A leading London private school has been downgraded by education watchdog Ofsted for placing more weight on teaching “social justice” than on learning “subject-specific knowledge and skills” while some pupils felt their views were “suppressed” in lessons. The Evening Standard has the story.
The American School in St John’s Wood, which charges £32,650 a year, was downgraded from “outstanding” in its previous inspection to “requires improvement”.
In a report from an inspection from December 2021, Ofsted noted that leaders of the school, which educates pupils from age four to 18, had high expectations and “gives strong importance to equality and inclusion”.
But it added: “Sometimes, however, teaching places much more weight on the school’s approach to social justice than on learning subject-specific knowledge and skills.”
The report said that the school provided opportunities for pupils with different characteristics to discuss issues affecting them.
“However, not everyone felt that they are able to express their views freely in class,” it added.
“A significant number felt that their voices are not encouraged, or in some cases, are suppressed.”
In November 2021, the Times reported that non-white pupils had been recruited to affinity groups for people of colour, which some parents felt was discriminatory towards their children.
Parents also expressed concern about the teaching of concepts such as “white fragility” to their children.
Former headteacher Robin Appleby left the school in January.
The report praised the school’s music curriculum, which it said was “broad and balanced” but added that “in other areas of the curriculum, the approach is not as balanced”.
“This is particularly where teaching places more emphasis on the school’s social justice programme than on the acquisition of specific subject content,” it added.
Ofsted said that in the school’s lower school curriculum for social studies, pupils “spend much time repeatedly considering identity (including analysing their own characteristics) rather than learning, for example, geographical knowledge”.
Makes a nice change to see the Blob doing something anti-woke and curbing some of the ideological excesses.
Worth reading in full.
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Someone should really tell these clowns that there’s indeed a fairly large ethnic group in England which is generally disapproved of by a lot of English people, namely, the Poles. It’s also not (judging from personal experience) really uncommon to get abused or even attacked in public for another characteristic the inventors of XY privilege never thought of, namely, a continental accent someone suspects to be Polish-or-something-like-that. One can also assume that this accentism will lead to real world discrimination.
Perhaps it’s time black people of unquestioningly local (ie, English) descent should start to reflect their english-accent-privilege?
NB: That’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reflection of the sense or rather nonsense of force-introducing the US white/ non-white dichotomy to regions of the world which are ethnically a bit more complicated.
Some thicko racists in Britain will abuse Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, etc., all as “Polish”, and I know of a case where a Norwegian woman was abused on the street as being a “Polish c***” by some native-British would-be doorknocking scammers just because she wouldn’t waste time listening to their scam attempt. It’s not just having a Slavic accent. It’s being white and non-British. Some “door canvassing” crooks are trained to focus on white Brits because black Brits and Poles are perceived as more likely to suss what they’re up to and not to fall for lines such as “I’ll try to get you a discount”. Such conmen couldn’t care less about the finer points of ethnicity or culture or whatever – they’re only interested in identifying mugs and relieving them of their money, whether for double glazing or whatever – and “Poles” becomes a catch-all term. There is a certain irony in lumpen scum being prejudiced against ethnic groups that they view as being more likely to realise that an attempt is being made to cheat them. That said, it’s nothing new for certain types of lumpen element to prey mostly on “their own”.
In my 60+ years I have never encountered anyone who actively or verbally disapproves of The Poles.
In my all-boys school (1970s) there were 3 of Polish decent in my class of 30-33 as we moved up the years. They were the sons of refugees from the nazis or communists, it hardly matters which.
For those who still had doubts the film Battle Of Britain highlighted the role of Polish pilots who, having escaped from the nazis and communists who conquered their homeland, continued their fight from within the RAF. 300 such fighters in the actual Battle of Britain which saved our country from nazi invasion an so paved the way to the final Allied victory against the nazis; the communists took another few decades when The Poles led the way:
“Solidarity!”.
There is a memorial statue to them at my local airport which began life as an airbase specifically for Polish warriors and atop a nearby hill is the Polish Camp established for them and their new English familiar.
On the fall of comnunism few chose to return ‘home’, prefering to live their lives enjoying their grandchildren.
Polish Camp is now a small town with its own unique style.
Squadron 303 – the most successful throughout the Battle of Britain. Totally Polish. And they had the lowly Hurricanes, not the mighty Spit.
They had nothing to lose. Flew by the seat of their pants, all of them, the fires of revenge burning within.
Never leave a man with nothing to lose.
Thank you for that exhilarating detail !
In my 60+ years I have never encountered anyone who actively or verbally disapproves of The Poles.
Good for you. But certainly not a universal experience. The last clown who insisted on asking me if I was employed (and I’m not even Polish) occurred yesterday. And he was less of a nuisance than some others I already encountered, especially those who got violent.
11/3/22 sent PM.
Perhaps more recent arrivals from the EU are different.
I went to ASL.
I almost sent my kids there. Thankfully my wife thought better of it. Spending money to indoctrinate your kids. Shame, it used to be a good school.
Still I’m amazed offsted actually called them up on this. Maybe not all is lost.
It’s one thing to send a child to a state school with this type of teaching. But to pay 32K on top of that….
You’re not paying for the education, you’re paying for the contacts.
For schools to “recruit pupils to affinity groups” on the basis of skin colour isn’t illegal??
What do your quoted words mean in English?
I’m not wholly sure – you’d have to ask the author of the Times article or the school administrators – but it sounds like “non-white children all come over here and form a team” and presumably also “white children, form a team too”.
Emphatically, no. As these are the members of the oppressor race, there’s no affinity for them.
It’s basically a general only for blacks school club.
Sickening.
AMERICAN School, happens to be in London explains all. ie not a leading English private school but American following their trends as usual.
When I saw the headline I genuinely thought this was referring to a BabylonBee article. Having read it I now think it’s just too rational to be entirely accurate – coming from a State haven of ‘right-on’ drivel like OFSTED.
Exactly. Just another state organ pretending to help people. Kind of a nothing article.
Is this just anti-woke wokery?
Other people telling people what not to not not think about what others are telling them not to think or to think, about others?
God I had fun editing that
This is absolute nonsense, because private, fee paying schools are not inspected by ofsted…
Good point if true, I have no indication that what you post isn’t !
No ifs about it!
Yep: private schools are inspected by ISI and ISC. ( https://www.duncombe-school.co.uk/blog/how-are-private-schools-inspected/ )
And not ofsted therefore the accuracy of this report is reduced to zero!
Here’s are the Ofsted reports on it, which took me less time to find than you’ve sunk into ranting that they don’t exist.
Could try harder.
https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/27/101168
Then it’s not a private school, but has state funding
I suspect these institutions just feed directly into WEF Youth Leadership programs, so it’s not like it’ll matter what they learn, so much as who they get introduced to.
“the school’s music curriculum, which it said was ‘broad and balanced’”. Is ‘wrap’ music??
“non-white pupils had been recruited to affinity groups for people of colour”
Well, that’s a great idea. How about totally separate classes for non-whites and perhaps bussing them to school in different buses from white children? That will enhance racial equality and stop all this white supremacy business.
Typical wokery though, isn’t it? Separate people into as many different groups as possible, then convince them all that the other groups are discriminating against them.
Except straight white Males, of course (especially from working-class backgrounds) – they won’t get an ‘affinity group’ as the wokeists generally think it’s fine to discriminate against them, and blame them for any and all social ills, and accuse them of being ‘privileged’ even if they have no money or prospects at all.
How did we get to the stage where the commendable ideal of equal treatment and equality of opportunity for all has somehow become twisted into an ideology which is so utterly divisive (and which which seems to require lots of well-paid ‘diversity manager’ jobs)?