Responding to THAT BBC Panorama documentary
You can always guarantee one thing if you mix in Education circles - any time schools are mentioned on television, especially when it comes to approaches to behaviour in schools, it is going to annoy a lot of people regardless of its merits. Even the most innocuous and seemingly uncontroversial takes on any widely circulated platform is almost guaranteed to be met with howls of derision, accusations, counter accusations from defenders and further entrenched positions. Enter BBC Panorama, the long running current affairs investigative journalism focused programme which has been a staple of British TV for longer than most of our parents have been alive (first broadcast in 1953) which came roaring into this game with it’s recent documentary titled ‘Britain’s Strictest Schools’ with the first line in it’s description stating ‘When running a big school, how much discipline is too much?’.
Focusing particularly on the plight of the Athena Learning Trust (A Multi Academy Trust that ran a number of schools in Devon and Cornwall) it featured interviews with former students and staff as well as various contributions including from the well known ResearchEd founder, former government ‘behaviour Czar’ and advocate of strict behaviour focused approaches to education; Tom Bennett.
Athena’s case is an interesting one, they took over multiple schools that had serious concerns about their practices, with published results and publicly available Ofsted Reports placing them (fairly or unfairly, depending on your view) amongst the lowest performing schools in the country. Promising rapid improvements, on paper at least Athena did achieve some positive outcomes; results improved, Ofsted Grades largely rose to at least be judged as ‘Good’ in most categories, the kind of things that advocates for their uncompromising approach towards behaviour in schools (which includes punishments for uniform infractions, incorrect postures when sitting in classrooms and lack of equipment) would point to as evidence for the success of a strict rules based approach. However there were concerns as well, the highlights of which include;
Suspensions at Ilfracombe Academy (one of their schools) reached around 1,000 per year (roughly 5 times more than the national average).
The use of Internal Isolation (A sanction where students are taken out of lessons and typically sit in a supervised room, complete independent work and miss out on peer interaction including at breaktime) recorded over 7,000 placements at Launceston College in just 7 months.
Over 500 students leaving Athena for home education
Perhaps most damning of all; following an enormous volume of complaints from parents of SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) students the Department for Education launched an investigation describing allegations against the Trust as ‘serious and concerning’, Athena subsequently disbanded.
I personally think, regardless of your views on Athena, Panorama did an appalling job.
Before I go into the why I need to be clear. I am in no way defending Athena, there were clearly serious concerns about their governance and the impact their approach was having on children. My concerns are primarily focused in two areas: The documentary itself and the impact it will have.
On the documentary, there was a disproportionately one sided approach. Quoting parents and pupils who have been repeatedly suspended alongside disgruntled ex employees as authoritative sources is always likely to result in a significant amount of truth bending of what occurs in any school. I’ve been the other side of the desk myself and I know first hand how schools (including myself) can get it wrong, but I also know enough to have serious concerns on how this documentary will have been interpreted. When I was a Head of Year for example, decisions would be taken, often above my head, that because of the nature of our work and the people involved (most of the time being children) meant that I couldn’t discuss and give the reasons behind said decisions. The documentary mentioned several times that they had asked Athena to appear but they had refused. But that betrays the fact that a school or a trust is bound by educational standards and a whole myriad of other reasons including basic common sense and legal duties to safeguarding means they would NOT be able to discuss everything that goes on inside the four walls of the school. I’m not suggesting for a moment that those who were interviewed were not necessarily telling the truth; in fact in many of these cases I suspect that in this scenario they probably only scratched the surface of what went on. But there must be at least some students who have had positive experiences at Athena, some staff who feel positively about the impact of their work and to present a scenario like this in such a one sided manner is in my view, representative of very poor journalistic practice, and no, putting in a few soundbites from Tom Bennett doesn’t address that.
Which brings me onto my second concern; the impact of the documentary. I have worked in and visited an array of schools, believe me I have seen almost everything. My view is that the most important attribute educators especially in pastoral and leadership roles can have is Emotional Intelligence. I believe that there is a place for a therapeutic approach and for restorative conversations between student and teacher. I enjoy the work from authors such as Tom Bennett, Doug Lemov and Tom Sherrington but I also don’t believe in a one size fits all approach. Just because an approach yields positive results in North London, doesn’t mean it will work in rural Lincolnshire. I also believe that schools should be willing to make reasonable adjustments especially for students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. That being said, it is clear to me that for any school to have any remote chance of success, there needs to be clear and strict boundaries that are consistently enforced. I’ve worked in schools that do not have this approach, and they have been chaotic, unsafe and failed all students of all backgrounds, with SEND and disadvantaged students being the worst affected. I have also been there where schools have been hamstrung in having free rein to make appropriate decisions because for example, they were worried that they were in an Ofsted window and suspension statistics could jeopardise their prospects of success. Look at any school that is able to confidently exhibit success including and especially in areas of high social and economic deprivation there is one consistent - They all put high expectations of behavioural standards front and centre of everything they do.
What this documentary has done is allow certain commentators to use one scenario as proof of why we should dismantle any approach to schooling that emphasises consistent and strict boundaries when it comes to student conduct. Some of the coverage has even been disgusting with certain commentators resorting to the lowest form of abuse. I’ve seen one particularly notorious commentator who presents himself as a SEND advocate, label Tom Rogers host of Teachers Talk Radio as a child abuser while another questioned his teaching credentials. I don’t deny that it can go both ways, especially on platforms such as X/Twitter, but this should be below all of us. What is worse though, is what impact it will have on the ground. Everyone involved in a childs education from the school, to the authorities, the government, local services and the parents rely on having a high level of cohesion. If everyone is at least able to acknowledge that they are coming from the same direction, then the child has the best possible chance of success. Unravelling that by causing unneccesary breakdowns of trust between stakeholders, is to invite disaster. If we disproportionately focus coverage on a minority of students and parents who have had a negative experience of their own education as being representative of the whole, then we allow that to be seized upon by people who would undo all the good work that is being done by schools nationwide.
As mentioned I have worked in and visited schools that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; whether it is Michaela or a school that has serious behavioural problems, I can guarantee you one thing; parents desperately want their children to be in an environment that is calm, conducive to learning and most importantly, safe. So let’s keep that in mind before we all pile in. As for Panorama, you can and should do better!
