BBC News Podcast
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Trojan Horse scandal: Refers to a controversy in which several schools in Birmingham were accused of an alleged attempt to introduce an Islamist ethos into schools through infiltration and influence.
Special measures: A term used in the context of education, indicating that a school has been judged by inspectors to be failing and requires significant improvement.
Academy: A type of school in the UK that is independently run and receives its funding directly from the government. Academies have more freedom in their curriculum, finances, and staffing.
Head teacher: The principal or chief administrator of a school.
Pastoral leaders: Individuals responsible for the overall well-being and support of students, often focusing on non-academic aspects of their lives.
Uniform check: The process of ensuring that students are dressed according to the school’s dress code.
Ground rules: Fundamental principles or guidelines established to govern behavior or conduct.
Ethos: The characteristic spirit, culture, or values of a community, organization, or school.
GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education): Academic qualifications in various subjects, typically taken by students in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
A levels: Advanced-level qualifications taken in the UK, usually in the last two years of secondary education, and required for university entrance.
Pupil premium: Additional funding provided to schools in the UK to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Safeguarding: Measures to protect the well-being and safety of individuals, especially children.
Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills): A non-ministerial department of the UK government that inspects and regulates schools and other education providers.
Inclusive ethos: A welcoming and supportive environment that respects and accommodates individuals regardless of their background or characteristics.
Routines: Established and repeated patterns of behavior or activities.
Sympathetically: With understanding and compassion, considering the feelings and needs of others.
Core subjects: Fundamental academic subjects such as English, mathematics, and science.
Vulnerable: Susceptible to harm or negative influences, often in the context of children or individuals facing challenges.
Inclusive: Embracing diversity and ensuring that everyone feels valued and respected.
Curriculum: The subjects comprising a course of study in a school or college.
Infiltration: The process of gradually entering or gaining access, often with the aim of influencing or undermining.
Viability: The ability to continue successfully over a long period.
Consistency: The quality of being reliable, constant, or unchanging.
Inclusive ethos: A welcoming and supportive environment that respects and accommodates individuals regardless of their background or characteristics.
Infiltration: The process of gradually entering or gaining access, often with the aim of influencing or undermining.
Viability: The ability to continue successfully over a long period.
Consistency: The quality of being reliable, constant, or unchanging.
Oye productor: It seems to be a phrase or term in a different language and context, not clear in its meaning without additional information.
This is the BBC.This podcast is supported byadvertising outside the UK.Hey huntweikara Dusum legal dentid padjoba intertikilitoke snapli shatta do some big dit fur toalti APO veg dafin’s Toyota professional fur miguelantitis billion up to tur Vegas of smartfinanciering v at Vpotoyota professional at Variajio Breknas.It’s the first day of a new school term, andafter the summer holiday, these Birmingham students seem keen toget inside and catch up with their mates.They also want to see what’s new, becausethe last time these gates closed, it wason Golden Hillock School, one of the schoolscaught up in the Trojan Horse scandal.It was put into special measures over a year ago.Today it reopens as Ark Bolton Academy andpupils are met at the gate by anew head teacher with high expectations.Okay, so we’re just about to greetour new students who are joining us.You’ve got the pastoral leaders who are there to greetthem, do uniform check, making sure that they have thecorrect equipment and that’s so they can get the ideathat this is a new school and we’re there toset and change a new culture.And so if I ask you to putyour shirt in, what does that mean?That I’ve got high expectations of youand you’re going to look really smartand you’re now representing Art Walton Academy.Are you going to do top button up for me?As bit tight, is it a bit tight?Day one is all about establishing ground rules.It’s the details, discipline that the school saysis crucial and it seems to work.This is the sound of 100 pupils filinginto the hall for their first assembly.Yes.Now things are going to look and feel very, verydifferent and we’re going to be tough on you interms of what we expect on the educators.Today, I’m meeting two people with the jobof turning around what is a failing school.Herminda Channer is principal at Arc Bolton.Every single one of you sitting in this hallwill go on to university or you will goon to pursue a career of your choice.That’s a non negotiable.That’s going to happen and your teachers aregoing to work you really, really hard.Working with her is David Gould, who’s responsiblefor all three of the secondary schools inBirmingham run by the Arc Academy chain.And David Gould, you have a track record of doing this.Can you paint a picture of what this schoolwas like last year when it was Golden Hillock?It’s a school in a relatively deprived area.900 students enroll, largely Muslim community, high levelsof English as an additional language, high levelsof free school meals and pupil premium.And you know the community because you have been headteacherat a school very nearby for a long time indeed.But this particular school, when you’vecome in, you’re turning it round.What have you found about theway that it was operating.It was in the kind of state you wouldexpect a special measures school to be in.And if you look at the report,it was struggling in all areas.So largely a dysfunctional organization.Lessons would have been relatively unchallenging, perhaps not pitchedat the right level to move students on.There were a lot of supply teachers, there wasa lot of turnover staff, as I understand it.So maybe it’s not surprising that that was the case.But yes.So the students are just not learning anything ina school like that unless it’s well run.They are not learning as muchas they should be, clearly.And there are things that we can do thatwork really well, like making sure that all ofthe students get access to the best teachers.Now, you’ve done this before very successfully.You have a track record in turning around a school.What’s the starting point?How do you go about it?The top of the list in termsof making a difference is expectations.It’s the key thing right from the start,the thing that makes the biggest difference.And I tell all of our teachers that you need totreat every child as if it was your own child.Now, if your child was starting at a secondaryschool, now, whatever level that child had achieved inthe primary school, you would have the expectation thatthat child would go on to get good GCSEsA levels, go on to university.Therefore, that needs to be the expectationfor every child that we teach.And if you don’t believe that that’s possible,then you’re not going to teach them inthe way that will make that happen.And it’s crucial to drum that into the staff, butalso into the children, into the parents, and then toback that up with the realism that actually you maywell be quite a long way behind.And therefore, if we’re going to realize theseambitions for you, we’re going to have tomake you behave exceptionally well, work extremely hard,and make much faster progress than children inother schools or in most other schools.I went to the school in the very firstweek of term and the head teacher, Jaiminda Channa,gave me a tour and told me about thenew regime that you’re putting in place there.So nothing has changed in terms of the building work.Nothing has changed yet in terms ofthe classroom sizes, they’re all the same.The structure of the building is the same.So we’re in exactly the same building and toa large extent with the same pupils in it.What has changed that will make a difference now?So first thing that changed was actually theuniform, and we wanted to brighten up theuniform and give the kids a new identity.But one of the key things istutor groups and the tutor group system.So we’ve got 18 pupils in a tutor group tomake sure all pupils felt part of this school.So it’s a smaller group.You want small groups and that whatgives them a sense of belonging?It gives them belonging because you’ve got your personal tutorwho will get to know the kids, they will spendfive years with that personal tutor, so through their journeyat Art Bolton Academy, because they will meet with theirpersonal tutors at the end of each day.You made a stumble there. Golden Hillock.It was Golden Hillock.It’s now Art Bolton already.I’ve heard people, not just you talking aboutit’s, Golden Hillock, you changed the name.Does it make that much difference?The change in name actually came from parents andthe community and the sense was really that togive it a truly new identity, because we havecertain expectations and all of the staff know that.The expectations here are those that wewould have for our own children.We wouldn’t send our children with thewrong uniform or a button undone.We would make sure that they werefully equipped when they came to school.Talk us through that, because if achild arrives with something slightly wrong intheir uniform, you’ll send them home?No, we won’t send them home.So it will be noted in their planner.We will have the discussion with thechild and then we put it right.We have a parental meeting, so that’s key for us.They were over uniform.You will call a parent in?Yes, we will, because it’s about high expectations.So a child doesn’t turn up withtheir planner, what happens to them?So if they don’t turn up with their planner,that will be noted by the personal tutor.We will have the conversation.You haven’t got your planner today. Why is that?They will then do a detention in the evening wherethey’ll do some extra work and if we can geta child to understand why the sanction is there, whatthe consequences and why it’s happened, it doesn’t repeat itself.So, for example, when we started at the beginning of theterm, we had quite a few people in detention already.We’re on day four and that number is now minute.So day one, it was how many in detention?Day one, we probably had aroundthe 80 figure in detention.You put 80 children, held them back for anhour after school because they hadn’t brought something orhad so they were either late or they didn’thave the right uniform or they didn’t have apiece of equipment that they needed.And as you say now, day four, Ithink we were down to 13 yesterday. End of lesson.Obviously it is.Are we about to have a flood of children come out?You should see children walking outcalmly, purposefully, into their next lesson.You’re kidding.School is different from other schools.It’s different from other schools.It will be calm and purposeful.Is that what you tell them?What I should explain is, at the moment there aremaybe 2030 children passing us and there’s hardly any sound.And that’s what we’re looking to do.It’s about phenomenal.Would that have been like that last term? No.Can you keep it up?Should you even keep it up?I think nobody would disagree to havingmore times in lessons for learning.So we succeed.Here we are. I was about to say it’s a bitmore human, but it’s actually the teacher speaking.Common or. “ WWW.ARMINIC.COM “ Is what we’re going for, calm and orderly.Can I ask about the makeup at the school?Because we’ve had most of the girls bar.One of the girls who’ve passed us have headscarves. Yes.So it’s almost entirely Muslim at school.It is, but the headscarves are by choice.If girls would like to wear them and ifthey choose not to, they don’t have to.What has been the legacy of the Trojan Horse scandal,which of course this school was at the centre of?It must be something you are aware of.And of course the charge was that theseare pupils who were exposed to radical views.I think with all schools have to be vigilant.We’re vigilant to bullying, we’re vigilant to cyberbullying andagain, it’s about making sure parents are on side,communities are on side, we have to work togetherto ensure that our children can succeed.And what have the parents been like in that?I mean, obviously there must be nerves both ways.There’s nerves that actually it’s going to lose perhaps someof that element of the Islamic faith that some parentswant and the school they may fear doesn’t have now,but I think it’s more to do with what we’retrying to make sure that our children have got theopportunity to be good human beings.So when we’re talking about any faith, it’sabout the common values amongst all faiths.So to be tolerant, respectful, compassionate, that’s irrespectiveof a faith and it’s about those keycharacteristics because you’re a Sikh, aren’t you? I am.So here you are as a Sikh, coming into a schoolthat has a history of well, I suppose in terms ofthe public’s perception of difficulties with the more extreme end ofthe Islamic faith, but it goes back to the same point,it’s about those core values, irrespective of faith.David Gould, Golden Hillock’s problems, of course, weren’tjust that students weren’t learning, it was thatthey were learning the wrong things.It was one of those schools caughtup in the Trojan Horse affair.In what way are you aware still of the effects of that?Not really aware of the effects of that.We have to bear in mind there was aninterim administration last year that tackled urgently the kindof headline issues around safeguarding and so on.And according to the ofsted monitoring reports, theymade a strength during the year of teachingBritish values and so on, which is theway the government describes the kind of inclusiveBritish ethos that we want to promote.And that’s made a difference because it isone of those things that you think ifthere was something wrong, then because there werea number of different reports carried out andthere’s some disagreement over the effects of it.But there was suggestion that studentsreportedly shown images of jihad, includingbattlefield and rocket launchers.There was a report of a teacherleading prayers and giving a sermon wherechristians and Jews were called ignorant.I mean, if those sort of things leavean imprint, that imprint still exists, doesn’t it?Well, it’s remarkable because we don’t seeany evidence of any hangover from that.There’s been no resistance to the way thatwe’ve set up a very inclusive ethos.And in the conversations we hadwith parents, there was no concern.And what about from the students themselves?And the students were extremely open before we openedin the term, before I went in and Idelivered assemblies to each year group in turn andtalked to them about expectations, about their future, abouthow we were going to challenge them, to makethem work hard and behave exceptionally well, because wewanted them to be successful.And they were extremely warm and welcoming and open.Well, let’s turn to behaviour, because it is the firstsignificant thing that they came across on that first dayof Arc Bolton, which is that there are very differentrules and it is very strict, isn’t it?How important is that?It’s very important not just to bestrict for the sake of it.So it’s very important that children andtheir parents, and all the teachers forthat matter, understand why we’re doing it.The only purpose is for the children’s own good.It’s only to advance their learning and it’svery important to make sure that it doesn’tbecome an exercise in power on anybody’s part.And so the ethos that goes around thatreally strict behavior policy and kind of ruthlessapplication of sanctions that are well known hasto be a caring, loving kind of ethos.So we have rules like teachers arenot to shout at the children.There’s no shouting.You should never tell a child off.You don’t negotiate, you always speak calmly and politelyand respectfully to the children, as you would expector hope that your own child would be treatedin the school they went to.One of the things we saw there were pupils havingto line up outside a class, go in, being toldto go out again, and they did this three, maybemore times until they got it right.What is the point of that?We would do that with lots of routinesthat are aimed at maximizing the learning time.So if you can get children inand out of the classroom as quicklyas possible, calmly and quietly, no disruption.The foundation of good teaching is routines thatallow you to move from one mode ofworking to another seamlessly without wasting time.Maximizing teaching time.Yes, and that’s what we would do in the first weekof term, overtly practice the routines to get them 100%.So it’s an investment up front which savesyou a lot of time going forward.There were some other rules whichthe children clearly didn’t like.Things like they’re not allowed to touch each other, they’renot allowed to be in groups larger than six.What is the thinking behind those, I woulddispute that the children didn’t like them.Our experience is that a well ordered community makeschildren feel safe and happy and that even someof the most disturbed and difficult students find ita lot better for them because those students arethe ones that more readily get into trouble ifthe parameters aren’t clear.So it’s very important that wedon’t allow, for example, play fighting.Children like to wrestle around in the corridors and stufflike that if you let them, but it makes anenvironment that feels unsafe if you do that.And for children who are vulnerable, it’s nota nice environment for them at all.They’re still children, though, and the rough andtumble of play in the playground, the roughand tumble of play needs to be structured.So when they get into a state, potentially, oflarge groups of children playing chasing games, which childrenlove to do, actually, it’s very easy for avulnerable child to be chased and whatever, it’s allabout protecting the weakest children.It’s about protecting the vulnerable.It’s about an environment where everybody feels safeand we can ensure that there’s no bullying.Let’s go back to the school nowand hear what happens in the classroom.We’re here to make sureyou enjoy your learning experience.So if you talk over your teacher duringa lesson, you don’t have your equipment, thenthe teacher will be strict of you.So this is year nine, so we’re talkingabout 1314 year olds, almost maximum surliness.Would that be right, do you think?Do they take longer to sort of getused to the discipline than other classes?I think what it is in this one, this willbe their first science lesson of the academic year.So that it’s.That teacher arranging her classroom soshe can maximize learning time.So she is choosing where people sit so far on desks.Which seat? Two.You’ve got a boy and a girl, whichis, of course, very different from the reportsabout this school where the children were segregated.And if we’re focusing on why we’re actually doingit, it’s to maximize learning, because the teachers deemthat’s the most appropriate configuration for them to besitting in and could not be more of acontrast to what’s happened before.So then once expectations are set, children willcome in, they’ll know where they’re sitting, westart learning, but we have to have thatsolid foundation on which to build.Fascinating to watch.They are all aware of you can see them almostnervous about who they’re going to be seated next to.Leave dial outside again, we’regoing to come in perfect.I’m standing in a corridor which is packed with children,and yet from the sound, you wouldn’t believe it. Hello.Something that would you mind ifI just ask a few questions?Were you here last term? Yes.And things are rather arethey very different this week?I think they’re better.You think they’re better.The expectations are higher. The lessons. “ WWW.ARMINIC.COM “ Much better and the faster we learn more.Can you give us a sense of what it was like last year?What was different?My opinion, I thought last year wasactually better because last year we hadlonger lessons, so we actually learned more.But this year we only got 45 minutes.Like, what do we learn in 45 minutes?So your lessons are shorter now.What was it like this week? Can you give me a sense ofhow you felt through the week?It was strict.First few days I was scaredwalking into school, be honest.But last year I was planning to do apprenticeship,but now I’m willing to do it going touniversity and get the grades I want to. Really? Yeah.What about you?For the first two days, I really hated school becausethey give us like a really long day, eight lessons,and they don’t even let us go home for lunch.And I just don’t like it.I just prefer how it was last year.Behaviors changed.We’ve learned more in classesbecause the behaviors changed.We would say, it’s for ourbenefit, it will change our future.Would you not have said that a year ago?A year ago, like, the teaching wasn’t that good.We had supply teachers and everything.So it changed now whatyou had constantly changing teachers.Did you know what to expectwhen you came into a lesson?No, because we used to learn different subjectsthat we didn’t understand, but now it’s allright because we’ve got the perfect teachers.You’ve got the perfect teachers so far.Early days, though.David Gaul let’s talk about the teachers now,because nearly half of the teachers are new.Was that deliberate?No, it wasn’t.There were a lot of vacancies to fillbecause in the way that the school wasrunning before, they just couldn’t keep teachers.That’s right.There was a large turnover in teachers, and clearly ifyou do get new teachers in, it’s an opportunity tomold them into the way you want the children taught.But what about bad teachers thatyou want to get rid of?We provide a lot of support, a lot ofhigh quality training, a lot of challenge for teachers.But the children’s interests obviously are paramount,and our children need excellent teaching.And if teachers can’t do that, thenrelatively quickly we move them on.But is that difficult?Because if there are teachers that you think,look, they are just not up to it.If you want to turn a school around, presumably it isessential to get rid of those teachers who are not.It is absolutely essential yes.That either that teachers raise their game ifthey need to, or else indeed move onif they can’t do what’s required.And in terms of recruiting teachers, was that hard?Recruiting teachers is very hard, yes, it’s hard inall schools at the moment because there is ashortage of teachers, particularly in the core subjects.There is a growing shortage nationally.And yet when you look at the numbers, theredoesn’t appear to be that much of a problem.I don’t know if it showsin national statistics, but certainly inBirmingham, recruiting teachers is very difficult.I guess it’s easier in London.So it’s been a problem gettingany teachers throughout my career.It’s varied and it’s partly related to the economy.If the economy is picking up, it’s actuallyharder to recruit good young graduates into teachingbecause there’s lots of other opportunities.But when those opportunities are relatively limited,it’s much easier to recruit teachers, ironically.So the challenge for you is to getenough teachers and get enough good ones.How do you ensure that the quality of what isgoing on in the classrooms is as it should be?We obviously monitor what’s going on in the classroomsvery closely, but getting new teachers in is agreat opportunity because we provide very good training.We know that every teacher can beimproved and can learn all the time.And experience has shown us in recent yearsthat actually we’ve done even better with teacherswe’ve recruited, with very little experience, where we’vebeen able to mold them from the startthan sometimes teachers that you’ve recruited that arealready more set in their ways.Can every teacher be improved?It’s an interesting question, because nearlyevery teacher can be improved.And it’s very important to understand that teaching isa craft that can be taught and every teacherneeds to be improving because you’ve never cracked it,however experienced and however good you are, there isa tiny number of people that become teachers whoshouldn’t have done in the first place.And they’re the ones that can’t be.But they’re only a small number.And those you need to easeout, those should never have started. Yes.And those do have to be eased out sympathetically.And I guess those that are just notup for it and are lazy and uncooperativewould need to be eased out as well.And those that can’t be improved, what is it aboutthem that means they’re just not up to it?There’s a very small number of people who are just toonice that find it really hard to assert themselves and tomake children do things that they don’t want to do.They’ll always be walked over, so they’ll always bewalked over and they won’t be effective teachers.It’s a very small number, but if you create thecircumstances where there is good order, there is a strongbehavior policy, there are effectively no excuses for a teachernot being able to teach well and the way youwant them to teach and to aspire to the highstandards that you demand of them.Now, this school was already an academy.It had been turned into anacademy a couple of years ago.It’s now just changed to an Arc Academy.Let’s hear from Becky francis She’s, professor ofEducation and Social Justice at King’s College London,and she’s done a huge amount of researchinto academies and the effect they have.What we have found is that thereis a real mixture of outcomes.Some academy chains are performing absolutely outstandinglyand Arc is one of those.They’re achieving not just across the board, butparticularly good results with their lower priority studentsand their students from disadvantaged backgrounds.And from that point of view, these and thefew other academy chains that are really achieving inthis area are managing to address a problem thathas been a critical one in the British educationsystem for a very long time.So that needs to be recognized.On the other hand, there are a slightly largergroup of academy chains that actually seem to befailing to secure improvement and in some cases performingworse than in the original school’s case.David Gould can you have the same results turningaround a school if you don’t have academy status?Absolutely.There are successful academiesand unsuccessful academies.The principles are the same and there’sno magic about being an academy.A very successful network of academieslike Arc has great collective strengths.Now, we should talk about your track record because youwere headteacher at St Albans in Birmingham for 16 yearsand ten years into your time there as head, itbecame an academy and went from being one of theworst schools in the country to one of the best.I mean, the pickup, theimprovement in grades was phenomenal.I think less than a third of pupils weregetting five GCSEs, maths and English above grade C.But you were also responsible for the turnaroundthat saw that go up to 67%.Yes, I mean, it was a great opportunity.We had been on a journey of incremental improvement overa period of time and we had reached 31%.Sounds very low, but it had beena whole lot lower than that.And St Alban’s Academy always had the weakestprofile of attainment on entry of any ofthe secondary schools in the city.The students coming in? Yes.So high proportion of children withvery weak literacy and numeracy skillsunable to access the secondary curriculum.So it was a very big challenge and we felt thatwe’d gone as far as we could on our own.What would you have put that turnaround down to?Mainly to raising expectations.It was having the confidence to do that, particularly interms of the community and the parents, and to beabsolutely upfront about what we wanted and why we wantedto do it and explain why we were having tobe so tough on the children and how it wasgoing to benefit them in the longer term.You’re talking about being quitetough on these children. Indeed.The consistency is so important, it undermines the wholesystem if children can see that others are beingtreated less well and if you were to makeallowances, who would you make allowances for?Would you make allowances for children because theywere unhappy, because they had special needs?My view is that if you did that,then you’re actually disrespecting them because you’re sayingI’m unable to expect you to behave aswell as these other children, and therefore you’reactually putting a limit on where they. Can achieve.And if that was your child and I said, I’m notgoing to expect your child to behave as well as theothers, it doesn’t mean that we have to lower our expectations.You started out as a music teacher.Did you ever think that you wouldend up in this leadership position?No, not for one moment.All I ever wanted to do, actually, was play the violinto begin with, and then I wasn’t very good at that.But I was still very interested in music, soI thought, I would love to teach children music.But if you think about thosechildren, for example, at St.Albans and possibly at Ark Bolton, whose lives willbe rather different as a result of the schoolthey went to, that must feel quite an achievement.It’s great to know that we’re making adifference and that is what will encourage morepeople, hopefully, to become teachers and come andwork in academies and other good schools.David Gould, thank you very much for talking to us.Thank you.It’s a pleasure.Welcome to oye productor.Who came in for better dinner. Yeah.As the Vijayo and Claire Kodhelman.As a stroom boris and all Aviko into LASAalt perrin Harbitz platts maniel pereyana mean ryan porgasiahitado alt for contour industry hombrado poyobet.
