Foundation Status
Despite failing its recent OFSTED Inspection under the leadership of Tim Boyes and an Interim Executive Board composed of experts including Thelma Probert OBE handpicked by Birmingham City Council, Moseley School has decided to proceed to the final stage of yet another destructive structural solution to change status from a Community School to a Foundation School. The overall process has been conducted without carrying out any consultation whatsoever with members of the public and this nebulous concept called COMMUNITY or is it Big Society now? Birmingham City University and Royal Shakespeare Company have been lined up to become partners in crime to this structural arrangement.
By design or sheer coincidence, Queensbridge School has also decided to proceed to the final stage of the consultation process to become a Foundation School. Readers will recall that Queensbridge School conducted its parent consultation evening on the day of a major religious holiday for a majority of its parents and Hall Green Constituency Councillors voted unanimously to call a halt to the sham consultation process. In its recent inspection of Queensbridge School, OFSTED did not notice this blatant discrimination and instead awarded Queensbridge School 'Outstanding' for 'Community Cohesion'. No doubt, George Orwell would have a thing or two to say about this as well as the Queensbridge School's technologically advanced finger printing system to enable pupils to pay for school dinners.
Back to Moseley School…While pupils and parents have yet to be officially notified - by those Governors from the community, who know the community and who have excellent communication skills and track record in promoting Community Cohesion - that Moseley School has failed its OFSTED Inspection, concerned members of the public, local community and former Governors are asking how will Foundation Status actually address the serious shortcomings identified by OFSTED and what skills, experience and track record do Birmingham City University and Royal Shakespeare Company have in tackling those very shortcomings?
Despite having an annual budget of £10m, OFSTED made the following judgement about Moseley School:
a) This school requires significant improvement.
b) Insufficient focus on developing literacy skills and the setting of the same learning tasks for all, irrespective of ability, led to satisfactory and sometimes inadequate progress.
c) The quality of teaching is variable.
d) Not enough teaching is outstanding or good to enable pupils to make
e) Most of the science teaching observed by inspectors was satisfactory but uninspiring.
f) The pattern of attainment between subjects, and sometimes between courses in the same subject, varies too widely reflecting the uneven quality of teaching.
g) Overall teaching is not strong enough to promote consistently good progress in learning because the use of assessment in lessons is inadequate.
h) Significant improvement is required in relation to pupil's attainment and progress.
i) Attendance is stubbornly low and too many pupils are late at the start of the school day.
j) The Sixth Form is inadequate in supporting academic achievements.
k) Teaching in the Sixth Form does not support students' learning needs well enough.
Tim Boyes was appointed by the previous Governing Body as an Interim Head Teacher to address these longstanding issues. But with the support of cronies in Birmingham City Council such as the Revd Jackie Hughes, Tony Howell and Les Lawrence, the little upstart – who was falsely portrayed on the Moseleians Association website as the permanent Head Teacher of an ‘Anonymous Amalgamation’ between Moseley and Queensbridge – has been pushing for one destructive structural change after another.
First, they wanted to merge Moseley with Queensbridge through a Hard Federation. When that plan failed because of fierce opposition from the Moseley School Governing Body and Queensbridge results for five GCSEs grades A*-C including English and Maths plummeting to 30% whereas Moseley School's results increased to 33% in 2009, they changed the goal posts and proposed closing Moseley School and re-opening it as a Trust School with Queensbridge School as a Trust partner!
And the main justification for Foundation status?
To attract investment in sporting facilities for underachieving boys! As though Moseley School has the legal authority to do so! How about addressing the long list of serious shortcomings identified by OFSTED before writing off our boys as underachieving?
The 2011 OFSTED Report makes it very clear who is underachieving, so do not blame the pupils, the parents, the community; the socio-economic, family and cultural background of the pupils!
How many years has it taken for OFSTED to arrive finally at the same conclusion as the Governors who were representative of the community served by the School and subsequently smeared and removed for daring to stand up and challenge the education establishment for discriminating and failing our children for decades?
A key rationale for Foundation (and Trust) Status is to reduce local community representation on the Governing Body, thereby minimising any strategic role by the community in school governance and holding schools to account. Only the community can challenge the fringe elements who have infiltrated the education system to discriminate and fail our children on an industrial scale. And who is the community served by Moseley School (and Queensbridge School)?
Not only does Cllr. Les Lawrence have to apologise for the decades of discrimination and failings at Moseley School (and other schools for that matter) but he has to explain why a Governing Body – that expressed exactly the same sentiments as the 2011 OFSTED Inspectors, when it came under new and representative leadership – was removed and replaced by an Interim Executive Board chaired by a crony with a lamentable track record for academic attainment at Golden Hillock School? What is Cllr. Lawrence and his ilk afraid of and what is their agenda for the children of Birmingham? Afterall, there is logic in their madness. They are undermining traditional British values and working against the aims, objectives and vision of the founding fathers of the modern English state education system. What plausible explanation is there for Thelma Probert's appointment as Chair of the Moseley School Interim Executive Board?
It is important that parents and members of the local community and independent community organisations make formal complaints about the less than open, honest, transparent, fair and inclusive consultation process, by sending an e-mail to:
enquiry@moseley.bham.sch.uk
enquiry@queensbridge.bham.sch.uk
