DYA looses its grip. Is that Brilliant, Chris?

I originally wrote this in response to the news that GCSE  results at the David Young Academy, Leeds had dramatically dropped, and that observers declared behaviour a massive issue. Then I went to see Bloc Party in Manchester [cos without live music you can't breather, let alone think] , which somewhat halted my literary flow [cos sometimes with live music you just enjoy yourself] and didn't get it finished at the time. Now it's old news, and actually it's just repeating old news.
 

Well, the DYA was born out of the very much unwelcome closure and merger of two high schools nowhere near Seacroft - all boys Braimwood in Roundhay and mixed C of E Agnes Stewart in Burmantoffs. The Foxwood/East Leeds building was still standing on its firm foundations over the fields and in sight, but obviously what this area needed was a fortress of non-architecture, a lot of lime green paint and a escalator at the front entrance. And obviously construction companies need to earn a living!

From the off,  DYA then operated its “fair banding” policy, not a policy that was available to the schools it closed down. This involved selecting a mix of able and less able kids. And in one year DYA excluded more children than all other Leeds schools put together. A friend, on Appeals Panel at the time, despaired.

 

The excluded children were then farmed off to the historically unpopular inner-city schools who were regularly disparaged in the media by the late unlamented Education Leeds and its CEO [just as M Wilshaw is currently damning the whole of Bradford] who was enthusiastically facilitating the merger. He used the word, Brilliant a lot, and was only interested in how things looked, not how things were.

 

My interest in this of course was that I taught the kids of Seacroft and Gipton for a happy and challenging 16 years and would have stayed had not Foxwood School not been sacrificed on the altar of results to be closed and merged itself.

I knew and loved those rejected families. I taught those four boys who killed themselves the year after Foxwood closed. I went to David W's funeral, with his dad there in handcuffs, not so discreetly next to the policeman. All this new paint and data and all this publicly shaming students and schools and teachers for no end good at all.

What children need are well-respected and remunerated staff who are happy to spend their careers mostly in one place. When you are greeted with You taught my mum, you have saved a lot of time having to prove yourself . Trust and respect straight off, and from the staff’s side too.

What education needs is to be publicly owned and publicly run, and their buildings, staff and other assets not given away to entrepreneurs and private companies who are only in it for the business, the money and the power, and in some cases because they have an overwhelming belief in themselves. Who may or may not have experience and background in education.