Parrs Wood High School in Didsbury has been praised as one of Britain's top-performing secondaries and regularly chalks up good GCSE grades.
But Ofsted watchdogs are so concerned they are recommending the 2,000-pupil secondary is given the equivalent of an educational yellow card.
It would mean appointing an outside head to sort out management problems - and the school would face regular checks from Ofsted.
Inspectors criticised poor leadership at the school, jointly run by two headteachers, and expressed fears it was `coasting'.
Although they share responsibility for the school and its sixth form college, Mr Ashley is the more senior.
Their joint appointment is understood to have sparked a number of management problems, with one group of staff reportedly refusing to back Mr Ashley's leadership.
Special measures
One teacher said: "All the staff were brought in this week and told we were being recommended for special measures. In the last three years things have gone terribly."
Although the school last year celebrated the third-best GCSE results out of 22 city schools, more recent results have alarmed inspectors.
National English and maths tests taken by every 14-year-old in the country put the school among the lowest 1 per cent.
Inspectors visited the school last week when they told senior staff of their concerns. Teachers were informed of the news at a special meeting this week.
For many years Parrs Wood was regarded as Manchester's best state secondary and an example of a successful urban-based school. Previous head Ian Hall was knighted for services to education.
Following his departure, Deputy Head Rachel Jones was appointed to run the school in 2003, but two years later David Ashley was also brought in as Headteacher.
John Leech MP, whose Withington constituency covers the school, said: “It is truly shocking to think about Parrs Wood being put into special measures.
"I know my colleagues on the governing body have raised concerns about the senior management structure of the school previously, but now it is time to take decisive action to deal with the problems identified by Ofsted, and refocus on providing a first class education for the pupils.” .
Mr Ashley refused to comment until official notice had been received from Ofsted. He said: "All I can say is Ofsted haven't provided us with the written outcome."
Governors also refused to comment but are understood to be holding emergency talks with the city council this week.
Pauline Newman, the council's director of children's services, did not rule out using special intervention powers.
She said: "We need to secure radical improvement before Ofsted's next monitoring visit." Tweet
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Mr Ashley's appointment into what was a very successful and happy school has had its impact. Hopefully now the Local Authority will see the value in having Rachel Jones solely responsible for the school and take the appropriate action.
Well the truth is finally out!! The school has been showing signs of falling down for some time and although the Headteacher, The Board of Governors and the LEA were warned that things were going wrong, they refused to take appropriate action. Rachel Jones and the majority of the staff at the school have given everything they can over many years and it would appear that the change of management has been the problem here.
A very sad day for Parrswood. My thoughts are with the staff and pupils.
It just shows it doesnt matter how much moiney you throw at incompetance it will only make it worse be it education or the NHS
Two headteachers? Seems the careers of these two people (and keeping "them" happy), was deemed more important than the wellbeing of the students!
The senior management should be hanging their heads in shame. For three years they have lead an organised campaign/conspiracy to undermine a very credible head teacher for the benefit of their own careers. They should do the honourable thing and resign immediately. They all know who they are.
David Ashley has insisted over the last 3 years that his authority should be absolute. He appears to have been answerable to neither the Board of Governors nor the LEA. In light of the relevations from Ofsted, the responsibility for the failure of this school should be his alone. I believe his resignation should be imminent.
appointing someone else when there was no need rocked the boat so to speak and any critism aimed at Ms Jones, especially personal, should be left out. There is nothing wrong with her she's given many years experience to the school.
The governors who bizzarely decided to hire someone new when we had a head already in place should be blamed.
I left Parrs Wood a few years ago, and can honestly say the school gave me
a great education and fantastic opportunities. During my time there (and at the last Ofsted inspection in 2001, which praised the school management)
Rachel Jones was Deputy Headteacher. This is a position she still holds -
David Ashley has always put himself forward as the principal headteacher,
and it is simply untrue to say they have equal roles. I know that former
and current pupils will join with me in saying she is a fantastic teacher
and any criticism levelled against her is utter nonsense. It seems obvious
to me that the only main member of managerial staff who has changed in the
last few years is David Ashley, and in that time Parrs Wood has gone from
being well-managed to being so poorly managed that it is in special
measures. Rachel Jones has not suddenly become an awful Deputy Head since
2001 - if it wasn't for her the school would be far worse off. It's clear who should shoulder the blame.
There os of course a great deal more.
Ms Jones was the acting headteacher and went through the process of being interviewed at least twice. Having failed twice why did the governors then appoint her as co-head?
Where is the previous head in all this who groomed Ms Jones for the job?
Subversive and distinctly nasty which ever way you look at it.
I have here the current prospectus for Parrs Wood. Headmaster: David Ashley. The only mention of Ms Jones is at the bottom of the last page - "Associate Governors Rachel Jones" plus 3 other named individuals. What does this say about staff relations at the school.
M J Eccles.
My experience with Mr Ashley has been a very disappointing one. He had no interest in my concerns or my sons well being at the school. I feel that he regards his salary as more of a priority than his students or staff. The recent Ofsted inspection has had a shocking outcome, but now the students will hopefully receive the education and attention they deserve.
Parrs Wood is a really important school. All schools are, but this school is important because it's a rare example of a community school, a 'bog standard' comp, which is consistently excellent in terms of academic achievement right across the ability range. It's not for nothing that parents struggle to get their children into a school which can offer a range of subjects and a quality of teaching which rivals any private school in the city and arguably in the country, without discriminating on the grounds of income, ability or background. So the Governors have a heavy responsibility to Manchester, which goes far beyond one generation of young people - including my two children who are at Parrs Wood now. This is an exceptional school which is part of a community I'm proud to belong to.
It is very unfair that Rachel Jones's exemplary and thoughtful contribution to Parrs Wood's success has been linked to recent management difficulties. As a parent it is also hard to understand the Governors decisions in handling what was always going to be a tricky handover from the charismatic, original and politically adept educator, Sir Ian Hall. Some of Mr. Ashley's innovations have been well-founded and progressive, such as the vertial form organisation which I was not sure about until I saw it in practice. But too many of the new disciplinary policies take responsibility away from staff and pupils alike, and a similar lack of subtlety characterised the way in which innovations have been introduced, sometimes in the teeth of staff opposition. This is a school which employs large numbers of excellent and inspiring teachers; the majority of the subject departments are well run, ambitious, committed and caring. Leadership of the school requires the ability to make staff and students feel that they are valued - and that's not easy when a new Head has to take over from a Head whose personal style was so distinctive. Parrs Wood needs a Head who can both listen and persuade; someone who can win the school community over to new ideas without trying to fix what isn't broken. It's not clear to this parent why the Governers failed to recognise the value of the abilty to communicate with ease and openness, not just on paper, but in words, body language and attitude. No one person leading an institution as big as Parrs Wood has to embody all those qualities; but whoever is in charge has to recognize, value and deploy those personal skills, whether they own them or recognise them in others.
As an attending student at Parrwood High School i feel that our views are completely ignored by Mr.Ashley and he overlooks and ignores teachers and senior teachers opinions also. As the new school was built, Sir Ian Hall made it a very respectfull and greatly praised place of education, and in years of him leaving we have gone from one of the best sate school in the country, to being brought to special measures. Several discussions are heald in class between the teacher and their students, all agreeing that what Mr.Ashely has been doing to this school is unnecassary and ridiculous.
In the space on time that he has been here, he has managed to ruin the school's reputation and bring in ridiculous new things for the school, such as;
-Behaviour for learning
-Weekend detentions
-invested money in making a new isolation unit (like it should be a pleasent expirience for people that have to go in there?!)
- Mini Schools
-Vertical Forms
and many more, i was forced to dye my hair colour out, because it was 'un natural' when it was only a few shades lighter than my natural hair colour.
People are extremely unhappy about vertical forms as people dont feel they should have to put up with people moaning at their feet, squeeling and shouting across classrooms after a stressfull day, specially for the year 11's.
Many people often talk about their unhappyness daily as in their forms they dont share the form with any of their friends, or people from their original form. Mr.Ashely completely ignores students and teachers views and feelings over the on goings in this school.
the current years 11's no longer have a seperate dining hall, which was awarded to the year 11's as the new school was built. Year 11's now share the main dinner hall, where year 11's are bombarded by younger children running and screaming, leaving it an unpleasent environment to be, as the year 11 dining hall lies empty and unused.
Overall, i think that the teachers at parrswood highschool deserve great praise the their years of service and teaching to young children in place of education. Senior staff also are nothing to blame to the downfall of Parrswood HighSchool. Some senior teachers, have more influence and respect off the students than Mr.Ashley recieves. I also dont believe Mrs.jones deserves any blame for the crisis this school is in, as when she was the headteacher the school was kept exactly how Sir Ian Hall left it, Perfect.
I think Mr.Ashely should do us all a favour and just resign, and let Sir Ian Hall come back, he obviously knew what he was doing.
i think mr Ashley should be replaced by a better head teacher to be honest he gets paid all this money for doing nothing.Ever scince he has been at parrswood we have been put into these stupid forms and the pupils never get a say!
im intrigued...What is a vertical form? it has been mentioned in these comments alot... how does it work?
sounds to me like the person who is to blame (if there is blame to lay?) needs to be moved and have one person in charge or pull their socks up and start acting like a team.
This is proving to be an interesting debate, or do I mean witch hunt?.
I have no connection with Parrs Wood but am a serving Headteacher who has successfully led a school out of Special Measures.
Whether the recommendation to place Parrs Wood in special measures is upheld or not I would suggest that on the basis of the comments placed here, and those in response to the comments by teachers (9/11), that it does indeed display many of the characteristics of special measures schools:
• A disloyal staff who undermine a new leader’s attempts to achieve improvement and who are unprofessional in criticising him to students and through the press
• Dissident and divided factions within a leadership team who resent change
• A confusion between popular leadership and courageous, strategic leadership
• A culture of denial where failure is someone else’s fault
• Complacency and underperformance resulting in unsatisfactory progress by students ( not the same as headline GCSE results)
Some schools can progress from special measures quickly because everyone within the organisation reflects on how they need to contribute to the improvement. They back the leader because they respect the need to make big decisions because staying the same isn’t an option.
I would suggest everyone at Parrs Wood needs to do a lot of soul searching, the detailed performance data from the school is not good. Using value-added information, the conclusion is stark, if Parrs Wood children were taught by teachers from some of those schools that are considered inferior, they would make far greater progress.
This isn’t the result of 2 years leadership by a new head, it results from an arrogant complacency that has evolved unchallenged over a number of years.
Got the tee shirt
As a parent of three children past or present pupils at Parrs Wood I want to say that I am hugely concerned about the press reports. Whatever the truth, there is a feeling that this is a Ratner moment and that there can be no future with either of the present leaders. I believe that any attempt to wriggle out of special measures will mean that there will be no finance or commitment to resolves the problems.
The children have heard the reports and saying that the leadership is "rubbish". Is it really possible to re-gain their respect.
I want to post some concerns that are facts rather than surmise.
New school children who joined the school this year are finding vertical forms very difficult because they are used to group work based on "kagan structures" at their old school and they are not able to form groups to share and support each other at work. Vertical forms mean that that a childrens form group, where they sign on in the morning are made up of pupils from each of the years at the school. On the basis that most children tend to be friends with others of the same sex in same age range, they only have one or two possible 'mates". Children who joined in September are finding the dining room system difficult to negotiate, there is no water for them (except for that which you can buy).
I received no notification of the Ofsted inspection. My child tells me that no letter was given to him, nor to my third child. Though these pages I insist on the right to participate as a parent in the Ofsted process.
Parrs Wood does put able students in the exam process again and again - so headline GCSE results are skewed with some children taking them over two years and contributing the results over two years rather than the one that most might expect.
As a parent of 4 children, 2 of which attended this school & 2 who will not be, I can honestly say it's about time it was inspected. This school totally failed in giving my 2 children the education they were entitled to. Whenever my children asked for help in their studies, the staff would ask them to pop along at lunch time. When they turned up, the staff were never there. My children felt that as the staff could not be bothered, then why should they. This then led to my children playing truant as the staff never took an interest in them. One of my children played truant for 3 whole weeks & the school never even informed me. I only found out when I phoned personally as I knew something wasn't right. Whenever I phoned the school, they would never allow me to speak to any of the heads about my concerns. This led to me driving up there & making demands. I spent lots of time with various staff members trying to highlight their failures. Not once did I see any change of direction when it came to my children's education. More recently I visited the school as one of my other children is due to start high school next September. I noticed children using mobile phones in the classroom & teachers not bothering to ask them to put them away. There were kids being cheeky in the corridors & teachers would just close the door on them. This school might be a state of the art building with state of the art equipment. However it lacks care & compassion when dealing with children who need extra learning support or just re-assurance. I for one will not be putting my other 2 children through this school as it scares me that it will let them down to!!!
Good luck to all parents who kids go, just make sure your views are heard, mine & my kids weren't & they left with no qualifications. Having had private primary education & extra tuition at home, they were very well educated & excelled in most subjects, that is until they went here!!!
In responce to Garfield's comment: vertitcle forms are where there is a form of around 20-25 students all of which from different year groups (5 from y7, 5 from y8, 5 from y9 5 from y10 and five frm y11 or sometimes more). Parrs Wood says they have done this so the year groups know other peole in different years and get to now them, but all the students do is have a section of the class room to them selfs and don't mix atall during form.
I am not connected to Parrs Wood or indeed Manchester in any context but I have to say that Eric Jackson's comments are breathtakingly arrogant. He says that because he's taken a school out of special measures, he feels he can summarise the problems with Parrs Wood in one paragraph! How dare he run down a Headteacher's leadership in a public forum? What happened to professionalism, Mr Jackson? I too am a Headteacher and feel deeply for everyone concerned at Parrs Wood. Perhaps Mr Jackson needs a good hard look at his leadership style: a bit of humility wouldn't come amiss.