supporting your local secondary

[southeastastra]

i know it's hard, but i wish more parents would consider this option!

[UniS]

Try living in a rural area, it's local school on teh school bus OR " drive your child a long way EVERY DAY and go get them too" round here. MOST parents chose the most local school.

[TalkinPeace2]

Sorry but No.
It would never be in my childrens' best interests

[MindtheGappp]

Nope.

[Kez100]

It works great here, but we must be one of the remaining few areas where it does.

We've a grammar choice 21 miles away, so a few parents choose it, but a very few. The rest have a choice of local secondary or travelling 12 miles to another. Because of the almost truly comprehensive cross section of pupils it works well and the lack of travel means it is school of first choice. The fact we have pretty good results helps.

It's like it ought to be, but in reality in most areas, we know that is not the case. also our Government don't want us too..........they say they want choice. All political parties.

[ASuitableGirl]

Where we live we are bizarrely in the catchment for a secondary school further away than the nearest one . As DS is only in year 3 I suspect it may have changed by then as it seems silly. Both schools very good and from what I can tell of the schools I would be happy for him to go to either.

[TethHearseEnd]

Agree completely, sea- but it needs to happen en masse for any difference to be seen.

[scarevola]

What do you mean by support? Send your child there regardless?

And what if your local school does not offer single sciences at GCSE and you have a child who is passionate about those subjects?

Take a chance that they'll rearrange their entire teaching in time? Or deny your child the subjects they want?

[tallulah]

Ours currently gets 41% GCSE passes All the other schools get 60-90%. Would you send your kids there?

[IDontDoIroning]

No way. I'm very fortunate and have a choice of 4 schools within 10 miles. All of the other 3 are better than my local school which had a low 40% 5 gcse pass rate. It also has a troubled history. Ive chosen the furthest away which has a 70% pass rate and had 0 neets from last years leavers.
This costs me £12 per week in bus fares and has resulted in separating my dc from school friends, no loss in all cases though as it means dc are not wandering randomly around the streets etc.
I don't care about "my local school" all I care about is my child/ren. More fool anyone who sacrifices their child's future for some sentimental nonsense.

[glaurung]

I did try it but my child wasn't happy. An unhappy child won't succeed in a poor school (still under 50% A*-C, in spite of doubling last year), even if a happy one might. Parents are not wrong to put their children first.

[marriedinwhite]

If our local comp offered two languages all the way through and Latin and triple science and if on the open day the science teachers had known the difference between single, double and triple science we might have considered it. We might have considered it harder if we hadn't heard some pupils speaking in an insolent and discriminatory manner about a member of staff and if we hadn't heard a member of support staff yelling in a rough and ignorant manner at a group of girls who were merely walking along a corridor. Not an environment I would send either of my children into so I'm afraid YABU.

[marriedinwhite]

custard - we live in an urban, densely populated area. DD got into both the CofE state schools for which we applied. It was the wrong choice because we have since had to move her due to the unmanaged behavioural problems of a significant minority who are now allowed in.

[Ormirian]

We do. But I am not sure whether we would have if we hadn't really liked it.

Having said that we have a choice of 4 - 2 of them I wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot bargepole.

The third is meant to be a good school but it had a reputation for being unsupportive and for not tackling bullying.

If we had decided we wanted a top-notch hugely academic school with stratosperically wonderful GCSE results, we'd have been stuffed

[spiderpig8]

Why on earth would you send your children to the local school if it is a shit hole, and you have an alternative?
most of us love our Dc and want to do what's best by them.

[maypole1]

I agree with the posters so far I don't agree with sacrificing your Childs education with the notion of some how improving the sinks school social mix with the hope that someday before your child leaves the head might grow a pear and sort the behaviour and the teaching standards out

Whatever


My sons local school is what is fondly known as a a sink school

It only has 32% of children getting a to c grades and only 78% getting a to e

The school was in he local gazette only 6 months ago because all the children decided on a mass walk out, also a teacher had sex with a pupil which the school tried to keep hush hush buy simply getting the teacher to move on quietly until it happened at the new school

So I don't think so I would of rather home schooled than sending my child their


The students barley wear uniform, the teachers are off sick they have 8 vaccinces for subject teachers they haven't had a permeant dupty head for a year and I have been informed by my sons head of year they no longer have the said school over for any matches due to their behaviour at a netball meet



I busted my gut to get my child into the best school in the la I am not sorry and only wish I could afford a private school and not just a tutor after school

[Ormirian]

Sorry maypole but I had to LOL a little at 'head might grow a pear".

is that in gardening club then?

[KS2L6]

I chose to support my local primary school and now often wish I hadn't. Problems emerged early on (not related to my own children, but general issues) so I became a governor. Six years on I'm completely drained and discovering more and more gaps in my own DCs education.

Consequently, we won't be supporting the local secondary, even though OFSTED think its good. We'll be going down the road to the exceptionally well organised, high achieving, OFSTED oustanding school, thanks all the same.

[maypole1]

CustardCake so in the mean time your what supposed to wait it out for bad to become good, hope that others follow you in to the bad school


Its not the social mix that alone raises the standard of the school

It's a head who had vision and high expectations and no excuses


Even in a " posh " area There will still be ranking between schools


Sorry but my child is not a guinea pig

And the strange thing is we have so many shit sink schools and we want to get rid of the best ones church and grammar


Northern Ireland has a might better education system than we do and surprise surprise they have grammar and church schools

[Lancelottie]

We did.
He hated it.
We moved him.

HTH?

I realise how very, very lucky we are that the next-nearest school is so suited to him (though not as hot on paper as the local one, interestingly.)

[spiderpig8]

'spiderpig8 - I think the rationale behind it is that if everyone used their local school by choice then it might possibly cease to be a "shit hole" '

well, yes i'm well aware of the rationale, but who is going to sacrifice their child's education in the hope that others will do the same and eventually the school will become good? NOT ME!!

Maypole wrote'And the strange thing is we have so many shit sink schools and we want to get rid of the best ones church and grammar '

But the trouble is the flagship schools like grammars and some faith schools, create the 'bad' schools.I am lucky enough to live in a grammar area, and have my eldest ones there, but I am under no illusion that by creaming off the academically top 28% they are detracting from three other nearby schools.