why is it so difficult to find a good school

Of course. My DDs school also has 'house groups, duke of Edinburgh awards and a manned homework room specifically set up to complete your homework after school.' - its a GS, but I don't think its really down to that any more dairy's being religious. That sort of thing takes good leadership (someone has to man those HW rooms; someone has to run the inter-house events; someone has to manage DofE...that one probably is very difficult without parental involvement I'd imagine)
My Dcs' very normal comp have all of that as well.

Diary I don't think you need to look much further than the 2011 GCSE results tables to be a little less baffled.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16730017

In these tables, GCSE results are plotted against a school's intake at 11. Many of the high achieving faith schools have admissions criteria which seem to have more or less filtered out low ability children while ensuring the proportion of high ability (level 5) children is fairly similar to that of a less selective grammar school.

While I am sure the school your son will be attending offers many good things, it does not achieve its impressive results with a representative cross-section of children.

shouldn't we as a society be looking at what's working and emulate it instead of slating it?

Of course. My DDs school also has 'house groups, duke of Edinburgh awards and a manned homework room specifically set up to complete your homework after school.' - its a GS, but I don't think its really down to that any more dairy's being religious. That sort of thing takes good leadership (someone has to man those HW rooms; someone has to run the inter-house events; someone has to manage DofE...that one probably is very difficult without parental involvement I'd imagine)

TheDiary - see my posts below re what to takes to get into a school such as you describe. As I understand it families have to be very committed to achieving the criteria that will get a child into the school. That is a focussed family, with self discipline or at least the framework of family discipline driven by parents and adopted by the child. And then the school having the same focussed ambitious ethos, presumably. I am sure what you say about what happens within the school explains much but surely the effort needed to get into the school, and to be prepared to travel consdierable distances discounts any family who is 'wha'ever' about education!

My son, has just been accepted for a place in one of the most sought after comprehensive faith schools in London (and no we don't live anywhere near the school in a posh part of London, quite the opposite in fact). The question that has always baffled me is that, if this school can achieve results quite close to that of the private schools, why can't other comprehensives do the same? What are they doing that the other aren't?

The conclusion I came to was that they seem to echo the private school set up, as in house groups, duke of Edinburgh awards and a manned homework room specifically set up to complete your homework after school.

Just because one is not religious,doesn't mean they are not deserving of a good education, so shouldn't we as a society be looking at what's working and emulate it instead of slating it?

For the record, my son's current school has the kids jumping off the tables and having a field day every Monday when the main teacher is replaced by a support teacher. Every Monday therefore, my son will not learn a thing! If people want to put their kids in an environment that reduces that situation, why is that deemed as elitist or snooty, or whatever label people like to give it? Yes, poor performing schools still produce great children, I guess what the poster is wanting to know is how to increase that probability.

Agree too that GCSE measure is more important than A level tables as one can always move at 6th form stage.

So to sum up - except in exceptional circumstances, it's not. HTH .

I agree, SchoolsNightmare - and accuracy, understanding the facts, and having up to date knowledge of a school all contribute to making a judgement about whether the school is actually a place your child will thrive or not are all crucial.

Myths in any direction of the argument are not helpful.

SchoolNightmare, you speak the truth, I agree with every word.

And would add that good schools academically often seem to be those with a good programme of other stuff too, and with the organisation and commitment to deliver in a way that means take up is high and the quality high. You can supplement outside school too, but the same arguments apply.

But the not bright child is so very well catered for in so many of the excellent community schools (that MNers simply tend to avoid since there are not enough "bright" kids there or not enough "people like us").

One local community school near me (Lambeth Academy) does brilliantly with all sort of level of ability (including SEN) - its just avoided by the middle classes (witness the complete lack of mention of this school whenever SW london schools are discusse on this forum)!

In theory I know you are right seeker but in practise it's much harder no?
You want to feel relaxed and have faith...well you get what I'm saying. You wouldn't be appealing if you didn't get it.

Thank you wordfactory.

But my point really is that, while this is not the school I would have chosen for him, and it has many problems, I am as sure as I can be that ds will do well. He is almost certain to be in the 35% that get "good" - in mumsnet terms - results. And the bits that the school can't provide, we can. So I do think people should worry less about the "good" school thing.

seeker I'm an utter Pollyanna - never say never. Best of luck with it.

Some schools (paticularly grammar schools) are very selective about who they let into the 6th form. Others (take the comp where my DCs go as an example) are willing to take any young person who is prepared to put some effort in.

On what grounds are you appealing?

We are appealing-but under the circumstances we have practically no chance of success.

Did you Seeker?

seeker did you not win your appeal ofr your DS to go to grammar school?

You are only looking at secondary schools that do A levels.
It?s a mistake to judge schools by their A level results.
Most secondary schools in Surrey don?t do A levels (have a 6th form / yrs 12 & 13). The children go on to do A levels in 6th form colleges.
As has been said before ? choosing a school is not always a straightforward process.
Good Luck

It is also a big mistake judging schools by their A level results. Obviously, many schools only go up to 16. Of those who go up to 18, some schools have selective 6th forms - and in shedding some of their own pupils, have space for bright young people from other schools, while other 6th forms take just about everyone who would like to stay on. Also some of the schools on the list show great results, but the numbers achieving those results are actually tiny.

One point that I don't think has been made, OP - there's a world of difference between not being one of '100 top schools' and being a bad school!

The top 100 schools are almost bound to be selective either overtly (grammars) or covertly (faith schools). That doesn't mean that there aren't schools that get excellent academic results but aren't top 100 material.

Certainly here dd has the choice of two schools (both of which she can reasonably expect to get into). One has unquestionably excellent academic results, the other, which she'll probably choose, less good results but still absolutely fine if you look at the intake (higher levels of FSM etc).

Obviously there are big problems in London and some other parts of the country, but an awful lot of the UK has perfectly acceptable schools which serve their local communities well.

There are some very poorly performing (or at least, poor results reporting) faith schools too

yes - if I look down the list for our county, there's a few faith schools near the top (benefitting from their ability to select, and in 'nice' areas) and then it seems a pretty random scattering. People defend faith schools because they supposedly do well because of their 'ethos' but the stats don't really seem to bear this out. I'm sure there are some which do an excellent job with a poor intake but the same applies to non-dom schools.

I do think that the Head/SMT is the most important factor.
12 Years ago dcs school were getting just 13% with 5 A_C gcses, this was not even the figure including maths and english. Now it gets 90% 5 A-C and 60% including maths and english.
This was all down to a change of Head. The school is now rated Outstanding and has just changed to an academy last year.
The school has an excellent pastoral care system as well.

There are some very poorly performing (or at least, poor results reporting) faith schools too
our local faith school failed it's Ofsted a few years back and most of the children that go there are imported in from Enfield. They have just moved to a brand new shiny building and are starting to get better results, but the school has failed many children in the last 7 or 8 years.

Spending in schools:

Sink school - average teacher salary = £40,800 pupil teacher ratio = 13.8

Excellent comp - av salary = £37,200 pupil teacher ration = 17.3

BECAUSE the SMT of one school are clued up and the other are not ....