My previous article about Dr Jo Saxton and her nomination as the preferred candidate to be the new chief regulator of Ofqual has clearly struck home at Turner Schools, with the Trust issuing a press release explicitly attempting to refute my evidence of its problems. Unfortunately, this is factually wrong on most points, which is strange as in his accompanying letter to staff the CEO warns that ‘disinformation and falsehoods are being spread about our schools’ (I have never seen any).
In particular, quoted data about school exclusions is wrong according to official KCC figures, whilst the statement about the number of pupils joining Folkestone Academy in September appears to be based on a false manipulation of the data to hide the fact that fewer families than ever before want to join the school.
The press release refers to my themes about GCSE performance, stability in leadership teams, and finance, all central to the concerns I expressed. It wrongly claims that a number of Folkestone schools had been failing for many years before Turner Schools took over. In short, I remain unaware of any of the claimed disinformation or falsehoods being spread about Turner Schools, but am completely bewildered as to why the Trust seeks to go down this route. As pointed out before, I am always more than happy to make corrections to any factual errors in my articles if they are pointed out.
I look at the press release section by section below, although many of the claims are already refuted with the relevant evidence in my previous article, which sparked his all off.
Jo kickstarted a programme of school improvement for a number of Folkestone schools that had previously been failing for many years. Turning around schools that have been struggling for years takes time.This can only apply to two schools rather than the more expansive ‘number of’, Folkestone Academy (FA) and Morehall Primary (MoP) as the other two schools are only a few years old each. Perhaps the Trust has not noticed that two years before it took over FA, the school had been awarded a ‘Good’ Ofsted, so hardly failing, in contrast to subsequent outcomes under Turner Schools, below and in my article. Morehall Primary did indeed achieve its first ‘Good’ Ofsted under Turner Schools in 2019, up from ‘Requires Improvement’ in 2013, but its failure was as long ago as 2011. The third school, Martello Primary (MaP) only opened in 2015, just two years before being taken over by Turner, with an Ofsted Inspection Report of ‘Requires Improvement' in 2018, so clearly doesn’t fall into the category of ‘previously failing for many years’. The only other school, Turner Free School (TFS) opened as recently as 2018. Other examples of the failures to make school improvements are in my previous article and below. You will find considerably more data and information about FA in my Individual Schools section here.
The 2019-2020 Annual Report of Turner Schools posted by Companies House claims that ‘Currently only one of the academies is not graded as ‘Good’ but has rapidly improved over the last eighteen months’. Sadly, this is yet another example of sleight of hand. MoP is graded as Good. Turner Free School has not yet had an Inspection. Presumably, MaP with its Requires Improvement Ofsted is the school not graded as ‘Good’ although it is unclear how the rapid improvement is measured. That leaves Folkestone Academy with half as many pupils again as the other three combined. As a member of Turner Schools, it still has not had an inspection, so whilst the headline is technically correct, it would be equally true to write ‘Currently only one of the academies is graded as ‘Good’ !
In the early days when expectations on behaviour were being re-set exclusions were high. Having changed the culture within these schools, we’ve seen a seven-fold reduction in children being excluded – down from 790 in Folkestone Academy and 21 in Martello in 2017/18 to 106 and 3 respectively in 2019/20.
I quoted the KCC official figures for exclusions supplied to me by FOI, in my previous article, which are very different from these new Turner Schools claims. As I have reported many times, Folkestone Academy had 1,211 fixed-term exclusions in 2017/2018 (not 790 as claimed), including five in the primary department, by far the largest figure in the county ever since I have kept records. At MaP in 2017/18, the figure was 32 (including five in Year One, 11 in Year Two, five in Year Four and 10 in Year Five), not 21 as claimed. My figures were widely reported in the media at the time, based on two articles about them, but not challenged by the Trust then or since until today, so one can only speculate where the figures in the Press Release came from.
The popularity of the academies is also increasing, with an additional 50 Year 7s joining Folkestone Academy this September. Martello has also seen a significant increase over the last couple of years.
This one really puzzled me, as Folkestone Academy’s popularity has been nose-diving ever since being taken over by Turner Schools, as covered extensively on this site. The Sixth Form is now far less than half the size it was when Turner Schools took over, down from 374 students according to the October 2016 census to 127 in October 2020. Year Seven was down from 287 pupils to 154 over the same period. And yet the school claims its intake for the coming September is up by 50 pupils, reversing the nose-dive.
As far as I can see this figure is obtained as follows. Take the 213 pupils offered a Year Seven place in March, which shows an increase of 59 pupils over the 154 pupils actually in Year Seven in October, and so is consistent with the Press Release claim. However, the table below shows that there is usually a falling off in the number of children offered places in March and taking them up in September.
| Folkestone Academy Year Seven Intake 2018-2021 |
| | Offers in March | First Choices | Local Authority Allocations | Year Seven Roll in October |
| 2018 | 270 | 198 | 0 | 198 |
| 2019 | 186 | 155 | 9 | 179 |
| 2020 | 184 | 127 | 23 | 154 |
| 2021 | 213 | 102 | 51 | ? |
The large fall between offers and those taking up places in 2018 is explained by the opening of the new Turner Free School, for which applicants applied outside the KCC admissions scheme. Since then the number of first choices has fallen by a third. In 2020, 23 children were allocated places at the school who hadn’t applied through it, via the Local Authority Allocation process. Not surprisingly, the number of children taking up places also fell, by more than the number of LAAs. So what will happen in 2021? The number of LAAs has shot up to 51, the fourth-highest number in Kent. The number of first choices has fallen to 102, by some way the lowest number ever. The number of families offered a place who applied for one amongst their preferences has fallen to 168, again by some way the lowest ever. Clearly, there will once again be a number of children who will have found places in other schools or opted for Home Education rather than send their children to Folkestone Academy, although it is impossible to estimate this figure. It is simply inconceivable that there will be no fall off, as claimed by the Trust. Is it that they don’t understand the process, or that they have deliberately chosen to misrepresent the facts? Neither is an attractive option.
Outcomes are also on the up, with the proportion of students securing five good GCSEs having increased from 24% to 42%– we are seeing an overall improving trend which we expect to continue this year. Folkestone academy is making huge strides to becoming a securely good school in it's own right.
I am unable to comment on this claim as GCSE results were not published for 2020 and won't be for 2021. Unfortunately, Turner Schools has made incorrect statements about performance before, including here. However, a look at the performance table in my Individual Schools section shows that there was a decline through 2018 and 2019 with Turner Schools in charge. It may be that they have turned the corner.
There is also much greater stability in the leadership teams, having initially had to rely on interim arrangements whilst the Trust found the right leaders to take the academies forward.
My series of articles shows that the turnover of Leaders is much more than a reliance on interim arrangements. The summary in the most recent only touches the reality. Four Principals of Folkestone Academy dispatched with varying degrees of brutality, although it was not obvious that any of these were part of an interim arrangement. The senior leadership team changed its personnel with similar regularity and I am sure that staff at FA were amazed to read this fiction. The Executive Headteacher of Morehall Primary was dispatched summarily just a year after Morehall was awarded its Good Ofsted Report.
Finally, in terms of finances, the Trust has saved £1.5m over the last two years and is in a financially stable position. The DfE loan related to the need to find temporary accommodation for our sixth form, having had to move out of the previous building at short notice in 2018. There is a clear repayment plan with the DfE which we are on track with.'
According to the 2019-20 Company Accounts, the DfE Loan totalled £9,120,000, quite an astonishing sum for temporary Sixth Form accommodation, especially with a sharply falling population.
