Pride and Exam Results - lessons from our first set of GCSEs, no 1: "nobody knows nothing"

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a free school head in possession of exam results must be in want of a blog to explain the reasons for their incredible success.

However... this is not one of those posts.

A week on from Results Day, whenever I have talked through everything with people, two points keep pushing their way to the front of my mind:

1) we did alright in the end in terms of attainment (top of the town & second in our LA in terms of 5A*-C inc. E&M), and really well in terms of progress, but I can't stop focusing on those that didn't do as well as we'd hoped (for instance, 9 kids missed out on the "magic 5" by one subject & fewer than 3 marks - that's >10% of our cohort);

2) truthfully, during the long wait for results, we had no idea how we had done; if results had been 67% or 47%, as opposed to 57%, we wouldn't have been completely surprised (although obviously we would have been delighted with the former & heart broken with the latter. * )

Me, discussing forecast
grades with governors

If I'm honest, it's all left me feeling somewhat flat. (I wasn't expecting euphoria - but was hoping for more of a sense of relief than I'm experiencing so far!)

I know that a big part of this is just me being me. I also know that there was the fact that I/we felt under particular pressures as these were our first results, and one of the first for free schools.

But forget my irrelevant feelings. I've made a conscious effort to talk to other Heads this past week, and read as many related articles and blogs elsewhere too, and this seems to be a relatively common response. Anticlimax abounds. Is this really the case amongst Heads and other teachers - or just my reading of things?

Here in Bedford results remained flat compared to last year and undoubtedly too low for anyone's liking - and this certainly wasn't for want of colleagues trying their best to rebound from last year's large falls.

The LA average was 51.9%. Strip out the two big village schools and I calculate the town average to be roughly 44%. I don't know how other schools' outcomes compare to their forecasts, so can't say if this is what was expected.

Anyway, what is the first lesson I'm drawing from our results?

I think it is this: right now I reckon that "nobody knows nothing." With all the changes working their way through English education right now - and I think they are nearly all necessary - the volatility within the system is going to make students' outcomes (and teachers' lives) pretty unpredictable.

There were some amazing results at BFS across a whole bunch of subjects. My school came out on the "right" side of it this time around. But will we next time?

Even with our all-important first set of results out of the way now, seeing what is going on elsewhere hasn't half left me nervous about next summer already!

Whilst we landed roughly where we thought we would this time, and forecast a big jump next year, I'm no longer sure we can say that last bit with any great security. So the nerves I've felt for the past 6 months, which I thought were just a first time freakout, haven't dissipated yet. I think I am going to start the new year as anxious as I finished the last... 


(* = Don't get me wrong - we had an internal forecast of 60%, and a range that we thought we'd be in, but it was massive: when asked by people how we'd do, I'd say "somewhere between 45% and 65%.)

The Free School Final Checklist, point 1: agree your Red Lines.

(This is part of a series of posts looking at the final things to check before opening a new school: http://lehain.blogspot.com/2014/08/opening-free-school-next-week-few-last.html )

Working on the basis that people who had done it before would know far more about things than me, between the start of the Bedford Free School campaign and its eventual opening in September 2012, I made it my business to talk to as many people as possible who had already opened schools themselves.

Two (or more) heads are better than one when setting up a school

So many people were so generous with their time and experiences. Amongst others I spoke to Bruno Reddy & Max Haimendorf of King Solomon Academy, Sarah Counter of Canary Wharf College, Iain Denning (who was starting head at Hazeley in Milton Keynes & is now at Sharnbrook Upper School) and Peter Barnes (Head at Oak Grove in MK)

[Of course I also spoke with Toby Young, whose West London Free School opened in 2011, a year before BFS, and who wrote a great book about it called, of course, How To Set Up A Free School.]

Two things cropped up with every single one of them. The first wasn't a surprise to me: the importance of getting culture right from day one.

What I wasn't expecting - and what I would encourage all people about to open a school to get sorted NOW - was the other point: BEFORE THE SCHOOL OPENS make sure you have agreed with your Governors what your behaviour "red lines" are going to be.

Don't want no blurred lines at your school. (For SO many reasons.)

Every new school will have had to produce its behaviour policy & exclusions policies well in advance (these policies will have been checked during the pre-opening OFSTED inspection). However, it is one thing writing (copying?) and adopting these - it is another thing completely to have to implement them.

The last thing you want in any school - particularly a new school - is for there to be any differences of understanding between the Governors and those running the school when it comes to hard decisions, especially those as important and emotive as exclusions.

So, if you are about to open a school next week and haven't yet done so the most important thing I think you should do is:

1) find some time (somehow!) to meet with the Governors - at the very least those you have lined up to form your Governors' Discipline Committee in the event of any exclusions (and if you somehow haven't agreed who those will be and got them the necessary training, do it IMMEDIATELY)

2) talk through (again) the principles you want the culture and day-to-day behaviour to be based upon

3) more specifically, consider scenarios with more extreme breaches of behaviour & how they expect that they will be dealt with: do they want internal procedures to manage them - when might it have to be a FTE or even a PX? 

What exactly does "zero tolerance"
mean to your governors?

No one wants or expects poor behaviour in their brand new school, and the vast majority of schools won't need to draw upon the more serious aspects of their behaviour/exclusions policies any time soon. 

Having things clear in the minds of you and your governors means you can make things clearer in the minds of your staff and students come opening day - helping to prevent the kind of incidents that would require its use in the first place.


Next up: - Hold on to the Vision: keeping your eye on the ball amidst everything else.

Opening a free school next week? A few last minute things to consider...

It has been a real privilege to be involved with the free school programme right from the go.

I first got involved when I heard about the New Schools Network through a friend & met Rachel Wolf for a coffee to find out more. That would have been early 2009 I think - it's been around 5 and a half years since then and in that time free schools in England have gone from a Policy Exchange idea to Conservative party policy to a reality.



There's been a General Election & the 2010 Academies Act to make them happen, and processes for application and pre-opening set up (and relentlessly retweaked) by the DfE. As I type this 174 schools have opened, with another 156 approved to open in the future.

One of the best aspects of being in the first wave of free schools has been the goodwill and support available to us from so many sources - including, but not limited to, NSN and the DfE. We have been able to see how things evolve over time and to be able to share our experiences with new groups wanting to open their own schools.

Bedford Free School has now been open for two full academic years, and next summer we'll be (I think) the first brand new free school to have a set of GCSE results - 20th August 2015 is very much on all our minds already. (This will be only our third year of operation but Bedford still has lower/middle/upper schools, with transitions between years 4/5 and 8/9, and so we opened with both a year 7 and a year 9).

With around one hundred new free schools due to open in a week or so, I thought it might be worth sharing some of the main things we have learned since opening in September 2012. I don't particularly claim we are experts at anything, and we still have huge amounts to learn as a school - but I think our experiences to date provide some useful examples and pointers for those about to start on the next (and most important) part of their free school journey.

I've been pondering what lessons are most relevant with only a week to go, so I won't be discussing building works (too late now!) or the pre-opening OFSTED (presumably passed long ago).

For ease, I'll break them up into a few posts, and start with those most pertinent to getting off to a smooth start next week. (If there are any experienced free schoolers out there who think I've missed anything, or anyone about to open who wants me to write about something on their mind, get in touch to let me know: mark@lehain.com)

Topics:

- (No) Blurred Lines: things the Head & Governors need to agree before a student crosses the threshold.
- Hold on to the Vision: keeping your eye on the ball amidst everything else.
- Day 1 practicalities: things to have to hand.
- IT and other lesson resources: assume nothing.
- Student & staff records and your MIS: get it right first time.
- Bye bye friends & family: planning for term 1 survival.
- Sept '15: recruiting another intake whilst running a new school.
- Switching from start up to delivery: getting from ideas to implementation.