Teachers please help should I be worried about the following re admissions

[smellylittleorange]

Picked up a couple of points about schools we will be applying for and I just cannot work out the implications . If you are a secondary teacher please can you assist O:-) ?

School only allocating places for half of their published admissions number...does this mean a big risk of redundancies/staff turnover and impact on learning?

School had big jump in exam results last year but these have dropped back down around 9percent this year...they did not do early GCSE entrance

41percent of Middle attainers got the 5 a to c inc English &Maths and 56percent of middle attainer pupils made the expected progress in Maths
..middle attainers 50 percent of cohort.

For the various schools alarm bells ringing for me just not sure if I am reading too much into it..any thoughts?

[smellylittleorange]

Schools are in non selective area by the way one Community comprehensive one Academy converter.

[smellylittleorange]

Bumping

[admission]

The school cannot just decide to only allocate half the PAN, by law they have to allocate to that level. So you need to check what is the PAN in the 2015-16 admission booklet from the Local Authority and compare it with the figure fr entry in september 2014. If they are wildly different then the school should have been through a process of consultation to agree this change but I find it difficult to understand how this could have happened unless a significant part of the school has suddenly become unavailable ( a fire?)
Obviously of they only take half the number for good reasons then they will be faced with a financial problem that an only be resolved by redundancies etc.
The results are somewhat worrying. Whilst many schools have seen a reduction in their results in subjects due to changes in the way exams are held and marking being stricter etc, that is quite a big drop. Before commenting on the specific figures I would want to see the context of the remarks and the overall results rather than just the middle attainers. On the face of it though it is not a school ripping up the pavements with its exam results.

[titchy]

I read it as half PAN allocated as it was very under-subscribed....

[smellylittleorange]

Yes sorry school is under subscribed....apologies for late response after bumping I really have had awful dramas at home and work ...any how I will try to elucidate further and many thanks for taking time to respond admission and titchy

Under subscribed is a girls community non selective Academy converter the school with the drop in marks is this school as well. It is possible that a steady drop in admissions numbers could have caused the change ? In 2013 the figures were 74%five a to c inc English and Maths in 2014 the only figure so far quoted 63%. I have seen the breakdown for marks for the 2013 year and it did not seem by their exam entry figures they were excluding students from taking essential GCSEs. Am also concerned about the implications of the drop in admissions figures for the school itself..it has competition from a very good CofE state and a newly opened free school...are my concerns fair.

The second school I am concerned about due to it's results especially for the middle attainers. School is our catchment area mixed non selective comp. 2014 results 50% a_c incl. English and Maths, 2013 these results were 49%...I am concerned about this school's middle attainer results as above . Dd got 4a at non compulsory Maths SATs year 5 but Maths is not her strongest subject. I am concerned that if she is in a middle attainer setting for this school then there may be issues ? Is that a fair interpretation do you think?

[crazymum53]

My understanding is that your child will be classified as follows according to assessment levels at the end of KS2:
High Attainer: level 5+
Middle Attainer: level 4+
Low Attainer: less than level 4
However this system was devised for GCSEs and how accurate it will be for the new exams for 2017 onwards is anyone's guess.
The other trouble is that recent changes in exams have made it more difficult to compare for different year groups.
This year 2014 there were changes in English and the previous year 2013 was the first year that Maths was offered as a Linear subject (exams all taken at the end of the year). Some schools are entering pupils for iGCSE for English as they have been unhappy with recent curriculum changes - could this perhaps explain why one school's results were affected less than the other?

[smellylittleorange]

Possibly tge IGCSe they entered 54 students in 2013 they entered around 220 students for GCSe that year... and it is stated on their website English was harder for them to get a C result 2014. Perhaps I am just nitpicking ...I will ask the school on their open morning or at least try ..hoping I will get an honest answer.

[crazymum53]

For the ordinary GCSE it was made harder for pupils to obtain a grade C in 2014 because assessment in Speaking and Listening is no longer included (this was decided by Mr Gove when students were part way through the course).
Interestingly the school where I work has started the iGCSE and entered pupils for the exam for the first time this year. This has improved their English results and hence their statistics for % 5A*-C including Maths and English.
For the iGCSE exam it is generally believed that it is easier for pupils to obtain a grade C but harder to obtain A*.
Do the schools publish the full list of GCSE results. As well as the percentages I would look at how many pupils obtain higher grades than C. HTH

[titchy]

I think you'd be mad to pick a school based on it being easier to do after school clubs at - what happens between 9 and 3 is surely more important than one or two clubs, and there's no guarantees that the clubs she wants to do will be offered if the school is suffering from falling rolls.

[smellylittleorange]

Thank you all - No the official figures for 2014 have not been updated yet so I guess we will have to wait and see how the GCSES were affected by grade hopefully they will update the prospectus soon.

Titchy I am not sure that message is for me??

[titchy]

Oops wrong thread!