R. Thornton
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Another Turner missiveI make no apologies for the length of this post. So many of Mr Turner's comments in his latest letter to parents are off the mark I have tackled them individually.
Firstly, does anyone else think it rather strange that it is always Mr Turner who sends these letters - never the head teacher ? Does anyone know of any other schools where this happens ? Mrs Coupe - as has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum - is very astute at keeping out of the firing line.
So here goes :-
"It has been a pretty rough year for the Head teacher and many of the excellent staff at the school, as well as for the Governors, as a result of sustained, noisy and ill informed criticism from a very small minority of people"
Well Mr Turner It has been ‘a pretty rough year’ for Mrs Alderson, Mrs Reidy and their families, THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN.
One thing the MSAG can NEVER be accused of is being ill-informed. If that were the case then Mr Turner’s greatest desire to have the forum closed would be an easy task if untrue, false and malicious accusations were made. This has never happened.
As for being a very small minority of people – wouldn’t Mr Turner just wish that were the case? One simply has to look at the daily viewing figures of the forum to see how many people are watching Marton’s plight. Is he trying to suggest that there are a small number of people just sitting at their computers permanently visiting the site over and over again to reach these figures ? There are not the hours in a day Mr Turner.
"I do not intend to dwell on that except to say the school will ALWAYS seek to answer and take on board properly presented questions and concerns from parents. "
Why then at the start of all this – BEFORE the MSAG was set up did Mr Turner refuse to answer any letters to the previous Chair of Governors – complaints which were already in place. You, as much as anyone, bear a great deal of blame for what has happened since. Why the need to change the school’s complaints procedure so that Mrs Coupe is involved in any complaints about her – against all advice on complaints prcedures provided by the DfES
"What we will NOT DO is respond to anonymous accusations made in public"
I wonder then why you feel it necessary to respond to points made on the website in your letter ?
It has been said many times that there is a serious reason for anonymity. Mrs Coupe has never hesitated to threaten police action – against children and against parents. You and she also used security people at a meeting in October when Y6 parents wished to ask questions about the terrible way they had been treated and lied to in the previous summer term. Only recently Mr Veale had an interview with the police following a complaint and they agreed that people have every right to call into question actions by public figures on a forum such as this. My own legal advice supports this, yet Mrs Coupe and the governors have sought to have the site closed with no respect for freedom of speech or clauses in the Human Rights Act
"As you will know from the joint CSA, Union and school press release that was circulated to you, some difficult personnel matters have been concluded. Thanks to your ability to see past the smoke and appreciate what the school is really about, any constraint on progress brought about by all the media attention has been minimal and is rapidly being recovered."
I agree that it has been very difficult to see past all the smoke created by you, Mr Lund and Mrs Coupe. I also hope that by ‘progress’ you include recovery from the costs to the taxpayers, which the governing body, and Mrs Coupe have incurred. If so, where is this money to come from? These ‘difficult personnel matters’ you refer to – are these by any chance grievances brought against the head teacher, which the Governors refused to hear, or prevented from being heard ? Do they refer to the wrongful suspension of a senior member of staff, which has now cost the authority hundreds of thousands of pounds (not an ill-informed figure)? Aren’t you forgetting that it was not just the CSA and the Unions who settled the matter – things were so serious that ACAS had to oversee the agreement? Isn’t it also the case that one of the ‘personnel’ matters refers to a teacher who has been very ill for over a year and also had to be included in the negotiations because of her treatment by the school ? and who, on a recent visit to the school was verbally abused by you with no respect for her illness at all – when she was collecting her personal belongings so that the issues COULD finally be concluded. May we ask why you and Mrs Coupe will not allow the difficult personnel matters REALLY to be concluded so that these teachers and school can move on.
I cannot argue with any of the statements about the children - what Mr Turner says about their outlook, politeness and care for others have been a feature of the school since it opened. An ethos established from the earliest days. But then has Mr Turner been around that long ??
"The governors consider it healthy for staff to seek to improve their careers by applying for posts in other schools. This allows for some new external ideas to flow into Marton from other places and we have had no difficulty in attracting, outstanding and experienced teachers to become part of the team. Their positive input is already becoming visible not only in the academic results but also in the support that they can give younger staff. The general policy is to 'stretch' staff so that they can improve their performance and qualifications and to support them throughout this process. We still have some way to go before this is properly established but already some staff have gained additional certification."
A strange statement to put on a letter to parents. Why is it only the best teachers are leaving then Mr Turner ? Take a look at the Ofsted report more carefully and the lesson assessments! I wonder now how many more of the good staff are about to jump ship ?
"Their positive input is already becoming visible not only in the academic results"
2006 SATs results – this term !!!
English down – when schools across England are going to see a significant rise.
Science – dramatically down for the 2nd year running.
Maths up – I agree - but still not at the level of 2004 AND as the HMI pointed out in December, improvement was due to the input of advisers from the CSA. There has also been a 9-hour maths per week purge on year six.
Please could Mr T explain his definition of ‘positive input in academic results’
"Much was made at the end of the last school year of an OFSED report that positioned the school as 'Underachieving'. This, is in fact, the mildest form of criticism. Sadly some saw this as excessively bad on the one hand whilst being inaccurate and criticising the Governors for not challenging it on the other. The Governors decided that the best thing to do was just fix the various issues that OFSTED identified and that is what has been done on a number of matters and is ongoing through the Headteacher's action plan, on the remainder."
Sadly, Mr T to many of us ‘underachieving’ IS excessively bad. To those teachers and members of the community who strive to always get the best for their children do not want wish to ‘make do’. In our home lives, our careers our sport we strive to do our best and to be the best. We want OFSTED reports as good as those that Marton has always had previously – not to say ‘ oh well it was only a mild form of criticism’
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t it the job of the governing body to check thoroughly the Ofsted report. If you check the OfSTED site you will see that any questions must be asked by the governing body or the CSA - and there is only a limited time to do this following the publication. I wonder how carefully the report was examined by the governors and why reasons have never been given for not challenging the questionable statements made ?
"The success of this approach was recognised by an OFSTED monitoring report of December last year"
I quote from the HMI’s report
“This visit has raised some concerns about the standard of education provided and the school’s performance will be monitored. “
I see – this is Mr T's definition of a successful approach. I will refrain from saying ‘keep up the good work’
"The Government radically revised the Performance and Assessment Report (PANDA) for 2005 making comparisons with the past years complex. The full statistical analysis is available for anyone who wishes to read it and parents are invited to make an appointment f they would like any further information regarding the continually improving standards at our school. However, in summary I can say that Marton 2005 moved up the value added tables in all areas in comparison to other schools. The Head wrote to you back in March about this."
Oh dear, Mr Turner – now who is ill-informed. Yes the government radically revised the PANDA report BUT in doing so also altered ALL previous results were displayed and the way they were calculated to fit in with the new value added approach. In this way all previous years can be easily compared – there would be no point in producing a PANDA at all otherwise. I will repeat the statement by an adviser, which I have placed elsewhere on the forum already.
“A new measure was introduced in 2005 called CVA- Contextual Value Added.
This aims to take into account ALL a child's factors including prior attainment & social class/ethnicity. It was introduced in response to complaints that schools working with large numbers of challenging pupils did not get sufficient recognition for the improvements they have made to those pupils. Under the old system schools were compared with broadly similar schools based largely on Free School Meal data. There is currently considerable debate on just how accurate the CVA is. Some commentators suggest the DfES data differs from Fischer Family Trust data, which is also meant to give an accurate picture of the socio economic profile of the pupil body. This debate is ongoing.
The CVA data See SISR Page 4 of the PANDA for actual data, under the heading 'Value Added Measures' indicates that in terms of Value Added the trend in 2004 was continued in 2005, I agree, but you will note that the biggest rise is in English.
The English CVA for 2005 is the only area where in terms of Value Added the school features as significantly higher than other schools nationally. (Pale blue colouring on the PANDA) In both Maths and Science Marton school is below the average nationally. "
I am sure that Mr Turner must be aware that Mrs Coupe’s excellent management skills led her to suspend the teacher who was responsible for that one successful area.
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Finally. I am sure that children are happy in school – it would be a sad day indeed if things reached the level where they weren’t. I am also sure now, that the parents who were not happy with the school have voted with their feet and would not have been given the opportunity to take part in any school ‘survey’. I do wonder though how many of the parents of children currently at Marton, still have no idea of what is going on. If they have a good rapport with the class teacher, for many of them, that will be enough. Letters such this recent one by Mr Turner, will of course, continue to provide the ‘smoke’ that ordinary people have to see through to get to the truth of matters.
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mary
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I think it is disgraceful that blatant propoganda, such as this, is allowed to be put out to intelligent parents.
What on earth is the headteacher thinking of, allowing this badly worded missive to go out?
Thank goodness for people like R Thornton, who is able to pull it to pieces with ease.
There must be other intelligent, questioning people out there who are not gullible enough to be taken in by such a blatant piece of spin!
In my opinion, the sooner Mr Turner gets his marching orders the better - for ALL concerned.
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Tracey
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i try so hard not to respond to mr.turners newsletters, but it becomes increasingly more difficult. I am not a member of staff yet even i am offended for them with his statement regarding the rough year had by many of the excellent staff at marton.........Surely he meant to say all the excellent staff at marton?
Or is it that you are only excellent if your views agree with his? Have any members of staff been recently suspended or fired due to not doing their job properly? Obviously i am not refering to recent events where the staff were exonerated........
As to his comments regarding "the governors considering it healthy for staff to improve their careers by applying for posts in other schools", whilst in most organisations I would commend this, surely the children would benefit more from the continued presence of these experienced teachers and staff.
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helen
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Well said Tracey I thought exactly the same. It is so obvious that he is purposely not including all staff and for the reasons you said, because they don't agree with him.
I'm sure we are not the only two parents who find his letters offensive. You only have to look at the figures on the poll above. He is helping to make the school a laughing stock and he doesn't even realise it. Mrs Coupe of course is happy to let him send these letters it means that they are nothing to do with her and when everything does come crashing down as it will she can hide in a corner and pretend to be the victim again.
Open your eyes parents, the situation is obvious!
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BBCCSA
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Turner LettersIs it possible for someone to post ALL the letters sent out by Mr Turner on behalf of the school on here? I have seen a few but not all. I am pretty sure some action can/should/will be taken.
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billandben
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Surely Mr Turner must realise by now that the letters that he sends out to parents consistently contain totally incorrect information. Are the letters vetted? Does he trust those that vet them? The information about the PANDA report is a very silly thing to have got wrong. Mr Turner is in too important a position to get this wrong so many times. It is obvious he understands next to nothing about education. How can he be trusted in such an important position when he is making so many mistakes?
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WAYNE HEYS
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Good old Mr Turner , he always comes up trumps when things go a little quiet, no wonder the MSAG worshipped him so much, after all he was our biggest ally, constantly ranting on what a bad bunch we are,(though he does not know who exactly or how many there are in the group!!)
Too many letters have gone home with incorrect information; yet again he is at Mrs Coupe’s side to take the rap for the biggest piece of propaganda to hit the streets for ages.
It’s the sort of rubbish that I would expect to come out of the Whitehouse, still, here is an alternative "end of the year, state of the nation speech"
"It’s been a pretty rough year for the head teacher and many of the excellent staff at school[/color][/color], it’s been particularly rough for Mrs Alderson who has now left (and one day we may find out why!!) And Mrs Reidy who has been off for over a year through stress, (can’t think what's so stressful about working at Marton) as well as the Governors who have backed the Head teacher and Mr Turner throughout the year. Three Governors who did indeed raise their concerns (Mr Taylor, Mr Curtis and Mr Lomax) all left the Board of Governors. The school changed the procedure so that any complaints about Mrs Coupe would be investigated thoroughly by the Governors oh and MRS COUPE!!!!!
As a result of sustained, noisy and ill informed criticism from a very small minority of people. I do not intend to dwell on that except to say the school will ALWAYS seek to answer and take on board properly presented questions and concerns from parents. What we will NOT DO is respond to anonymous accusations made in public.
That said the school have now tightened up internet security, oh, and are building the MUGA even though Mr Turner said the money was tied up some months ago?
Mrs Coupe have asked a member of staff to remove inappropriate images taken at school with a Marton pupil in the background, even though it took approximately 4 weeks after a PROPERLY PRESENTED QUESTION was received from the MSAG?
Oh I forgot, there was a PROPERLY PRESENTED QUESTION to meet Mrs Coupe and discuss issues at the school LAST SEPTEMBER.
Thanks to your ability to see past the smoke and appreciate what the school is really about, we have lost a year six teacher WHO WAS INDEED PRAISED in THAT Ofsted report (Mr Turner can't or won’t tell you why yet, 12 months later!!)
What matters to us all is that the school continued to provide a great
education and environment for your children throughout this year and will
continue to do so. Don’t forget approximately 70 kids have left the school, some through moving to new areas and others, well…………. And as for the SATS AND PANDA report……………….
Marton Children have a wonderful reputation for cheerful good behaviour
and concern for one another wherever they go. One can think of the visit
to the Mayor of Blackpool last November; yes ok, Mr Turner was SHOUTING A LOT when Mrs Alderson and Mrs Reidy came to clean their desks, as for the Mayoral visit, when a member of the MSAG contacted the Mayor to see just why Marton had been chosen for a visit, (not political surely) he never replied to them!!!!!
To conclude, may I wish you and your family, a very happy and fun filled
summer break, I look forward to welcoming your children back on the 4th
September, refreshed and eager to continue to enjoy Marton, or, for the
new intake, experience it for the first time.
Mr Turner, hopefully you will have resigned by the 4th September as in my opinion you have caused more embarrassment to the school than you can ever possibly imagine.
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