(1) Critics of what the government is up to cite Roke primary in Croydon , repeatedly deemed "outstanding" but suddenly charged with being "inadequate" in 2012.
(2) She said: "The children at Roke deserve the best possible education, but any suggestion that there is a 'done deal' on a sponsor is wrong.
(3) A Harris Federation spokeswoman said the final decision on Roke would be made by Michael Gove , not them.
(4) This turned out to involve a questionnaire which only asked whether, when it became an academy, Roke should be sponsored by Harris, not if parents wanted an academy at all.
(5) Roke was targeted after Ofsted assessed it as "inadequate" in May.
(6) "We have serious concerns about standards at Roke primary.
(7) Parents and governors at Roke primary in Croydon say they face a "hostile takeover" of a consistently successful local school after a single unsatisfactory Ofsted report, one caused mainly by a computer failure, which they say meant staff were unable to provide inspectors with the correct data in time.
(8) The situation at Roke mirrors that at Downhills primary school in Haringey, north London, which Gove ordered to join the Harris chain last year, despite 94% of parents voicing opposition.
(9) Unlike Downhills, Roke has no consistent history of poor performance.
(10) A DfE spokesman said: "We have serious concerns about standards at Roke primary.
(11) A group of parents battling plans to remove Roke primary in Croydon, south London from local authority oversight have also released a transcript of a meeting in which a Department for Education "broker" told them she believed the school was failing based largely on a half-hour tour during which she thought the children looked "bored".
(12) Roke's governors told the DfE that if it had to become an academy they wanted it to be sponsored by their local secondary academy , the destination school for almost three-quarters of Roke pupils.
(13) At the same meeting some parents were angered when the "broker", a freelance contractor hired by the DfE to work with converter academies, described how she decided Roke needed help.
(14) A parent whose son attends Roke, who asked not to be named, said there had been "zero consultation".
(15) Harris is lauded as a consultant on failing schools, yet Roke is not a failing school.
(16) In May Ofsted gave Roke an "inadequate" overall assessment , with the inspectors citing a lack of data about pupil performance and poor middle management.
(17) The significance with Roke is that it has no long history of under-performance, supposedly the only reason for forced conversion .
(18) She said: "Because of our track record in the area and the exceptional primary team we have established, we are confident that we could give the staff at Roke the support they need to provide outstanding education for children at the school, which is why we agreed to become the department's preferred sponsor."
Smoke
Definition:
(n.) The visible exhalation, vapor, or substance that escapes, or expelled, from a burning body, especially from burning vegetable matter, as wood, coal, peat, or the like.
(n.) That which resembles smoke; a vapor; a mist.
(n.) Anything unsubstantial, as idle talk.
(n.) The act of smoking, esp. of smoking tobacco; as, to have a smoke.
(n.) To emit smoke; to throw off volatile matter in the form of vapor or exhalation; to reek.
(n.) Hence, to burn; to be kindled; to rage.
(n.) To raise a dust or smoke by rapid motion.
(n.) To draw into the mouth the smoke of tobacco burning in a pipe or in the form of a cigar, cigarette, etc.; to habitually use tobacco in this manner.
(n.) To suffer severely; to be punished.
(v. t.) To apply smoke to; to hang in smoke; to disinfect, to cure, etc., by smoke; as, to smoke or fumigate infected clothing; to smoke beef or hams for preservation.
(v. t.) To fill or scent with smoke; hence, to fill with incense; to perfume.
(v. t.) To smell out; to hunt out; to find out; to detect.
(v. t.) To ridicule to the face; to quiz.
(v. t.) To inhale and puff out the smoke of, as tobacco; to burn or use in smoking; as, to smoke a pipe or a cigar.
(v. t.) To subject to the operation of smoke, for the purpose of annoying or driving out; -- often with out; as, to smoke a woodchuck out of his burrow.
Example Sentences:
(1) The prenatal risk determined by smoking pregnant woman was studied by a fetal electrocardiogram at different gestational ages.
(2) Children of smoking mothers had an 18.0 per cent cumulative incidence of post-infancy wheezing through 10 years of age, compared with 16.2 per cent among children of nonsmoking mothers (risk ratio 1.11, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.21).
(3) They spend about 4.3 minutes of each working hour on a smoking break, the study shows.
(4) No associations were found between sex, body-weight, smoking habits, age, urine volume or urine pH and the O-demethylation of codeine.
(5) A commensurate rise in both smoking and adenocarcinoma has occurred in the Far East where the incidence rate (40%) is twice that of North America or Europe.
(6) In addition, control experiments with naloxone, ethanol, or cigarette smoking alone were performed.
(7) Plasma renin activity (PRA) and aldosterone concentration were measured before and during submaximal exercise in 10 male monozygotic twin pairs who were discordant for smoking.
(8) The results indicated that smoke, as opposed to sham puffs, significantly reduced reports of cigarette craving, and local anesthesia significantly blocked this immediate reduction in craving produced by smoke inhalation.
(9) This study examines the extent to which changes in smoking can account for the decrease in CHD mortality for men and women aged 35-64 years.
(10) However, as all subjects had normal hearing and maximum speech discrimination scores pre-smoking, it can only be concluded that smoking marihuana did not worsen the hearing--the experiments were not designed to see whether it would improve hearing.
(11) Further analysis of these changes according to smoking history, age, preoperative weight, dissection of IMA, and aortic cross-clamp time showed that only IMA dissection affected the postextubation changes in peak expiratory flow rate (p less than 0.0001), whereas the decreases in functional residual capacity and expiratory reserve volume at discharge were affected by IMA dissection (p less than 0.05) and age (p = 0.01).
(12) It has been speculated that these cigarette smoke-induced alterations contribute to the depressed pulmonary defense mechanisms commonly demonstrated in smokers.
(13) We ganged up against the tweed-suited, pipe-smoking brigade.
(14) The history of tobacco production and marketing is sketched, and the literature on chronic diseases related to smoking is summarized for the Pacific region.
(15) Exposure to whole cigarette smoke from reference cigarettes results in the prompt (peak activity is 6 hrs), but fairly weak (similar to 2 fold), induction of murine pulmonary microsomal monooxygenase activity.
(16) The authors compared the prevalence of atopy in 103 patients with lung cancer (a model of mucosal cancer), 51 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease matched for age, sex, and smoking habits with patients with lung cancer, and 102 healthy control subjects.
(17) Possible explanations of the clinical gains include 1) psychological encouragement, 2) improvements of mechanical efficiency, 3) restoration of cardiovascular fitness, thus breaking a vicous circle of dyspnoea, inactivity and worsening dyspnoea, 4) strengthening of the body musculature, thus reducing the proportion of anaerobic work, 5) biochemical adaptations reducing glycolysis in the active tissues, and 6) indirect responses to such factors as group support, with advice on smoking habits, breathing patterns and bronchial hygiene.
(18) There are many factors influencing these students to start smoking.
(19) Adjustment for possible mechanisms correlated with social class (marital status, smoking, time of first antenatal visit) decreased the higher occurrence of low birthweight infants in the low educational groups.
(20) These results suggest that weight change during smoking reduction and cessation may be primarily due to changes in factors other than caloric intake or activity.