Mumsnet Talk

Given, what they charge (we know first hand from paying their Nursery and Kindergarten fees) and the repeated hard sell when we were leaving about level of academic performance, our child could attain, if we remained then quite frankly it IS shocking. Two out of thirty !

Not having a 'go' at Tettenhall was just stating how surprised we were at the their poor performance at A Level. Getting 3 A Levels is simply not good enough in this day and age.

The intent of the original posting was to elicit information about the Royal and the Grammar school with regards to Secondary Education; in part this has been addressed by the latest stats, i.e. Tettenhall now definitely ruled out. As regards additional information, have now written to both schools about entrance requirements.

I've just looked at your link. They only have 30 pupils taking A Levels.

7% AAB means 2 out of 30 got AAB or above.

23 got 3 A Levels or more.

OMG.

The department of Education have just published their school rankings today and I cannot believe how lucky we have been in not staying at Tettenhall college (A Level Results are particularly bad ! ).

http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=104407

It will be Wolverhampton Grammar or Wolverhampton Royal for us when son is ready for Secondary school (will have to find out about waiting lists and entrance exams)

If you want to see details/results for your local school then just type in name at this link

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/index.html

Have a look at Thomas Telford, not in Wolves but has a % intake from wolves.

www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=123627

One of the schools might do IGCSEs which are viewed differently. Assuming they go through to A levels have a look at Leavers' Destinations. If none of the pupils go to the sort of university you would be happy with don't send your son. Also some league tables rank schools by points attained by pupils which include subjects such as citizenship which are not seen as necessary by Russell Group universities. So destinations & subjects taken most important factors if looking only at raw data.

It might seem a little presumptious, given that our little one has just turned 5(five), but we have been looking at the latest set of National Secondary School Performance rankings for schools in Wolverhampton. The purpose was twofold. Firstly, to see how Wolverhamptopn fares nationally. Secondly, to see how the local schools compare with each other, see table below.

RankSchool School type %A Grade

125Wolverhampton Girls' High SchoolGram54

375Wolverhampton Grammar SchoolInd47

506Royal Wolverhampton SchoolInd 36
1190St Peter's Collegiate CofE School Comp25

1667Tettenhall College IncorporatedInd 14
1750Highfields Science Specialist School Comp14
1780St Edmunds Catholic SchoolComp 16
1965City of Wolverhampton College Other10

To say that we were surprised is something of an understatement particularly as our son attended Nursery and Kindergarten at Tettenhall College which is over 1,500 places lower in the rankings than the Girls High School.

Intrigued by this we did some research on and discovered that part of the criteria relating to ranking is determined by the number of students that
undertake examinations, Factoring this in to the equation meant that a fairer comparison would be one between the Royal and Tettenhall College,
i.e. a similar number of students sitting examinations, but the difference in ranking is still in excess of 1,100 places difference !

We agonised over whether or not to continue at Tettenhall after Kindergarten , given the emphasis they place on their academic performance, but it would seem that the facts and figures support our intuition.

So, apart from sharing this information, the other reason for writing is to enquire if anyone has any experience or insights into either the Royal Wolverhampton School or the WolverhamptonGrammar School, i.e. waiting lists. entrance examinations, personal feedback. We appreciate both are independent but given their performance profiles we will be happy to pay the fees in order to obtain the best education.