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I’ve wanted to write a little thread on #GCSEresultsday on Thursday since #alevels2020 last week. Ive finally had a go here... I’m HT of a big PRU, probably the largest single exam number PRU in the country, this year 106 year 11 pupils have left our provision.
These are pupils who have had massively different journeys through the education world. They have mainly been permanently excluded from school. They have almost certainly missed multiple large chunks of education and been disengaged for some time.
More than 72% of them are in receipt of pupil premium funding, around 60% of them will have involvement of other agencies, the majority multiple agencies. They are already more likely to end up in prison than their peers just because they’re excluded.
1 in 2 of them have or will have a recognised mental health disagnosis.
Many of them arrive with us with an undiagnosed medical need such as ADHD, ASD etc.
Too many of them arrive with an unrecognised special educational need, sometimes simple, sometimes much more complex.
Many of them arrive with us with an undiagnosed medical need such as ADHD, ASD etc.
Too many of them arrive with an unrecognised special educational need, sometimes simple, sometimes much more complex.
Pupils come from deprivation and often have multiple ACEs.... their attendance before joining us is often extremely low - most improve this whilst with us.
When they are with us we work hard alongside them to change their lives. These aren’t young people who aren’t capable, in fact many of them are incredibly capabale and simply needed an environment that works for them.
We’ve been working so hard for 3 years (since my appointment as HT) to change our model, raise aspirations and provide a range of qualifications that are meaningful and challenging for pupils. Most of them will sit at least 5 GCSEs alongside other quals. Many will sit 7-9 GCSEs!
Last year we had our first full set of results under our new model; these were really encouraging, especially since most of these pupils crammed the courses into 1 year! This cohort have had 2 full years of teaching, we were expecting results to increase significantly....
This would mean individual pupils with significant achievements. NEET figures for PRUs / AP are somewhere in the region, nationally, of 40%+ ours are predicted to be 9%. Last year they were 25%. We are taking our pupils in the right direction!
But, and it’s a big but, pupils have low prior attainment, KS2 scores etc. We do not have a history of strong GCSE outcomes as a school and our cohorts are big. So our pupils are likely to be in the reported 97% whose results will be based on the algorithm....
So I am expecting a day of disappointment for individuals and for us as a school. The system will chew up our pupils and spit them out; because of their history, our school history, where they live, the fact mainstream hasn’t worked for them
They will be disadvantaged compared to much smaller PRUs because of cohort size. They will be victims of attending our school which is improving rapidly but not quickly enough for this cohort.
And because of this, far from levelling up, and promoting life chances for all; this government will have made their immediate futures much more challenging! And for that, I will never forgive them!
Just to refelct on the decisions announced this afternoon - it was the only thing that could happen at this point but they could and should have saved the young people the heart ache! Not to mention the school and college leaders and those poor universities sorting the mess now!
