Update June 6th: I despair. The advertising puff has now got more desperate:

For reference Ebbsfleet Academy is, as its title suggests, on the edge of the the massive new Ebbsfleet Garden City. This provides a growing sector of its intake, the other part certainly being deprived, but not even amongst the most deprived in Kent. It had a growing reputation before Ms Colwell took over, as explained below, but which suffered under her leadership, as explained above. The last 5 A-C Grade performance was 35%, well above the 'less than a quarter' claimed, which only happened under her leadership (see below). It wasn't the strict uniform policy and a complete ban on mobile phones that provoked resistance and hostility from parents, it was the ruthlessness that drove children and families away from the school (see below). A deputy head who was a lawyer, and a threatening culture from the school did not help the atmosphere. Certainly there was no sense of humour felt as the reputation of the school slumped, with staff at the time still very angry at her eight years on. Any sense of fun certainly had to be very dark not to be noticed by those trying to support the children, as explained in multiple articles on this site. In Ms Colwell's final year at Ebbsfleet, of the 197 children offered places at the school, 87, getting on for half the total, did not even apply for it, being Local Authority Allocations.  The school was not rebuilt in reputation until the current school year, under a new headteacher who is working hard to repair the damage.  

Ms Colwell was no doubt encouraged to write the book by two profile items in The Times and Sunday Times. The first was in 2015, which I considered in an article written shortly afterwards, demonstrating the falsehood of many of the claims made. This is one of several articles I have written tracking the many problems in the school during Ms Colwell’s leadership, beginning here. Even her arrival was controversial, having been appointed to a post at Swan Valley (the then name of the school) working for headteacher Nigel Jones, possibly with an eye to what was soon to come. Mr Jones, her predecessor, had brought the school up by its bootstraps and been highly praised by Ofsted in doing so. Then followed a clandestine meeting at a hotel in Maidstone when she was offered his job before he knew he was going the following week. This was hosted by Simon Webb, the unlamented local KCC Area Officer,who went on to oversee the removal of multiple headteachers across the county. As a KCC school at the time, this broke regulations about appointing headteachers, and I am not aware of any grounds given for removing him. Mr Jones went on to show what he is capable of, currently running a nearby twice Ofsted Outstanding Special School (far more complex then Ebbsfleet Academy).

Interestingly, the author of The Times article interviewed me for the first article and, although clearly uninterested in any criticisms, managed to misquote me by totally reversing the meaning of my comment about the ‘anywhere but Ebbsfleet’ syndrome which developed under her leadership.

The Ofsted Report of January 2011 recorded that "Students’ attainment has risen significantly at Swan Valley over the last few years as a result of improvements in the quality of teaching and learning and careful tracking and intervention, particularly in Key Stage 4. Challenging targets have been set and exceeded. The proportion of students achieving 5A* to C grades at GCSE last year was the school’s best ever result at 63%. When mathematics and English are included, the number gaining 5A* to C grades was 34% in 2010, also a record for Swan Valley ". For 2011 GCSE performance, this figure rose further to 35%. For 2012 and 2013, now under Ms Colwell's leadership, GCSE performance had slumped to second worst in the county in both years, at 24% (with by far the worst progress level in the county) and 28% respectively, for whatever reason. By 2014, it had crept back up to 36% including maths and English, fractionally above where it was before she took over.

According to Ms Colwell's second ST article: 'Her regime transformed the lives of some children. She urged pupils to be in bed by 9.30pm, ready to rise at 6am. [...] The proportion of pupils getting five good GCSEs rose from 24% to 60%'. Apart from the strange and I believe intrusive imperative to rise before many of the children's families would be astir, the GCSE claim is misleading as the 24% figure comes under her leadership, and not before, and is a sharp fall from those previous years under Mr Jones. Yes, the proportion of 5 GCSE's new grades 4-9 did rise to 60% in 2017. which has been quoted for the next two years. More importantly, the more recent outcome for 2018 published way before her interview with the ST but not mentioned, and before she will have applied for the post in Mallorca, saw it fall back sharply to 47%. Progress 8 is the Government's preferred measure of performance and for 2018, Ebbsfleet reflected this decline, down to -0.39 (Below Average) placing it 44th out of 66 non-selective schools in Kent.  It did rise to -0.33 for 2019,  32nd out of 68 n/s schools, but still hardy 'one of the most improved in the country'.

Sadly, both appear false. In the first, she has as usual been selective. In the four years of the new GCSE grading system, for the 2019 results in Progress 8, the government's preferred measure, Ebbsfleet achieved a lower result than in 2016 and 2017. In the perhaps more relevant % Level 5 in English and Maths, 2017 was a better year with 37% against the 2019 32%. See here. The second quote about the seven wonderful years simply takes one's breath away, in its direct contradiction to her claims in Ebbsfleet Academy: Parents rubbished by departing Principal, and below when she talks about the flood of UK teachers leaving state education for private schools abroad would surge unless foul-mouthed parents are tackled. 7 Wonderful Years?