William Tyndale, concerns, advice needed

[tigerseye1]

Hi all,

I am a rather confused mum, and I am hoping some of you can share your experiences. We are looking at reception options for our DS and are deciding between William Tyndale, Canonbury and Laycock.

Generally hearing experience of all three would be fantastic.

But the main reason I am here is because we signed up to a subscription to Locrating and we were shocked by what we saw.

Academically WT do a bit better than the other two schools, but the parent feedback (which is current) was shocking to read, I wish i could share a screenshot. Parents happiness and child happiness with the school was incredibly low at 41% feeling strongly that their child was unhappy and again 41% agreed strongly that their child didn't feel safe! (The 41% figure towards the negative was pretty constant throughout all questions,) with 44% agreeing the school did extremely badly with bullying... THAT'S ALMOST HALF! If you have an account with Locrating please go read for yourself. We were astonished as this simply does not add up to it's superb reputation in all areas. Where as the other two schools had incredibly high ratings on all levels, very positive.

I'm aware the Ofsted report is now 7 years old for WT and the other two schools have a more current Ofsted rating, and maybe this is why it doesn't add up? Maybe time for a fresh visit to WT?

We are safely in the catchment area for WT and have a wonderfully sensitive child and until reading those figures were excited about WT, these figures really worry us, I am still very shocked, we want to do the best for our DS, so as such I am reaching out for some understanding as to why this awful feedback? Please do share your experiences of WT so we can understand the how a school with such a good reputation can have these awful figures. Experience of the other two schools mentioned would also be wonderful as we are now heavily considering them as more desirable options.

Thanks all.

[viques]

Is that 41% of ALL parents at the school, or 41% of the parents who responded?

Makes a difference, people with a gripe, genuine or not, are always more likely to respond to questionnaires like this than people who are happy with a service or an experience.

[tigerseye1]

Good point @viques, though doesn't make sense regarding all the positive feedback for the other schools, they are all in the same position and have really good responses. I will check though regarding percentages.

[lifesalongsong]

If the 41% is constant negative in all categories it's probably the same parents with some issue with the school marking them down in all areas, that's a danger of these type of questionnaires, they can be prone to manipulation.

I'm not saying there aren't problems but I would take it with a pinch of salt and try to find other methods to find out more.

[tigerseye1]

thanks @lifesalongsong it said 27 responses , but the response level at the other schools were similar. Interesting and helpful point. I think talking to parents at the school is helpful.

[viques]

41% of 27 is 11.

The school has 14 classes, 15 if you include the nursery. So slightly fewer than one disgruntled parent per class of thirty children. I don't think there is much to worry about there.

[lifesalongsong]

@viques

41% of 27 is 11.

The school has 14 classes, 15 if you include the nursery. So slightly fewer than one disgruntled parent per class of thirty children. I don't think there is much to worry about there.

I haven't heard of the website the OP mentioned but if only 27 parents from a 14 class school have submitted a rating it's obviously not giving any kind of valid view of the situation. That makes me think even more that the 11 negative responses come from parents with a vendetta against the school.

Have you signed up to parentview? I think you can pretend to be a parent to have a look at any responses to ofsted inspections, at least when I genuinely signed up years ago I wasn't asked to prove I was a parent at that school.

[lifesalongsong]

I've now had a look at that website and tested it on a school I used to be a governor at and without signing up I can see two bits of information about the school that are wrong. One could be true but out of date, the other has never been true. I'd be wary of relying on it.

[Terentia]

OP, please don’t rule out William Tyndale - or any school - based on what you read on one website. My friends with kids there are very happy with it.

Hopefully you will be able to tour schools before applying and make up your own mind.

I also know parents who were happy with Canonbury (they’ve moved now, but nothing to do with the school).

[tigerseye1]

Thank you @Terenitia this has all been very helpful.