Published at 11:24, Monday, 16 July 2012

It was a problem that had reached Westminster back in early 2009. What to do about Carlisle’s problem academy?

Russ Wallace

One of 140 nationwide, the fledgling central academy was ranked inadequate just weeks after opening. All but one of the main areas surveyed were given the worst Ofsted rating and more than 90 per cent of parents who returned surveys had concerns about safety, wellbeing and education.

The pupils themselves staged a mass demonstration, forcing the school to close, after St Aidan’s and North Cumbria Technology College merged to form the Richard Rose Central Academy a year earlier than planned.

“I was based in London at the time and there was talk about an escalating situation in Carlisle,” says Mike Gibbons, chief executive of the Richard Rose Federation, which runs Carlisle’s two academies.

“We could not disguise the fact that things were going badly wrong. I knew about it and I was quite distressed. I had worked at Trinity twice – latterly as headteacher – and had a house in Cumbria. I’m fond of it.”

The situation had landed firmly at the door of schools minister Jim Knight, who was charged with solving it “as quickly as possible.”

“I was having a conversation in Westminster with him and a good friend of mine, Toby Salt,” Mike recalls.

“Tim mentioned to Jim that I knew Carlisle and had worked there.

“At that point, the minister fixed me with an interested gaze and said; ‘Since you know it, would you be prepared to go back?’

Mr Knight made a visit to the academy the next day and asked Mike to meet sponsor Brian Scowcroft and the chair of the governors.

The school had just been plunged into special measures and Mike did what he describes as “one of the best things I ever did in my life.”

“I called Russ [Wallace]. When I was a headteacher in Newcastle, Russ was well known and admired. He was known for winning the trust of young people and their parents. He exudes natural authority.

“He had been doing rescue operations at other schools but nothing like the scale of this challenge.”

Just days later, Mike, 63, faced hundreds of parents as he took centre stage at an emergency meeting. He had met Russ just an hour beforehand. “It was touch and go stuff.”

The evening meeting was ‘very dramatic’ because it was the first time parents were told the school had gone into special measures.

For Mike, there were two huge issues, he says. To keep the other city academy at Morton doing well and restore order and stability at Central.

It was back to basics at all levels – bringing their temporary home at North Cumbria Technology College up to scratch – getting proper car parks, painting buildings – while the new build at St Aidan’s got going – installing discipline and cutting out jargon.

“The biggest round of applause that night was when I said ‘you are having a head teacher not a director of learning [as had been the case previously]. Here’s one I prepared earlier’ and produced Russ.

“My main message to the parents was to openly acknowledge that things were not right. I promised the buildings would be up by January 2011.

“Much of the problem was caused because people didn’t see the difficulty in moving 1,400 kids from St Aidans to Harraby while the buildings went up.”

At Harraby, 30 temporary classrooms had been labelled the learning village.

“Disguising the reality was crazy so it was really important to get back to the basics of that,” he says.

Mike is not keen to apportion blame – ‘there’s no point in looking back, we were where we were’ – but believes the decision to rush the opening forward a year did not help.

“I think we [Russ and I] had to make up for the loss of that year of planning,” he says.

“I think the territorial issues – [with pupils feeling they were at rival schools] – were hugely exploited.

“Once you start addressing discipline, which we did very quickly, you see a change. Russ has got to get so much credit.

“Kids want to find out where their boundaries are. They push to find out. The fewer they have, the more they push.

“Russ met 14 double decker buses coming in, and he saw them out every day. He always did it with a smile and a wave, and they liked him. They knew he was on their side.”

Once new measures had been put in place, Mike says things started to turn around quickly.

Within weeks, children were turning up for extra lessons laid on at weekends to help them catch up on anything they may have missed in the more troubled times.

The academy came out of special measures in October 2010 but things were by no means over.

“There were so many corners to turn. I can’t say if there was one moment when we knew it would be ok. Getting out of special measures was just getting back to normal, I didn’t see it like the light at the end of the tunnel. It was the end of the beginning.”

Since then, it has been building on small successes and both academies are anticipating their best GCSE results next month. The federation behind it is also due to break even for the first time next year,

“I have long since stopped being relieved. I am now pleased by it,” Mike adds.

“I always believed we would get to this point. It’s what I came to do.

Mike – who is taking a break from full-time education but plans to do consultancy work, possibly at other academies in the UK – is optimistic the two academies can get into the top quartile of schools.

He admits that they ‘may be a year out’ of Mr Scowcroft’s initial prediction of reaching this goal by 2013. He believes very firmly that moving into the new buildings – worth £55m and the biggest investment in education in the city since 1870 - was key to turning things around.

“You can’t say surroundings were part of the failure [in 2009], and not say they made a difference to the improvement.

“These buildings tell our young people that we really care about them.

“Central was given one of the best school buildings in the north of England. You can’t fail to make an improvement in somewhere like that.”

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk