Seeing as Britain's loudest headteacher is all over the RW press again, can anyone explain why her school is so undersubscribed? They only have 723 pupils for 840 places, yet other schools in the borough have 100+ over their admissions number. It doesn't really match the rhetoric does it? 🤷‍♀️ - ThreadSky

suecowley.bsky.social • 11 days ago

Seeing as Britain's loudest headteacher is all over the RW press again, can anyone explain why her school is so undersubscribed? They only have 723 pupils for 840 places, yet other schools in the borough have 100+ over their admissions number. It doesn't really match the rhetoric does it? 🤷‍♀️

Comments

abbyaug.bsky.social•11 days ago

People assume that she is oversubscribed, and she certainly gives that impression, but I have looked at the numbers and it isn’t the case. I compare with other comprehensives I know and they really are oversubscribed.

woollyvix.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yes - I had always assumed that they were massively oversubscribed and that parents were literally hammering on the doors to get their kids in.
Maybe having a batshit loon as a Head does put parents off?

abbyaug.bsky.social•11 days ago

She expects them to do as she tells them! Having been to school meetings as a parent for about 23 years I know that she would be given a tough ride in my area.

woollyvix.bsky.social•10 days ago

I think I would give her a tough ride as a parent!

abbyaug.bsky.social•10 days ago

One reason (of many) that I couldn’t send my child because it wouldn’t be fair on them. I would be taking her up on every mad tweet.

woollyvix.bsky.social•10 days ago

I had to block her a few years back as she kept quote tweeting me to get a pile-on. She is a vile piece of work.

warwickmansell.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yes, the numbers are interesting.

warwickmansell.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's the sixth form which explains that. Not full.

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

That's what I assumed. But then other selective sixth forms are like the Westminster one.

warwickmansell.bsky.social•11 days ago

Can you remind me about the Westminster one?

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's Westminster Harris. 600 places all filled.

warwickmansell.bsky.social•11 days ago

Thanks.

planetjanet.bsky.social•11 days ago

Students don’t want to go to 6th forms that treat them like children, where the atmosphere is not cherishing, creative or successful and which don’t offer interesting courses.

timbolatura.bsky.social•11 days ago

I did not know that. Interesting. No informal selection process I hope…

philg42.bsky.social•11 days ago

Why would anyone who knows what she stands for trust her with their children?

anniesten.bsky.social•11 days ago

I’d like to know when she actually does the job she’s paid to do because she spends so much time attention seeking on various news programs

saltednuts.bsky.social•11 days ago

All that and the responses below.
If only we had more journalists like Warwick across every field of public life the lies and corruption behind so many of the false idols might just begin to register. Mind you we would need to do something about who owns our media in general😮‍💨

jenihooper.bsky.social•11 days ago

Places available for displaced private school pupils. Doubt anyone would see this as suitable.

abbyaug.bsky.social•11 days ago

Those moving from private schools wouldn’t want it - far too narrow.

jenihooper.bsky.social•11 days ago

My tongue was in my cheek. Lots of complaints about lack of school places for children moving from private schools. I hear that Michaela is under subscribed

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

I'm very curious about what the mega fans think about this because it is odd if it's so great. It's also presumably an issue for funding. Maybe that explains the constant publicity seeking?

poisonousratbag.bsky.social•11 days ago

Because she piles impossible pressure on any child who even looks like they might fail and forces them into the other local schools. She exports failure and her P8 results are an illusion and a cheat. It’s also stone cold illegal.

drleatongray.bsky.social•11 days ago

There’s definitely rigging the metrics on a number of levels.

poisonousratbag.bsky.social•11 days ago

If you rolled out her methods at any scale it would make not one iota of difference to overall results. She actually runs one of the UK’s most academically selective schools - the Dept of Ed should go through her dropout rates like a firestorm.

leedsbookclub.bsky.social•11 days ago

Met a teacher who worked there once and they were so arrogant that she & the staff knew what was best for the pupils, particularly in comparison to the pupils themselves and - with contempt - the parents. The disdain for family was palpable.

All the standard ‘woke’ rhetoric nonsense.

gardennicola.bsky.social•11 days ago

Her methods sound like those of my super strict selective grammar school in the 1960s. Couldn’t do physics there either. Extremely narrow curriculum discouraged girls from science in general did me no favours.

woollyvix.bsky.social•11 days ago

Their 6th form is entirely selective - can't get in unless GCSE grades are 7 as an average.

gardennicola.bsky.social•11 days ago

So I gather!

forensicdom.bsky.social•11 days ago

I never knew that, but I'm not surprised to hear it.

If I had my pick of any school in the country to work at, I can safely say that place would be dead last.

blackwillow1.bsky.social•11 days ago

This repugnant person, with her damaging attitude to the mental health of students, is attempting to fashion future adults who will be compliant and happy to obey in advance. She'd probably have them all fitted with a Neuralink device if she could get away with it.

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

I have always assumed that the kind of students who will thrive there self select…hence the good results, but if the pool of those students isn’t very big then they’ll struggle to fill their roll cos you have to have a very particular mindset to want to go there…

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

So it's not really serving its community then? But why don't people travel in? It's on the tube and parents have a 'choice'.

spsmith45.bsky.social•11 days ago

If the idea of free schools was to offer something different, it succeeded. I suppose there is some self-selection. I spent a day there once and students were happy and thriving.

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

I think that’s the key thing though, what they do very clearly works for the cohort of students they have…but it’s very dangerous to think that model could be applied as the norm…which seems to be what the head of that school advocates

spsmith45.bsky.social•11 days ago

The model has been applied elsewhere, eg in Yarmouth some time ago. It had some success, I recall. But contexts vary of course.

kedisimpson.bsky.social•11 days ago

There's a very similar model near us. We get a steady stream of students from there from about half way through year 7. The ones who can't cope with the 'regime'. It's sad. And in no way is it comprehensive.

shareyourstory.bsky.social•11 days ago

From memory loads of kids left immediately, the 'controversial' head left suddenly after a few months of negative publicity and it ended up merging with another school in the same trust due to low numbers? Not sure that was a great success.

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

Im sure it’s something that could successfully be repeated across the country in pockets…my worry is when people say this is the best/only way school provision should be…which ignores the selection bias and survivor bias at play in the model (and any alternative model for that matter)

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

Maybe they do…maybe the 700odd students are travelling in from a wide radius because there’s little demand locally?

All of this is just supposition but it would be interesting to see a heat map of where their students live

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's interesting because there's a very large comp close by with 200 over its PAN.

martinri209.bsky.social•11 days ago

I was going to say: kicking out time down the road and it's heaving all around the area, kicking out at Michaela and it's barely noticeable.

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

They would claim that’s because their students are so well behaved they do what well mannered kids are supposed to do and vanish into the background…😢

Youthful exuberance is anathema to learning or something…

darrenmacey.bsky.social•11 days ago

Which certainly suggests that there are a lot of students locally who actively don’t want to go to the the daily mail’s favourite school

sueg59.bsky.social•10 days ago

It doesn’t. She gives the impression parents are champing at the bit to get in to her school. I struggle to find polite words to voice my thoughts about her ideas and beliefs so will shut up now!

thornfieldhall.bsky.social•11 days ago

They have a highly selective 6th form and a narrow curriculum, but Wembley High Technology College, locally, still gets more kids into Oxbridge.

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

And has 200 pupils over its PAN.

thornfieldhall.bsky.social•11 days ago

They give a proper SEND report, too, not just a statement of objectives.

drleatongray.bsky.social•11 days ago

Can you tell me more about this?

thornfieldhall.bsky.social•11 days ago

Sorry forgot to add - if you go on Michaela's website they only give their SEN policy doc, not the full report that most schools (Inc Wembley High Tech) provide.

drleatongray.bsky.social•11 days ago

thornfieldhall.bsky.social•11 days ago

From her own mouth. What Birbalsingh says is a failure to recognise and make provision ADHD as a disability. If you take that position, children whose disabilities mean that they cannot conform to her inflexible methods will simply select out and go elsewhere.

localnotail.bsky.social•11 days ago

They have a really narrow curriculum at Michaela - it's how they get such high marks. No IT, no Design Technology, no drama, sports & music v limited

drleatongray.bsky.social•11 days ago

Single science …!

poisonousratbag.bsky.social•11 days ago

All true but the real way she delivers her bullshit GCSE results is by weeding out kids who won’t over-perform their KS2 predictions and sending them off to fail in other schools long before they even open an exam paper.

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yes I know. Do you think that explains it?

joing.bsky.social•11 days ago

A friend of mine who lives in the catchment says that they don’t offer triple science GCSE. So their GCSE grades appear high (as they don’t have to worry about poor physics results). Selecting easier subjects certainly improves results.

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's very odd to say you are academically high flying but not even to do triple science. It's a classic 'top set' thing to do one extra science GCSE in the same amount of time.

localnotail.bsky.social•11 days ago

Well, it's probably a factor for some groups of parents, but I expect that bringing in the Islamic prayer ban in March 2023 & the acrimony that followed is the biggest reason Michaela isn't full. Not a very smart move in an area that has a large Muslim catchment area.

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

I think from memory it wasn't full before that although it could be an issue. But I think she was always clear about the secular bit.

localnotail.bsky.social•11 days ago

~50% of the pupils were Muslims when the court case happened. Not hard to see that dropping off since then.

woollyvix.bsky.social•11 days ago

They didn't have any geography until a couple of years back!

digitaldaisies.bsky.social•11 days ago

I didn’t know that. Interesting

suecowley.bsky.social•11 days ago

Certainly puts a new perspective on its popularity when Wembley High is 200+ oversubscribed. 🤷‍♀️

thesnark.bsky.social•11 days ago

I didn't know that - fascinating!

choctoothpaste.bsky.social•10 days ago

Have you seen this blog post from someone who visited and spent the day there? Enlightening.... https://ahouseinjoppa.wordpress.com/2025/01/22/the-michaela-school-the-classroom-and-the-lunch/

suecowley.bsky.social•10 days ago

This is long but it's the perfect explanation of why it's all so problematic.
https://disidealist.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/the-new-authoritarianism/

choctoothpaste.bsky.social•10 days ago

Brilliant, thanks for sharing.

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