If there are witches here, we’ll find them. And if there aren’t…we’ll find them anyway.
A recent hit-job on Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy succeeds in being reported as if it’s a credible analysis. It's anything but.
Everywhere I go I see schools wrestling with the challenges of misbehaviour. When we get it right, schools are brilliant places to be, but when we don’t, or when the challenges are overwhelming, they can be deeply unpleasant places full of bullying, disruption, stress and sadness. It’s a joy to see schools that defy this destiny and create safe, calm spaces where students and staff can flourish together. And it’s an equal and opposite source of frustration and sadness when these schools are vilified by campaigners determined to attack any school that doesn’t agree with their view of how schools should be run.
And so to a recent review of Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy (MVPA) published by the CHSCP and written by Sir Alan Wood . In my view it’s staggeringly weak, biased, and relies on a methodology that would shame a fortune-teller. MVPA gets fantastic results for its children, in an area where results like that don’t happen often. Its Ofsted rating is Outstanding. It is, by many accounts, a brilliant place to be. So of course, it attracts a perpetual mugging from people who campaign against any form of school discipline, rules, consequence or boundaries.
MVPA is a mixed, non-selective secondary school offering places for students between 11 and 16 years of age. It currently has 840 pupils. The number of pupils qualifying for pupil premium funding is nearly 50%. One in 5 pupils have SEND requirements and 5.5-6% have an EHCP, both statistics being significantly above the national average. The academy had a Progress 8 score of 1.15 in 2023-24, more than double the national average. This is a school that succeeds in defying the destiny of socio-economic circumstances. It is incredibly safe (in an area where gangs are common) and students learn at an incredible rate.
The first major- and to my mind fatal- problem with the report is that the chief evidence base used for this hit job is 73 complaints, generated over a five year period, collected by an activist group ‘Educating Hackney’ that campaigns against any form of school discipline. Their website was originally titled ‘noneedtoexclude.com, which is an uncommon, fairly extremist position taken by some who think that exclusions are never necessary, even when children’s safety is at stake. It was launched, it seems, by Hackney’s Independent Socialist Group, former Labour councillors who resigned from the party. The website appealed for anyone with a complaint against the school to leave their grievances with them, and so we come to the 73 accounts. The website has no means to scrutinise or verify the complaints, and therefore the accounts are as robust as the old RateMyTeacher website. They might be true, they might not- who knows?
So far, so worryingly partial. But the jaw-dropping, mind-boggling problem with these complaints, is that the review itself doesn’t even attempt to establish if any of them are true, or untrue. It leans almost entirely on these complaints as the evidence base, considers them to be representative, true, and indicative of scale. It just repeats all of their allegations with breathless credulity, as if they were gospel. But it is anecdote after anecdote after anecdote. The author claims to ‘triangulate’ these views, which suggest that he is unclear what this means. It should mean ‘corroborate or interrogate different data sources’ but here it might as well mean ‘I drew a triangle around them.’ The plural of anecdote stubbornly remains anecdotes, not evidence.
But this is intentional. As the author states in the review:
‘When determining whether the concerns could be substantiated, the Terms of Reference were clear that ‘substantiation’ would be for the ‘purposes of the review’. This is an important point to highlight. It meant that it was not my task to investigate and singularly prove or disprove each of the reported concern…’
In other words, it may be true it may not. The report doesn’t trouble itself with this vital detail- are the allegations serious, credible, substantiated? Or is accusation enough now? This is utterly fatal to the report’s credibility. I am astonished that so many serious correspondents have leapt to immediately buying the credibility of this approach, when it has none. Still, the authors get the headlines they wanted.
The huge problem with this approach is that schools can often attract complaints from students who have received sanctions, their unhappy parents, staff who disagree with the school ethos or who themselves have an axe to grind. I mean any school, but especially schools that attempt to create safe, calm, dignified environments in circumstances where normally we might expect chaotic and unsafe spaces. MVPS for example, was built in one of England’s most deprived areas, serving a demographic of children from disproportionately disadvantaged circumstances. Like the other schools in the trust, it had a lot of work to do with the community it serves, and that work is often hard. When you try to change the world, the world often pushes back.
This report takes every criticism at face value. 73 complaints. Then it completely ignores any other contradictory data. What data? Oh, only:
1. The 2023 Ofsted report , which congratulate the school for being Outstanding in every area.
‘Leaders support pupils with SEND to follow the same ambitious curriculum as other pupils. They identify and support these pupils’ needs extremely well. Staff use highly effective strategies to help pupils with SEND so that they can achieve well. Teachers have an in-depth knowledge of individual needs for pupils with SEND.’
The monsters. But the report ignores that, or rather- incredibly mentions it but dismisses it, because it doesn’t suit the narrative. The author has his story and by God, nothing is going to stop him getting to the ending. Never mind the fact that he has never actually visited the school as part of this review. Let that sink in, as they say. What’s more reliable: a two-day visit by a team of professional school evaluators, or a loaded review of a school by an author whose perception of it is based on anonymous, angry complaints website compiled by a militant and extremist anti-discipline campaigning group?
2. In 2024, a letter, signed by 314 current and former parents and published in the Observer, completely disputed the allegations , and praised the school for its extraordinary safety and success, and commitment to students’ wellbeing. 314 named individuals, all prepared to stand by their words. But that doesn’t make the cut either- it’s not as exciting as breathlessly repeating the unproven allegations of anonymous sources, spread like butter scraped across a piece of dry toast, five years wide.
3. In October 2025, The Mossbourne Review was written in response to some of the allegations, led by Anne Whyte KC, who concluded that while there were areas of improvement possible in how complaints were handled, the schools’ safeguarding procedures were broadly in line with national expectations.
4. The Trust itself ran a survey in March 2025.
‘MVPA organised a survey of parents / carers of pupils currently at the school, which it
reported on in March 2025. The survey received 429 response (176 in 2023). The
responses demonstrate strong parental confidence in the school across most
measures, with notable improvements since the 2023 survey. The school received
particularly high ratings for safety, behaviour management, high expectations, and co-
curricular opportunities.’
So that’s another 429 respondents’ views completely ignored, presumably because they don’t fit the narrative. But ignoring wave after wave of evidence like this is indicative of the most fervent determination to avoid anything that doesn’t fit the intended conclusion.
5. The City and Hackney Children’s Safeguarding Partnership itself confirmed in February that no child was at risk of significant harm and no urgent action needed to be taken regarding any adult. So it’s unclear how this report even met the criteria for commission, given that it doesn’t appear to meet the threshold of concern beyond multiple complaints.
The whole report is unsubstantiated claim after unsubstantiated claim. It alleges racial bias, but provides no data sources, no numbers, no comparisons to check this. It alleges systematic practices like shouting, then admits that this isn’t actually a school policy. It comically, tuts at the ‘disparity’ between the number of boys vs girls who receive disciplinary consequences, as if that wasn’t one of the most normal patterns seen in every school in the world. It alleges mental health damage caused by the school but again, provides no evidence. Over and over again.
The report recommends many things, principally a more ‘trauma informed approach’ to school behaviour management, even though most misbehaviour is not caused by trauma. It recommends an emphasis on restorative practises, even though there is no evidence base for the usefulness of these practises. In other words, the report concludes what it was always going to say: that schools shouldn’t use sanctions, and that schools shouldn’t be strict. Even though, the parents overwhelmingly approve of the school’s approach to behaviour. Because most would take strict over chaotic any day.
The report also repeatedly mentions ‘zero tolerance’ policies as being part of the national climate, despite the fact that the national guidance doesn’t endorse that in any way. I’ve publicly disagreed with ZT multiple times, and the school itself doesn’t have a zero-tolerance behaviour policy. This appears to be one of those educational bugbears that constantly re-emerges in the minds of people who never actually visit the schools they criticise- like the authors of this report. But if you throw enough mud, some sticks.
If you actually look at the national guidance on school behaviour, which was rebooted in 2023, there is a huge emphasis on teaching the habits of success, clear expectations, a behaviour curriculum approach, and reasonable adjustments for children who need them. I often wonder if people who criticise the guidance have ever read it, because they seem to frequently have a pantomime view of what it actually says. The guidance as it stands is, I think, incredibly useful, nuanced and supportive, and it suggests nothing like the cartoon villainy that this report implies.
There may well be issues at MVPA, but this report does nothing to seriously interrogate that question beyond writing the conclusion first and looking for evidence to confirm it.
There’s an old joke about two people complaining in a restaurant. ‘The food here is terrible,’ says one. ‘Yes,’ says the other, ‘And the portions are so small.’ That’s this report. There is so little substance, and what there is, is so poor.
All views expressed are the author’s own, and do not represent the view of any organisation, agency or institution, state or private.