To send my academic child to a below average comp?

Things really open up in-year around here, as lots of parents move house, change schools and quite often move their DC to private just for 3 years (9-11).

Would it be feasible for you to move your DD to private for just 2-3 years as you say you have a decent income?

Might be worth having that in the back pocket.

One not far from us is 13 form entry.

Most are between 6 and 9 though.

I wouldn’t count on an in year move unless you are just out of catchment and therefore will be high up on the waiting list. There will be other families like you who didn’t quite make it into the better school and will be waiting to snap up any in year spaces. And there might not be any in year spaces 🤷‍♀️ it all depends on someone leaving.

What year is your DD in now? Could you actually move in time for school applications? If she’s in year 6 it may be a bit late already (depends on that school’s specific admission rules about late address changes).

I had no idea 9 form entry schools existed! How big do they go?

My advice about schools in Doncaster will be irrelevant then.

But generally... the academic quieter kids seem to congregate together and support each other.

Op... from your user name are you in Doncaster?

I would ask myself... is my child likely to be happy at this school and to find a cohort of like-minded children with whom she stands a good chance of making friends?

If I could answer that question yes, the academic achievement/performance of the school would be much less important for me.

A bright child can do well in a poor school with mediocre teaching without it impacting their life chances, especially if you can tutor and offer extracurricular opportunities to fill any gaps. But what will have a long-term effect is being miserable and socially isolated during their formative years.

I would not leave my child in a school where they were unhappy and I would have a plan B (put on every waiting-list going etc.) if that is likely to be the case.

If I have understood correctly, OP has said that progress 8 scores for this school are neutral for the highest achievers and negative for the lower. That’s really not good.

Yes, it wasn't true for me. I was very curious as a child and loved learning and participating, and was made to feel that I was being weird or showing off. I remember my teacher saying 'I want someone to put their hand up - NOT SteakBakes.' I learned to keep quiet and not excel or stand out or get overly enthusiastic, because it got more of a sigh and eye roll than a positive response.

I pretty much checked out of school and was getting a C average until I managed to switch to a specialised private school. Suddenly the teachers were interested and invested in their subjects, the other students wanted to learn, and everything that I had tried to hide because it was 'weird' or I was trying to 'show off' was celebrated and pushed further. I went from C's to A*'s in a year.

So I definitely don't think that a bright child will do well anywhere. In fact, many bright children are also very sensitive, and if they are in an environment where they are dissuaded from letting their strengths shine, they will not achieve their full potential.

I would try to find a way to move, personally. I moved dd because she was a ‘quiet middle.’ Like a pp’s experience, her school focussed on ‘bringing up’ the less able, and there was little interest in stretching the more academic children. At that school, dd never shone. Her performance was average, and the teachers’ attitudes were always ‘she’s doing enough.’

I moved her, because I felt she would be more engaged elsewhere. To my surprise, she got an academic scholarship to a selective independent school and the transformation was immediate. She was noticed, nurtured, and thrived. In an environment where the children wanted to learn and work hard, she flew. She is doing her GCSEs this year, predicted straight 9s, and on the Oxbridge track. I had no idea she was this academic, and I do not believe that she would be doing so well if left bumbling along at the local comp.

Definitely go on compare schools website and filter results by prior attainment. Look at was the high achievers are attaining at GCSE/progress score.

Although I didn’t really want my son at the local ‘secondary modern’ if he didn’t pass the grammar, my plan B was partly based on if high achieving kids were still doing well. There was a stark difference between two schools we could have gotten into. The other I felt was not helping previous high achievers meet their potential.

Happy for you to DM me if you need me to show you how to do this.

Or get bored and left behind because no one cares about more than avarage. It does happen for bright children in state school.

Please also bear in mind that if an area has a clearly “good” comprehensive school and a “not good” comprehensive school, then most of the parents who are serious about education, and have the means, will have ensured they live in the catchment of the “good” school.

So the intakes of each school will not be truly comprehensive. The “good” school catchment will contain a disproportionate amount of very invested and/or better off families and the less good school catchment will have a disproportionate amount of families who either don’t care or can’t afford to move.

True comprehensive is frankly a myth these days when people are so strategic about school places.

I was this child too - I went to a terrible school and got 10 A*s at GCSE, as well as lots of support from teachers, but I was very socially isolated. The overall attitude of other pupils was that it was pointless and very uncool to try hard and try and achieve anything at school. If anything, I was lucky that I was so unusual no-one even bothered bullying me. The school was massive but had a tiny sixth form cohort which tended to recruit along social class lines, not on purpose, but overall it was a very working class school with a small minority of middle-class-but-not-at-private-school kids who were the ones whose parents expected them to do A-levels and go to university. I left after GCSEs and went to a sixth form college in another town where everyone knew what they were there for and did actual work.

I had a much younger sister and by the time she was finishing primary, my parents knew more about schools and could afford to move, so they moved to a town with a good secondary school, with strong encouragement from me.

@minipie i agree with everything you have written here. It’s impossible to predict how things will turn out for the OP’s dc.

It depends on two things:

1. how self motivated is your child
2. is there a culture within the school that being bright is ‘bad’ which will mean your child is bullied if they shine academically

oh and just to add

Please do NOT rely on the appeal route (or “legal” as some pp are calling it). Most admissions appeals fail. If the school you want is full to bursting (and many good secondary schools are right now) then you would really have to make an exceptional case for why your child needs that school in order to get a place on appeal. It absolutely won’t be enough that she is academic, or shy.

Agree entirely with these two questions

Cohort is very important, your DD will be influenced by her peers unless she is very unusual, so may coast if everyone around her is getting lower marks. Also if she is academic the pace of learning may be quite slow and boring for her in a mixed ability set. So being in an academic set would be important. If they don’t set or don’t set for most subjects then that would worry me tbh.

And behaviour… read some of the threads by teachers on here about behaviour in secondary schools. It isn’t like that in all schools but if this school is one of the ones with behaviour issues then I would run a mile. How can you tell? If it’s undersubscribed (has fewer kids than its PAN) it probably has serious issues.

I don’t agree with the MN mantra of “a bright child will do well anywhere”. Not if they’re in class with kids who are disruptive and don’t want to learn. Not if they are scared to look too academic in case of bullying. Not if the teachers are spending their whole time on kids who find learning very hard or who are misbehaving.

I’m sorry but you sound like my parents here.

As someone who myself has moved heaven and earth to get my kid into the right school (different issue, SEN) and sold my house, paid lawyers, called every single person in the local authority, campaigned, engaged in a 2 year fight… I can say from my own experience there are so many things you can do. So don’t mix up can’t with don’t want to.

So you could move. But you don’t want to. No judgement, but you need to be honest with yourself. You’re asking on mumsnet if it’ll be fine (maybe you want reassurance it’ll be fine? It might be. Or it might not be. I wouldn’t take the risk but we’re all different) and where people are saying it won’t be ok you’re saying you don’t have a choice. I mean fair enough if that’s where your head is at.

Other than moving you could explore and get advice on your legal options to get an out of catchment placement. These do exist. I am not a lawyer but there will be a way to make a case that school A is not a fit and therefore your child should go to school B. You need to find the loopholes.

it doesn’t feel like you’ve even exhausted the second option yet?

Your daughter sounds like me at that age. I went to the below average comp and honestly, it crushed me. The focus on academics is one thing (sure you can tutor), but the main one is cohort. Places with low aspirations breed low aspiration and kids with high aspirations and ambitions in these environments are a target for bullies. I got great grades (studied hard) but left my school with a lifelong eating disorder, anxiety, depression and all manner of issues. I left my hometown at 18 and never looked back. I still have issues with my parents who I felt ignored my pleas to not go to that school because the other options were too complicated.

I would beg you to consider other options for your daughter’s sake.

You could move. Or you could look at what your legal options could be to request your daughter attends a school out of catchment. Work out what the best school you think would be perfect for her and figure out if by any earthly means she could get in there… I’m not au fait with what people do these days but it can’t be a case of like it or lump it if the only school in catchment is just not right for the child?

A few things.
. Definitely check the progress for those of higher previous attainment.
. You can put other schools above this one on your preference list, you may be lucky. Just make sure this one is on the list somewhere.
. You can go on waiting lists. and a space may come up at some point.
. You can appeal. The grounds for appeal are much wider at Secondary than at infants. You can't appeal on academic results, but you can on extra curriculars for example. e.g Preferred school has an orchestra, your DD plays the clarinet, offered school does not have orchestra.
. The Secondary Education board here on MN can be helpful.

I would keep an open mind but this is a possibility. I went to a terrible school, way lower GCSE pass rates than that, and although I studied and got top gcses it was pretty miserable standing out so much. I moved for sixth form. I had friends but it's much nicer having others around at a similar academic attainment level and higher, not being an outlier.