My principal concern is that the children who attend this school should have the best possible education.
The Ofsted report arising from the inspection carried out on 23rd/24th May 2012 found the overall effectiveness of the school was inadequate. The behaviour of the pupils was rated as good. The quality of teaching and the achievement of the pupils was only rated as satisfactory. The leadership and management of the school was judged to be inadequate. Ofsted gave the school notice standards had to improve.
Earlier this year following a further inspection held on 9th and 10th May, almost a full year after the 2012 report, far from things improving Ofsted found that standards had deteriorated. The behaviour of pupils was now assessed as requiring improvement. The achievement of the pupils, the quality of teaching and the leadership and management of the school were all now assessed as inadequate. Not surprisingly, these findings resulted in the overall effectiveness of the school being assessed as inadequate.
In the circumstances I believe the school would benefit from being changed to Academy status.
I will undertake to ensure any representations Governors, staff and parents might wish to make to ministers are duly delivered but it will be on the basis that personally I do not support them.
David Nuttall 
Mr Nuttall- have you visited the school yourself? having gone through several Ofsted Inspections myself I know exactly how much of an agenda Ofsted have and how many hoops the teachers have to go through. It’s absolutely disgusting that you and the government think you have the right to force schools to become something like an academy. If this happens this will be wrong for the teachers especially who will have even more hoops to jump through, it will be wrong for the students and I will be left feeling very let down by you and the government as a whole. Go in and see the school for yourself- see how hard the staff work- see how happy the students are and then come back and make those unforgivable comments.
Mr Nuttall, May I remind you that you are in Parliament to represent the people of Bury and to VOTE in accordance with OUR views and not the tory party and to say you will make sure our views are presented to ministers but you will not support them is a dereliction of the duties you were elected to do. Please get in touch with your office because I am still waiting for answers to another serious matter. Alan Barber
It’s a waste of time Alan.
Nuttall knows that he’s no chance of retaining his seat if he has to rely on support based on local issues. His only hope is that local residents vote purely on national interests, thus his support for all things Tory even at the expense of local issues.
Maybe he should rethink his header slogan because it doesn’t really seem pertinent.
David, what actual, solid EVIDENCE do you have to suggest the school would be better of as an Academy? If you can provide that to me (you know my email address) then I will be happy to read it and if it exists, I would happily support the move to be an Academy.
Having said that, I highly doubt that evidence exists, otherwise everyone would want to do it. This is not what is needed. What is needed is actual support for the school and the teachers to allow them to do what they do best: TEACH!
Hi Graeme,
One could equally ask those who oppose Academy status what evidence is there that the school would be worse off if it became an Academy.
David
David,
and so you continue to question the judgement of supporters of the school. Why can’t you listen to the residents of your constituency, 800+ of whom do not want to see this school turned into a faceless academy.
Have you read the HMI reports? I think it’s important you do so, as you only seem to make decisions based on official documents rather than the views of people in your constituency.
It’s good to see that the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for North Bury is getting involved and supporting the people who matter.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
And even if you do get evidence you would have to be very careful. When the NHS changes were being pushed through Lansley claimed repeatedly that all the evidence was that the changes would be beneficial, whereas the actual evidence was selective reading of one study and ignoring 5 others.
I’m really gutted by this. I have 3 children in High School now who went through Elton Primary and are all anticipated to get 10-12 GCSE’s grades A-C. I have 2 children still within the school. All 5 perform well above average and have exceeded every target set. They’re ALL happy, and that’s my main concern. Elton Primary is not a failing school at all, it’s a very happy school with good results.
I think the only failure here is that they didn’t jump through hoops and put on an almighty show when OFSTED visited. Instead they just carried on as normal. Obviously giving an illusion of semi-perfection is more important than a reality of great.
I’ve worked in schools, nurseries and colleges, I’ve was on a board of Governors for 7 years when I lived in Derby and my partner and I have 7 children. We had absolutely no second thoughts about our decision to sign up our 3 year old to attend full time next September.
It distresses me greatly to think that anyone believes standards of education in Britain will be helped by a system which allows someone with 3 GCSE’s in Woodwork, Cooking and Art to teach vulnerable young people to read and write, to lay the foundation for their entire educational path. Where instead of ploughing all of the money in to their education, we instead allow their school to be run as a business with someone taking their share simply for having had the cash to front up in the first place.
We’re already falling far behind as a nation, with Spanish youngsters 2 years ahead at age 11 in sciences, and the Chinese laughing at us as we fail to teach our youngsters anything about technology, calling lessons in how to use Microsoft Word “Computer Studies” while their 8 year olds learn to program and write software code. Removing Government control of curriculum and minimum requirements for educators isn’t going to help that.
I want my youngest 2 to have the same start the first 5 have had. Please.
David – I followed up your comments on Ellton Primnary School with interest and i can’t help thinking your position is ideologial, rather than evidence based.
You refer to two critical Ofsted reports, but fail to mention the follow up HMI monitoring report which concuded that local authority support and the school’s own Improvement plan are appropriate.
Why do you suggest forcibly removing a school from local support when HMI are happy with steps being taken by the local authority and by the school to deal with issues raised by Ofsted?
Hi,
I do not think that wanting the best education for children could be described as ideological particularly when Academies were initially introduced under Labour!
David
It seems that Mr Nuttall has forgotten he works for the people of Bury. Instead of helping the local authority to improve standards he is helping sell our Childrens education to the highest bidder. Shame on you.
It seems that Mr nuttall has forgotten that he works for the people of Bury, he should be supporting the local authority in improving standards, instead he is helping sell our Childrens education to the highest bidder.
Somewhat craven David, even by your standards.
So rather than let the LEA support this school to the point where it’s functioning well, you’d rather strip it of any local, accountable control and deliver the school into the clutches of of Gove and the DoE in London. That’s localism and empowering people, I take it?
You know full well that Ofsted have upped their inspection regime to the point where previously excellent schools are now considered ‘inadequate’ and divvied up to unaccountable academy status. Schools with heads who need answer to no-one, and who are run by boards who are also unaccountable to the parents.
Fairly typical of you that you should approve of such a regime.
You are a disgrace to this constituency.
Mr Nuttall
I’m gob smacked, I really am. At what you might ask? I’ll tell you what, your unbelievable post regards your thoughts on Elton Primary School being forced into Academy status.
I would have thought that the local MP would at least gather the input of the parents of children at the school before going to press with a statement that uses only evidence from the Ofsted report that are full of mistakes, incorrect assumptions and false conclusions.
Who am I to comment on this? I am a parent, I work as a Finance Director, my wife is a teacher, I am Elton Primary School PTA Treasurer. We thus, consider ourselves suitably educated to know what we are talking about.
We have two sons at the school. Our eldest is in year 6 and is aiming for at least one, if not two level 6 scores in his SATS. Our youngest is in year 3, he has SATS scores of a child in year 4 – in maths probably year 5.
The school is a success, as the current year 6 will prove when they complete their studies next summer. Year 5 is equally high in their scores. These are the years you should be looking at when seeing how the school is improving.
The two Ofsted reports you quote use the same exam scores as they came too soon for the follow up inspection to be able to use the next set of school leavers scores.
I could go on and on but I just want to give you a flavour for what the real picture on the ground is. We can afford to send our kids to Bury Grammar School but we feel the education they are getting at Elton is not only adequate but stretching them – as can be seen by the grades our eldest is on track to achieve.
I suggest you forget what the Tory influenced Ofsted are reporting and telling you, as there is a clear agenda to force schools into Academy status happening around the country. I suggest you get in touch with the hard working and excellent Save Elton parents committee to see what the actual residents in the constituency you represent think.
Best Regards
Simon Yates