Do your strict British schools get good academic results?

Apologies - I was on my mobile which is never a good idea with spreadsheets!

Detention for not having a pen is variable. I worked in one school where students had to prove they had:

a pen
a pencil
a ruler

This was checked at the start of the day. If they don't have the equipment they were sent to the office to borrow the equipment. So if a child turns up later without a pen they will get a sanction.

Obviously if the pen runs out in the middle of the lesson then they are not sanctioned.

@6thformoptionsThat makes far more sense!

This just shows how important it is to pick the school that suits the child best rather than the "best school" in the area. My daughter just started Year 7 at the local school with the reputation of being the strictest and the most academic one. The expectations for behaviour are very high and that alone (well advertised as previous poster mentioned) scared away a number of parents and children in the Year 6 cohort. It is very early days of course but my daughter is absolutely thriving so far. She is autistic and has a very strong sense of justice. She struggled massively with the inconsistences she saw at her relaxed primary. I feel like at this very strict school she can finally relax knowing what the rules and that they are applied in the same way by everyone instead of wondering if the rules can change from teacher to teacher. With this out of the way, she is able to really focus on school work. She is absolutely loving it so far.

I mean, how to judge? But the UK is above NZ in the Pisa rankings. And the top countries are all East Asian countries, which I imagine have strict schooling. worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pisa-scores-by-country

I intentionally swerved the "outstanding" and really strict local school for my kids. DD1 academically would have flown at it, but would have been miserable and struggled socially (ASD), and all the top grade GCSEs in the world won't outweigh coming out with slightly lesser grades but some social skills and friendships. As for DD2 (multiple SEND but also a real need to people please and rule follow) - it would have destroyed her and she'd have been so busy worrying about following all the rules that she'd never have learnt anything!

So we went for what on paper is less academically stellar - but the relationships between the staff and pupils have a real warmth and there's a joy and spark about the place - and yep, sometimes DD1 ends up in a detention, and sometimes the uniform isn't immaculate - but it's by far the better choice for my kids.

Michaela-clones would have killed them.

I agree that it’s most meaningful to compare similar cohorts and the fewest variables. Locally to us though, the (non-selective) schools with the best results signal their discipline and rigidity strongly to parents at open evenings and in their messaging. This is deliberate to put off parents who are more relaxed, and to attract the middle class parents who will support their DC. These are also the parents who pay the most attention to league tables etc and have half-an-eye on RG universities in year 6.

So yes, schools who are focused on discipline can get good results, but it’s not necessarily as a direct result of the discipline itself.

Something I would add is that students from our local stricter schools seem to find it easier to adapt to workplace routines.

On these threads it's only helpful to compare schools with a similar intake. A relaxed selective school with good grades doesn't demonstrate that all schools should be relaxed and it'll be fine.

Ebac score is a funny one... often it just shows which schools have a compulsory MFL at GCSE and which don't. Or who insist on History or Geography. In our LA one of the schools with worst results (progress and attainment) had the highest Ebac as they all had to do the same GCSEs.

It's my fault; I was looking at what I thought was the same box but the DofE website had me download data for the boys school and I've ended up looking at the EBacc figures. The 5 or above at GCSE is around 90%, so obviously above the LA Average of 47.9%.

@CecilyP Grade 5 passes in maths and English I thought. Hence the % quoted. Progress 8 isn’t a %.

Sorry to but in, but are you 2 talking at cross purposes? Is 6thform talking about progress 8 while you, Tizer, are thinking of overall GCSE passes and grades?

So what grammars are they? I’m happy to name the grammars here and our very good secondary schools. I’m in Bucks. Where are you? If you won’t say, I’m dubious about your stats.

I assure you that they are grammars. The town has 3 and I haven't even tried to explain how bad the 3rd one is for a selective school. It's not your average grammar area, I understand, but the pressure on the kids to achieve not much is frankly bizarre in my opinion.

Although I would love to see that definition explained to the parents.

@6thformoptions They are not grammars then are they!! They are non selective called grammars. Like Bradford Girls Grammar. No selective state grammar has results at LA average. By definition, that’s not a grammar.

I think you're using the strict state school example I gave to show what the system has done to the other non-selective options - the Catholic school.

As I said neither of the top 2 Grammars met the average for the Local Authority.

Yup - I seem to have managed to move to the only area where the grammar schools do worse than most area's State options.

In this area at least, the grammar system isn't working. It does do very well in other parts of the County, as the Local Authority data shows. I've no idea what % SEN they take but we wouldn't have been in their catchment at 11+.

We've digressed from the OP though.

I work in a school (as admin) that when I first started I was scared walking across the playground!

The school actually had a reputation for bullying and people had started to pick other schools. It was noisy and send pupils struggled. The results were just above national average, but looking at the cohort they should have been much better

A new head arrived. They put in a strict behaviour policy, everyone moaned on social media. The school feels safe now and their progress scores went up massively last year (no scores this year) but their attainment is top 20%. Its a comprehensive. Their sen support pupils actually did better than national average also.

It wasnt overnight, it was a few years journey. People dont really get detentions for uniform as, after an initial push back, they get over it and wear the uniform fine. I dont think the uniform rules made a difference to learning. But the classroom rules and calmer behaviour in corridors has.

Mine did. Grammar school, poor areas 95% working class kids, strict on behaviour, uniform but also nurturing, aspirational, fair, excellent teaching. Outstanding results.

@6thformoptions Is it really a comp? It cannot be remotely selective? With 13 m, ours are not super selective but still outperform every secondary - as you would expect. I don’t believe a grammar only gets 36% on the grade 5 stats. It cannot be a grammar in the accepted sense of the word. It’s just some academy pretending to select but clearly it’s not a proper grammar. It’s below many secondaries here with 25% plus of local dc not in them! Your grammar has no bright dc at all in any number. What’s progress 8? What % high achievers?

Which was why I didn't choose that for dd - apart from the bullying and lack of SEN pupils, if a selective school can't get to the national average or only just but not above the average for the authority, it doesn't say much for the teaching.

What grammar is just at a county average though? Where there are grammars, most dc are not selected so here, the grammars are way above average results - the majority obviously.

There are many secondaries here with above 34.6% for maths and English. My local non grammar is 46.1%. 59.5% is LA score and very much dragged up by grammars. The best non grammar I know of is 55% grade 5 stat.

It really isn’t segregation by aspiration. It’s more to do with speed of learning. Some dc take the slightly slower route in the secondaries and many have very good 6th forms and dc go to RG universities from them. Grammars do not equal poor secondaries here. There’s no brake on learning, aspiration or final destination.

At the local boys’ grammar, 1 child out of 9 is a middle achiever but progress is “well above average” for the school. So every child is not a genius going there!

Actually having checked, neither of the 2 grammars got to the Local Authority Average bar but the girl's school managed just above the National Average.

That sounds better than my area - here the SEN numbers for Grammar are very low, so the state options have the majority. The "stricter" of these, a Catholic school, has a rating of AVERAGE progress 8 with a score of 0.002 and only 34.6% getting a grade 5 or above in Maths and English GCSE. This is the "sought after" state option that parents desperately try to get into. The grammars end up with average for county results but with more staying on for 6th form.

For me the Grammar system segregates boys and girls on aspiration with the boy's school being known for science and the girls all having to compete for spaces at 6th form when they only allow a set number in who weren't previously at the school. The subjects dd wants to take aren't offered by the girls grammar but are at the boys - compounding the 2 tier education still further within the grammar system. The whole area feels educationally stuck.

What I have noticed taking dd out of it is how much better private schools can deal with SEN. Obviously the grammars don't have to consider behaviour from this angle as the % they take is so tiny, but as a result their progress 8 should be far better, which it isn't because they take the kids who were highly trained through primary to pass 11+. It's a depressing area to live if your child doesn't want to go to the only school that gets average grades because of the selective attitude the kids there have, particularly to SEN.

@6thformoptionsI live in an 11 plus county with 13 grammar schools. The vast majority of the non grammars are great schools and way better than many comps elsewhere.

Yes, some parents are anxious about schools from age 11 and this transmits into dc and promotes anxiety. The coaching some endure is ott. The parents who take it in their stride tend to have more relaxed dc. They support the secondary non grammars and these are often professional parents who realise the grammars won’t suit dc. In the end, their dc achieve around the same as similar dc in the grammars.

In my LA the best progress 8 scores are mostly in the grammars but they take around 25% of local dc overall. Not 5%. Any secondaries with 95% should be great schools. It’s all about SLT and leadership.

My DC worked out who the brighter dc were. That’s fairly normal at primary school but it wasn’t divisive. If anything it was the parents who separated themselves out into desperate and laid back groups!