Don't want to send DS to school with 40% GCSE pass rate

Apologies, i presumed that meant 6th year in secondary school....

40% does sound bad, but if 45% is standard, it's not that bad. As pp noted with the Balc school, their results are not surprising. Obviously this all does depend a lot on area, intake, affluence, plus so
Many other things. Our county is 55%, so
Even that is quite high, and many of the schools are 60-72%.

Balcarras might be non selective, but prior high attainers is 37%, and low attainers is 11%. Only 4% are "disadvantaged". Very different to an average intake.

I mentioned Balcarras as it's a state school that I have heard about with a non-selective intake that gets 80% 5s in maths and english.

I agree with all the comments about the self-selectivity, catchment etc. I am also aware that people on the 4/5 border (and probably other borders) are strongly encouraged to get tutors, so the progress 8 is not just the in-school teaching.

I didn't check whether the Balcarras progress 8 included boys, the school that my kids go to has a positive overall progress 8 but only the girls actually make that progress.

There are lots of reasons for a school to have a lower percentage.

If a school is undersubscribed then they have to take children who are being moved from other schools or who arrive in the area.

I taught a lovely girl from Poland, she arrived in the UK age 14 without a word of English and one of only a few white children in the school. Being from Poland she had not met many people of colour.

At 16 she passed 10 GCSEs (old system so C or above) the only one she got a D in was English Language.

So on paper the school failed her.

The school @SomersetBrie linked to is in an area that is virtually 100% white, with educated adults

https://censusdata.uk/e00112357-output-area-at-so971202/ts067-highest-level-of-qualification#data

As ever the questions to ask are how well sill my child do? And will my child be happy there?

To be honest, it would be news if Balcarres didn't do well. "High achieving children achieve highly" is hardly a headline, is it?🤣

I think a pp mentioned the low number of disadvantaged pupils (4%) and also the very low number of pupils with English as an additional language (2%) but this is very typical of this part of Gloucestershire.

People might also mention that there are only 12% low attainers and then 49% middle attainers and 39% high attainers so it is a bit towards the upper end.

But, on the other hand, it does have very good Progress 8 scores indeed across all groups (except disadvantaged pupils) so it is obviously doing something right.

I think this is an example of a good school which also has an above average intake and when you get both of those together you will likely get much better results than the average.

This thread has prompted me to have a look at the local comprehensive I attended back in the very distant past.

It has changed a lot since I was there. Or maybe it hasn't changed too much, I don't really know what the statistics were back then.

Today it is a bog standard comprehensive, it has always been a bog standard comprehensive (well, beforehand it was a secondary modern). But then I looked at some of the courses being offered at GCSE level and I realised that it is probably much the same as when I went there.

We had a couple of people that went to Oxbridge and quite a few that went to Russell Group universities. There were equally plenty of people (well, boys) that left at 16 and got engineering apprenticeships etc.

But overall the exam results probably weren't great back then which reflected the intake to the school. But that doesn't stop people going on to university or going on to apprenticeships.

I don't know if this range of GCSE level exams is typical but this is how many of the year took each subject, I'm really surprised about the range of subjects. Is this typical or not? (For comparison, I took Maths, Additional Maths, English Lang, English Lit, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography & French)

I think the biggest difference is perhaps the fall in the numbers of people taking a modern foreign language. Back in my day, everyone had to take at least one language, that doesn't seem to be the case any more.

Percentage of pupils entered for exam in these subjects

Maths 99%
English Language 99%
English Literature 95%
Double Science 85%
History 50%
Business Studies 38%
Geography 35%
Sociology 28%
Social Science: Citizenship 23%
Religious Studies 20%
Urdu 16%
Health Studies 15%
Sports Studies 15%
Biology 14%
Chemistry 14%
Physics 14%
Computer Architecture / Systems 14%
Engineering Studies 13%
Spanish 13%
Art & Design (Fine Art) 12%
Hospitality / Catering Studies 11%
Design & Technology 10%
Art & Design (Graphics) 8%
French 7%
Ancient History 7%
Music 5%
Music performance: Group 5%
Drama & Theatre Studies 4%
Small Business Management 3%
Physical Education/Sports Studies 3%
Portuguese 2%
Polish 2%
Russian 1%
Arabic < 1%
Italian < 1%
Persian < 1%
Punjabi <1%

That really is quite a long list of GCSE level subjects that are being studied at my old school.

I was a bright pupil at a similar school, and as many posters say here I worked hard and did relatively well. However this was despite my experience at that atrocious school rather than because of it. I would have loved to be able to indulge my love of learning and enjoy my education, rather than survive it. Avoid at all costs.

We are in Scotland but my older child goes to our local catchment school which is in the bottom 25% for Higher results and my younger child will go there in time too. It's the only school in our rural area and I think the low marks are largely down to demographics - if teens try hard and want to do well, they can and do. Unfortunately a large segment of the catchment population don't see the value of education. I don't feel the school holds my teen back.

I'm not wanting to downplay thier results. It sounds like a great school. It has good progress too. But 6% free school meals is very low.

Of course there are schools that do much better than average, but the england average is still 45% on that metric.

People get hung up on pass rates. If your child is clever enough they will have the opportunity to do well. Pass rates tell you that a school has that percentage of children who are either clever enough to pass or who come from homes that prioritise education- it doesn't mean the teaching is any better or different. My kids have been in state and private and I can tell you that the teaching is largely the same- the difference is class size, facilities, the behaviour and aspirations of the children and the baseline academic intelligence of the children (selective school)
So, if your son is capable of achieving high grades, and does the work then the teaching will be there for him. It may be harder depending on the behaviour of his peers and how the school manages that though.

That is a very low pass rate, I too would be looking at other options by whatever means possible

Here's one with 80%.
Not selective, except by expense of catchment area.
Balcarras School - Results

"The 80% is for kids attaining 5 GCSEs."

But that is not the measure that is being discussed here. The specific measure being discussed is English & Maths at grade 5+. The figures show that there is often a big difference between the numbers getting passes at 5+ and those getting passes at 4+

Ah they don't have that as a figure so may well be lower.

Its a faith school but no entrance exam or anything. Just a normal comp other than that. The 80% is for kids attaining 5 GCSEs. The less good high school near me is closer to 60% for comparison. Starting to appreciate where I live a bit more based on the posts above!

It's not ideal.
However, it's down to your ds to get the grades.
Dd has learning difficulties, was in Year 7 during lockdown and missed 26 weeks of education due to covid and all that. Feck all catch up. I was fairly blunt that it was a question of digging in and working hard. She got 8 passes including English at 6 and Maths and Sciences at 5.

40% does sound rubbish, but is just below average.
I would have a look at the school’s Progress 8 score as well as their Ofsted report and take all of this into consideration.

Your son will be sitting his GCSEs in 2030.
By that time there will have been a complete curriculum and assessment overhaul (currently just started, due to report next year). Progress 8 and Ebacc will change.
But also in six years time it could (and so could the ‘better’ school) be very different places. A new Head, for example, can hugely change a school. Or a different MAT running it. Schools improve, some schools get worse.
You are looking at one, very blunt measure. What the Ofsted reports say? What is attendance like (a good indicator of how happy students are)? What is staff turnover like? How many students stay on in the 6th form? How many go to university? What is parental feedback like on Ofsted’s portal?

The school you want is one with good progress and attainment.

The one to avoid is poor progress and poor attainment

People will argue over whether it's better to have good attainment but not much progress or good progress but attainment is lower.

If you have good attainment but not much progress the school may be coasting. They know parents, tutors and pupils themselves pick up the slack but some people prefer the higher prior attaining peer group.

It can just as easily be that they do wonders with the students they have, as A8 doesn't relate solely to the subset that have KS2 SATs data, it relates to the average grade across eight subjects - so if they are great at getting students who struggle with English and/or Maths or just weren't in the country for Primary in the first place to do really, really well at eight subjects including Science, MFL, Art, PE, History, Geography, Computing, Design, Food Tech, Business Studies, Economics, Media Studies and any other subjects they offer at GCSE, their A8 will show this where their P8 cannot.

That's so sad isn't it
No one should be choosing a school based on the likelihood of their child being stabbed

If you have a higher attainer, an alternative benchmark to the "progress of high attainers" is "is there an entire set's-worth of kids getting 7-9 in each of the core subjects?" If so, then there is a peer group and they are being taught to that level.