Harris Academies

[Daydreamer01]

Does anyone have any experience of Harris? I'm unsure how they are able to make a 'bad' school into such a 'good' ones and for non selective pupils to perform so well. Are they playing the system somehow as the EBacc scores are fairly low. Are they enjoyable schools to attend or just an exam factory with little social interaction?

[straggle]

There's a suggestion here that some of their 5A-C results are boosted by equivalents although not as much as some chains. Another report suggested that a number of low-achieving pupils are removed from the roll in the GCSE year (e.g. 10% of the roll).

I think their schools have banded intake so are not necessarily comprehensives - some have aptitude tests.

[prh47bridge]

I think their schools have banded intake so are not necessarily comprehensives

They are comprehensives. Those that use banded intake are using what is known as fair banding. The idea is that you use a test to split the applicants into bands based on ability. You then select an equal number of pupils from each band. The objective of fair banding is to guarantee that the school gets pupils of all academic abilities.

[LadyMuck]

Yes, but it only takes in from the bands that sit the test.

For our local Harris academy, the test was an NVR test taken on Saturday in December (so post CAF submission).

We're in an area where there are super selectives nearby and a number of comps who take in 10% by ability. So the kids are used to tests. There are only so many Saturdays a child wants to give up in order to sit tests for secondary schools (the average round here was 4, but if you sat grammars as well you could take up to 7 Saturdays last term for tests). So the brightest kids aren't necessarily keen on sitting a test right at the end of term where the outcome is simply to put them into a band from which they are then picked by lottery. Especially after 4 or 5 tests where they've revised and sat in order to get the maximum mark.

Equally those who aren't organised enough to work out what is involved eg when to turn up for testing etc, don't turn up,for test and are excluded.

So those going for Harris tend to be those who are reasonably motivated, at least enough to give up a December Saturday, probably missing their school Christmas fair to sit of test of type that they won't have done before, and for which it is pointless to revise.

[prh47bridge]

Yes, but it only takes in from the bands that sit the test

And your point is? If you don't apply for a school you aren't going to get a place. That is a fact of life. If you apply you will be asked to sit the test and have a chance of a place.

How is it, when they operate a fair banding system, that only 9% of the intake were low attainers - when in fact it ought to be equal across the board

Croydon as a whole has 15% low attainers. One of the Harris academies is below that figure at 9%, the other is at 19%. Of the 19 non-Harris schools in Croydon 4 have 9% or less low attainers. Given the figure for the borough as a whole, 9% low attainers is within the expected range. As Harris City Academy has a priority zone for admissions it is also possible that the proportion of low attainers in the priority zone is lower than for the borough as a whole.

[lilyaldrin]

Pretty horrendous places to work in from what I've heard.

[prh47bridge]

I wouldn't regard asking you to make an FoI request as being particularly secretive. It allows them to justify spending resources on answering your query if Ofsted or the EFA (or their auditor) question it - they have to deal with FoI requests by law. It also allows you to refer them to the Information Commissioner if they refuse to answer. The Commissioner can decide whether or not they are right to refuse and, if not, force them to answer.

Their results may well be less shiny than they seem. I haven't really looked at those. I'm not here to defend them so I wasn't planning on getting involved in that discussion.

[LadyMuck]

Yes, but it only takes in from the bands that sit the test

And your point is?

That some of the local families struggle to send their kids to school on the days of GCSE exams, let alone random Saturdays in Year 6 for a test that doesn't "test" them, or even guarantee them a place at the school. By having any type of entry test, Harris is not being fully comprehensive as the kids whose parents didn't get them to school on that December Saturday will end up elsewhere. The intake is skewed to those whose parents were happy and able to get their children to sit the test (which is not the same as the number who applied on the CAF). And parental input as well innate ability both have an impact on the results.

[Marmitelover55]

My dd1's school also uses fair-banding. Alghought the test is only advertised as being on one day in November, in reality they offer lots of additional days to ensure that everyone that wants to can access the test. But as mentioned above any kind of test may put off some less motivated families.

[Sorelip]

My sister is in year 10 at one of these. It's bloody awful.

[prh47bridge]

By having any type of entry test, Harris is not being fully comprehensive

Quite a few schools use fair banding these days, not just Harris. It is becoming increasingly common in community schools. It is seen as a way of preventing selection by affluence, with places going to those who can afford to live close to the school. It is permitted because it ensures that a comprehensive school is genuinely comprehensive by increasing the chances of children from poorer homes getting places at popular schools. Your conclusion that the test means the school is not comprehensive is only correct if you think that the children who don't turn up for the test are the ones at the bottom of the ability range. I'm sure you will be pleased to know that, according to the statistics I have found, over 98% of those who apply for places turn up for the test.

parental input as well innate ability both have an impact on the results

Even if that is true (it shouldn't be if the NVR tests are constructed properly), that has no bearing on the child's ability to get a place. If they used the tests to select the top performers it would but as they take evenly from across the ability range the child's performance has no effect at all on the likelihood of getting a place.

[LadyMuck]

I haven't assumed anything about whether the children are at the top or bottom of the ability range - though I find it interesting that you make the assumption. My view around the skew in intake is down to the parental involvement and motivation to apply for and sit the post CAF exam for the school. I personally believe that parental involvement and motivation will have an impact on the results,especially as you are excluding those families whose home lives are so chaotic that they won't be able to sit a test (and there's plenty of those in Croydon B and Bs). So yes, I take the view that any school which has an additional entry hurdle over and above the "standard default" comp is skewing their intake, whether by asking people to attend church, sit selective tests or even sitting non selective tests. Yes the children may come from the full spectrum of ability, but just by being brought to a test on a December Saturday they have motivation and support which is not available to many.

I'm not suggesting that the admissions code has been broken at all. Just that the technical definition of "comprehensive" covers say both London Oratory and Archbishop Lanfranc. I don't think the boys at Lanfranc have turned down their Oratory place to go there.

[noblegiraffe]

Is it true that if you teach at a Harris Academy you get a 10% discount at Carpetright?

[DrownedGirl]

It's not e case that HArris fair banding is intended to produce an intake comparable to other schools in the locality - the discussion here www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/03/why-always-the-harris-federation-who-decides-and-is-this-monopoly-legitimate/ explains how banding against national scores in a low average CAT area will give a school an advAntage

[prh47bridge]

I find it interesting that you make the assumption

I thought about making my post neutral but didn't on the basis that most people think that the parents of underachieving children are likely to be less motivated.

It's not e case that HArris fair banding is intended to produce an intake comparable to other schools in the locality

There is some serious misinformation on that thread, not least in that it is totally incorrect as to how Harris band. They do not use CAT scores at all. They split the applicants into 9 equal groups (or as close as possible given that there will be tied scores) based on their score in the NVR test. Their intake will therefore accurately reflect the range of abilities in their applicants.

[prh47bridge]

Can't remember what it stands for (possibly Cognitive Ability Test but don't quote me on that) but the idea with CATs is that you set the levels based on the population of the entire country. It means that your ability spread reflects the entire country rather than your local area. So if the school is in an area with a lot of high attainers and hardly any low attainers it will end up with an intake that has a higher proportion of low attainers than other schools in the area (hope that makes sense).

Given the way Harris do it you are spot on. If parents of low attainers don't apply it will end up with a lower proportion of low attainers than other schools in the area.

[Daydreamer01]

Thank you for all of your responses. I only have one Harris school in my area and only seem to hear good reports about it, but I am still suspicious of their results. I attended their open evening in September which I found very business like and the Head teacher focused on their results, I didn't get a good feeling from her or from some of the children. Is there anyway of finding out school results excluding equivalents? I've heard the 2014 performance tables will be focusing on the core subjects. Regardless of their results I'm not sure I want my children part of the Harris Federation.

[Daydreamer01]

It would be interesting to hear from mums who have children attending any of the Harris schools.

[AllMimsyWereTheBorogroves]

ThreeTomatoes, my children are grown up now but when they were at a Lewisham primary school ten years ago Lewisham's banding procedures went like this:

1. At the end of year 5 all children took the banding tests.
   
2. At the start of year 6 the child's band was notified to the parents. There were five possible bandings: 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3. 1 was highest. The banding was done by ranking all the children by their total score in the tests and then labelling the top 20% as band 1 and so on down the list.
   
3. Child's band was then automatically fed into the CAF so it was available when applications to Lewisham schools (and Greenwich, which was using a similar system) were being processed.
   
4. Each school aimed to take 20% of its intake from each band. So in effect five separate admissions procedures were run in parallel for each school. They could be oversubscribed in band 3 and undersubscribed in band 1, for example. In those cases they would leave the Band 1 places unfilled rather than put children in from other bands - although there came a point in the late spring/summer when that went by the board and unfilled places would go to children of any band.
   

The effect of that system was that if the school managed to fill all its places in the right proportions, it would have an intake broadly comparable to the borough profile.

However, at Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham, the system was different, more like the Harris academies described above. They tested all the children who applied (using a different test from Lewisham) and then allocated them to bands with reference to a national scale. So say a child got 182 they'd look at the scale they were using and say '182 - that means Band 2'.

Say they had 3000 applications altogether and 600 of them turned out to be from Band 2. They'd then say 'OK, that means this year we should allocate 20% of our places to Band 2 children'.

Now of course if they had 50% of their applications from children at the bottom end of the ability range then they'd end up allocating 50% of their places to lower ability children. But in practice they were getting a very high proportion of their applications from children at the top end of the ability range, so quite legitimately they were taking a very skewed intake, but were still labelled as comprehensive. The intake was representative of the applicants, but not of the borough.

Health warning: this may all have changed in the intervening years!