Educating Drew: The real story of Harrop Fold School

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But these allegations, whatever the outcome of the investigation, threaten to spoil Harrop Fold’s turnaround story. Read More Related Articles

Educating Greater Manchester 2 is the 6th series of the BAFTA award-winning British documentary television programme Educating broadcast on Channel 4. The documentary follows previous installments in the Educating... series including the BAFTA Award-winning Educating Essex (2011), Educating Yorkshire (2013), Educating the East End (2014), Educating Cardiff (2015) and Educating Greater Manchester (2017). People get really hung up on the judgements of Ofsted, the school inspectorate, but in the end it’s just one piece of information. Inspectors aren’t there, day-in and day-out. They don’t see the relationships developed with pupils over a whole year. At best, they see a couple of days and talk to a handful of pupils.The former chair of governors, who had faith in Mr Povey when he was first apppointed head, was the late Councillor Bernard Pennington. It’s run for one series so far, and earlier this year, it was revealed that a second, and a third series were in the offing.

This feels very much like a personal vendetta and I hope that by removing myself from the situation, that some semblance of normality will return to the school, for the benefit of all." What the council has to say... Protest against the suspension of headteacher Drew Povey at Harrop Fold High School (Image: Dominic Salter) In the end, no action comes without risk. If Harrop Fold had turned down the opportunity to be in the television show then we’d have avoided any potential negative publicity, but we’d have also limited our potential for telling our story. We would never be able to talk about our debt. We wouldn’t have a permanent record of how amazing our staff and pupils really are. It was announced on 24 January 2018 that there would be a series 2 and series 3 of Educating Greater Manchester. [4] In the wake of the off-rolling scandal and the investigation into the conduct of Drew Povey and Ross Povey, it was later announced these episodes would not be aired after the pair both resigned from their posts as the investigation continued. Following on from the resignation the school inspectors Ofsted deemed the school to be failing in their safeguarding duty due to the leadership of Drew Povey and the school was placed into special measures. The school was deemed safe after a new interim Headteacher took charge of the failing school. Spending the first years at Harrop Fold walking around and managing problems was an eye-opener. At the start it really felt as if the value of this would be the help I could give by going into lessons and talking to children; it never occurred to me that the value would be in how much people wanted to be seen and heard.

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As a leader I’m really good at one thing: helping people get through difficult times and giving them hope. My advice to any headteacher taking up the reins at a new school is to think about the key messages they want to repeat to staff. How will you make them believe that even though a day looks challenging, by the end of it that teacher or caretaker or receptionist is going to be able to go away knowing they contributed to an important mission? I have, and always would, take full responsibility for everything that happens at Harrop. I’ve actually asked during investigation meetings, whether they believe I have done these things personally, to which they answered a definite ‘no’ As the leader of Harrop, I will always take full responsibility for what happens in school and for the work of the team.