‘Punitive’
TV comedian Chris Ramsey has offered his support for a campaign to save South Tyneside Hospital where he and his family were born.
Chris, 31, from South Shields, tweeted about the importance of the hospital in his life among fears that some services could be lost.
He revealed that his dad was treated there after a cancer scare and his toddler son Robin was born there in 2015. Chris tweeted: “I’ve sprained ankles, broken toes, my baby son bumped his head, came out in a rash after eating eggs... he was born there, my wife was born there, I was born there, and my dad was looked after impeccably there for a recent cancer scare.
“Please please PLEASE @ SaveSTHospital!”
Chris, who starred in sitcom Hebburn, set in the South Tyneside town, will finish his ‘Just Happy To Get Out Of the House’ tour at Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena in November. South Shields MP Emma Lewell-Buck has been helping to lead the campaign against the potential downgrading of the hospital to remove acute services, including maternity.
A vigil will be held outside the hospital on Friday by the Save South Tyneside Hospital group in protest against the changes.
Representatives from the NHS South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS Sunderland CCG are due to meet next week to decide on how services will be provided at South Tyneside Hospital in the future.
A public consultation was held last year into changes of three key services at the hospital: urgent and emergency paediatrics, stroke services and maternity and gynaecology. Births were also suspended at the hospital between December 4 and January 22 due to staff shortages and safety fears.
Campaigners demonstrated outside the hospital following the suspension, and Ms Lewell-Buck has vowed to continue fighting against potential hospital cuts. A HEAD teacher has slammed Ofsted reports, deeming them to be so fixated on exam results that they overlook a school’s real qualities.
Heworth Grange Comprehensive school, in Gateshead, was rated ‘inadequate’ last year by inspectors, after years of ‘good’ assessments.
Head teacher of nine years, Chris Richardson, says many parents “didn’t recognise” the school described in the critical report.
He said: “There’s no question it was a blow – we knew our headline data made us vulnerable and ultimately that data pretty much determines what your judgement is going to be, and then they look for things to justify that judgement elsewhere.
“We felt as a school we understood the system, we knew what happens, and we knew the school wasn’t desperately bad.”
He says inspectors focused on the school’s average results figures without looking at the context for them.
Mr Richardson said these were skewed by a small number of pupils with serious barriers to education which made school and exam situations harder for them.
And with new academy schools offered more freedom to set entrance criteria, Mr Richardson says there’s a risk that schools won’t want to accept pupils most in need of help, for fear of the impact they might have on results.
He said: “There’s a clear correlation between intake and how the schools appear to Ofsted.”
Mr Richardson also said the current grading system is “too punitive” and added that the disruption which often follows bad reports can actually make it harder for some schools to improve.
But he insists this hasn’t been an issue at Heworth Grange, where staffing has largely stayed the same.
Mr Richardson said: “The most heartening thing of all is that our community has been absolutely positive about it.
“I haven’t had a single parent come to me with concerns about it, the only things I’ve heard is that they didn’t recognise the school in the report.
“The school has been oversubscribed for the last three years and all the signs are that that’s going to be the same this year.
“The parents’ main anxiety was that the school was going to be changing, when we became an academy they didn’t want what you see in some other academies, everything being thrown into the air.”
A number of new systems, including rewards for good behaviour and “quality assurance” for teaching, have been introduced since the inspection.
Following the judgement, Heworth Grange was ordered to become an academy. Mr Richardson says he was relieved that he had already identified an academy trust whose values fit with those of his school, and was able to transition with minimal disruption.
Heworth Grange is now part of the Consilium Academies chain, which also oversees nearby schools in Washington and Sunderland.
Mr Richardson says under the Consilium model, all heads involved work closely together on plans to improve all their schools – meaning it didn’t feel like the school was “taken over” by an outside body with different attitudes.
He added Heworth will be able to maintain its special focus on the arts.
Meanwhile, “economies of scale” on things like stationery and computer systems already look like they will save the school money.
The school’s academy status means the inadequate rating is replaced with a clean slate, but in a visit shortly