Index
You will find a considerable update to this article here, posted 13th July
One of the Turner School Visions:
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We follow Aristotle’s philosophy that educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all, which we interpret as being the whole person. |
Turner Schools, an Academy Trust whose leaders have no problem with schools being profit making enterprises, appears to be heading for difficulty with each of its four Folkestone projects. Currently Folkestone Academy is the only non-selective school serving the town. It is to be joined in September by the Turner Free School, to be opened on the site of the old Pent Valley School. The Trust also runs two Folkestone primary schools acquired in January 2017 from the failed and now closed Lilac Sky Schools Academy Trust and both struggling to attract pupils.
One problem I, and surely most enquirers, have with the website for the Trust with its sections for each of the four schools, is that it appears to be aimed at an audience of academics and teachers (website now superseded). This is in contrast with every other school website I have visited which set out to be attractive to parents and potential parents, providing them with much valuable information rather than empty words and aspirations.
I look at all four schools in more detail below on separate pages, underneath a broader look at the Trust, with the following links to each school: Turner Free School; Folkestone Academy; Morehall Primary & Martello Primary You can see a fascinating variety of views in the comments at the foot of the page.
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As a family of schools, we work collaboratively to give our children the very best start in life. We deliver this through:
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We aim to be a force for good in the community we serve, supporting social mobility and regeneration through education. We call this mission “sea-change”.
In the two primary schools, where the Trust’s vision is now established, parents and teachers are voting with their feet against both schools. Morehall Primary has seen a massive fall off in popularity, with just 11 families choosing places at the school for 2018 entry, at 13%, second lowest figure in Kent. Second lowest in Folkestone is Martello Primary, Turner’s other school, at 60% and subject to a high turn-over of children, seeking other schools. Between them they account for 48 of the 74 vacancies across the town’s seventeen schools. The two schools are currently on their third joint Executive Head in just over a year. Folkestone Academy is in the middle of a major structural reorganisation to align itself more closely with some of the Trust’s ideals, in the midst of considerable staff turmoil. The Turner Free School on its front page of 'latest news' informed browsers that it had attracted just 70 applicants for its 120 places for some time after I wrote this article. It has now been removed as a result of my drawing attention. I am told by the Trust that the school has now had 240 applications with half placed on a waiting list, but this site is the only place you would know the fact. If that is the case, then probably most of these have also secured places at Folkestone Academy.
This monopoly in secondary provision across Folkestone is unique in the county and has the effect of eliminating choice for families who dislike the ethos projected by the Trust in its schools. There is considerable deprivation in parts of the town, most notably nearer to Folkestone Academy.
There is no doubt that the three/four Shepway non-selective schools (including Marsh Academy in New Romney) suffer from the two Folkestone grammars offering the Shepway Test which sees around 150 additional children who have not passed the Kent Test taking up places in local grammar schools each year. This will not only skim off many of the most able but will have played a significant part in the closure of Pent Valley in 2016. That school suffered from poor leadership and became unpopular with families so that its intake became unviable, the consequent closure certainly not being the only example of such an extreme response to solving a leadership problem.
Folkestone Academy is in the middle of an unpopular and major reorganisation, set out in a Consultation document, headed up by new and temporary leaders, which appears rushed and mainly designed to shed 42 staff. I give several examples below illustrating the mixed and mixed up ideas and what appears to be ad hoc decision making.
At the same time, and partially because of the lack of enthusiasm for both schools, Brockhill Park Performing Arts College has become one of the most oversubscribed schools in Kent turning away 134 first choices this year. Jo Saxton, CEO of Turner Schools has produced a Youtube interview with Academy FM, run by Folkestone Academy in response to a letter to parents triggered by this article, here and featured/reproduced in Medway Vox. Amongst the many comments published below is one I have had to abbreviate because of its length. However it is important and from a recent member of staff, so you can read it in full here. Sadly, the video also continues a theme of promoting manipulated examples, three below.
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Quote on the subject of staff cuts:'Let's be clear. The document doesn't say anything about numbers'. Technically correct for the document itself, but very misleading as the attached Appendix goes into great detail about the proposed loss of 42 staff, including 10 teaching and subject structures staff (although the letter to parents talks about 'The creation of new teacher posts') and the titles of the posts to be removed. There are various other 'errors'. Quote on the alleged unpopularity of primary schools: 'Yeah, I don't understand that. Certainly, Morehall Primary has got waiting lists in some year groups. Martello Primary has trebled in size since we first arrived there'. Both technically correct but both misleading. My data for Morehall was about the 11 children applying for admission in September 2018. As recorded below, the other year groups were full from admissions during previous managements - underlying the decline this year. In January 2016, in its second year of operation, the Martello roll was 49, the normal intake having reached year One. By January 2018, the school had grown by admitting four full year groups, with a little infilling to 151 pupils, and for September 2018, there were just 18 pupils applying for the 30 places. |
The 31 comments to date are at the foot of this and all four pages of the article. They make interesting reading.
