other serious criticisms, although teaching is described as Good, pinpointing where the problems lie. 

The school claimed very high success rates at the Kent Test which fell below the genuine figures and in 2017 it was instructed by the Advertising Standards Authority to remove false claims of a 92% pass rate from the sides of local buses. For entry this September, the success rate for grammar school admission had fallen to 57%. Ofsted is quite clear about the purpose of the school: ‘many are able to achieve a place at local grammar schools, in line with the school’s aims’.

Pupil numbers were falling sharply before the closure, presumably because of the poor reputation of the school.

Data provided by Kent County Council shows that direct expenditure to provide facilities for out of county candidates for the Kent Test was approximately £100,000 for admission in September 2018. This works out at approximately £200 for each pupil offered a place.

In addition, there was a large but unquantifiable sum for KCC officer time at an extremely busy time as they oversee the Kent Test process across the county. The additional demands include managing the process of organising the 4832 out of county applicants across the 38 additional centres set up for testing these candidates, and responding to the issues and queries many of these applicants inevitably incur.

All this to produce 465 offers of places, less than one in ten of those who applied. Some of these would not in any case have been taken up as some families received more favourable offers, perhaps closer to their homes.