| Topic: | Re:Acton High School-one parent's perspective on what a better school it may be! | |
| Posted by: | Ansa Sheikh | |
| Date/Time: | 09/05/18 00:03:00 |
| I agree Milena. I have always questioned academisation but, in this instance, I think Acton High School (AHS) will benefit hugely from becoming an Ark Academy. In recent years, Ark seems to have secured a good reputation for taking on struggling schools and turning them around. The GCSE and A'level results in most Ark academies are good, much better than the current AHS results. Acton High has always had the misfortune of being the only non-selective, co-ed state secondary school in Acton. Sounds great but that only benefits a community when there is a choice of non-selective, co-ed schools, not when the system is stacked against you from the get go. I remember when I first started looking at secondary schools and realised that the three local "choices" we had were just a mirage. I had the “choice” of two schools for my daughter and will only have the “choice” of one when my son goes to secondary school. Acton, as we all know, has one girls school (Ellen Wilkinson), one faith school (Twyford) and one truly non-selective, co-ed school (AHS). Because of the selective admissions policy of both the former schools, AHS is left with a disproportionately high number of boys. It also has a very high Special Educational Needs intake. My daughter is in Year 8 at AHS and it has not always been an easy ride. Some of her teachers are fantastic; passionate about their subject, ambitious for their pupils, respected but approachable. Others are not. What has struck me about AHS is that it can never be consistently good and that’s why I think it has such a poor reputation. The positive aspects of the school do not seem to develop, embed and mature. It is like being on a never ending roller-coaster. Speaking as a parent whose child is now coming to the end of her second year, I welcome Ark. The behaviour at the school has, at times, been so shocking that I have really struggled keeping her there. The teaching is variable and I am, and I am not alone here, sick of parents who made different choices for their children looking on at us with concern. I did not want my daughter to go to a girls’ school and I am not particularly religious, nor am I willing to attend a church (or my equivalent), without having a firm belief, to fulfill the criteria to get my child into a school. For as long as these are the choices presented to the non-denominational families of Acton, AHS will always be facing an uphill battle. But with an academy like Ark behind it, I think it has a chance to be (and importantly, be perceived as) an equally good school. Lots of things need to change for AHS so that it can truly stand out as a consistently good community school, one that serves the whole community and is a viable alternative to the other schools. And whether we like it or not, the skewed perception of AHS, as well as the skewed perception, in the opposite direction, of the other schools has blighted AHS for too long. |