Rewarding Academic Failure
Denbigh High School, is famous for the legal dispute with a former student, Shabina Begum, who was denied the right to wear the Hijab to school. Throughout this controversy the school was presented as a success story and the Head Teacher, Yasmin Bevan, was lionised and credited with turning what was a failing school around. However, this is far from the truth; the school is an academic failure and has been so since 1991, when Bevan first took up her post as Head Teacher.
The latest Ofsted report was written in full knowledge of the legal case, yet it conspicuously fails to mention it or the fallout with the local and national Muslim community; in what is clearly an attempt to buttress the school's legal case, it draws the conclusion that the school enjoys good community relations. Indeed, it is quite apparent that the report is a work of fiction, praising the school were previously it has been criticised, so as to present it in the best possible light.
However, I doubt that Denbigh High School is the only failing school to receive a good Ofsted report. Whilst I fully accept that there is more to education than academic achievement, it is the most important factor in any meritocracy. It is therefore bizarre in the extreme that a school in which 63% of the pupils leave without having obtained a standard level education, should be considered a success. Rank failure might be a more appropriate description.
Denbigh High School exam results for 2005 are available here. Out of a 197 year 11 pupils, 121 (61%) obtained five or more GCSEs, although only 72 (37%) obtained five or more GCSEs, including Maths and English - the benchmark for a standard education. What is also notable is that 99 pupils (50%) failed to pass English Language and 108 (54%) failed to pass Maths, and between 82-99 (41-50%) failed to pass either subject. Hence, 50% of the pupils are illiterate, 54% innumerate and between 41-50% are both illiterate and innumerate. It is small wonder when the word leisure is spelt "Leasure" on the school homepage. Even 49 of those who passed five GCSEs failed to pass English and Maths, 6-49 (5-40%) failed both. This alone ought to be sufficient reason for any parent to be loath to send their child to this school.
However, on closer inspection, it is apparent that the failure does not end there, only 50% of the exams entered were passed, which drops to 43% in core exams. The pass rate in English Literature and science is lower than in maths and English Language: in English Literature out of 194 entries, 86 passes (44%) and in Science out of 413 entries, 152 passes (37%).
The school achieves its best results in languages, although even a cursory inspection reveals that this is not all it seems either. The school achieves 100% pass rates in Chinese, Dutch and German, yet none of the pupils would have learned these subjects as the school as only one pupils was entered into Chinese and German and six into Dutch. Even the passes in Bengali and Urdu are the result of education at home; only 31 pupils were entered into Bengali, of which 26 (83%) passed and 38 into Urdu, of which 27 (71%) passed. The results for French and Spanish, were far from impressive. Only 61 pupils were entered into French and just 20 were entered into Spanish. So at the very least 39 pupils (20%) were not entered into a language at all, that is of course assuming that those who sat one language did not sit another, although I would rather fancy that all those that sat Spanish also sat French. In any event, the school obtained 113 GCSEs in languages of which only 35 were in French and 17 were in Spanish. Hence a 162 pupils (82%) failed to get French, the principle modern language taught in the school, which is a truer reflection of the school's lack of attainment in modern languages.
The Head Teacher boasts that results have consistently improved over the last five years, yet she has been there for fifteen years and the academic standard is still deplorable, plenty of time one would have thought to turn the school around. It is quite perverse that such an incompetent Head Teacher should receive accolades, when her school has failed 63% of the pupils. This is symptomatic of the the sophistry deployed to veil the evident deterioration of the standard of education in secondary schools: the worse it gets the better we are told it is. Whereas 40% of the pupils in Denbigh High that pass five or more GCSEs, do so without passing English and Maths, there is no such disparity in Thomas Telford, where 100% of the pupils achieved five GCSEs or more and 98% with both English and Maths. I m sure that Denbigh High is not the only failing school to manipulate its results at the expense of its pupils by neglecting Maths and English for softer subjects, which is positively encouraged in the DfSE's school league tables.
