Harris Academies

Can I add, that last year only 45% of children at Harris CP were classed as 'high ability' on starting at the school.

Can't comment on the reputation of the head at Harris CP, but be prepared for the GCSE results to fall further over the next few years.

Until fairly recently over 70% of children starting at the school were categorised as 'high ability'. Given that many of the same children apply to both Harris CP as apply to Harris SN (1 mile down the road), which admits fewer than 30% high ability children, there was clearly something very underhand and murky going on with their 'fair banding' admittance process. I'm really glad that this is now being addressed to make the intake at Harris CP more representative of the children in local area.

Daydreamer01 yes there are ways of finding out exact results.

The performance tables and under the default 'KS4 2013 results' main tab, select the option 'KS4 exam results'. The first column gives GCSE results excluding equivalents. One school's GCSE results drop 26% when equivalents are excluded - and less than a fifth of those passes are in Ebacc subjects.

And if you are concerned, and good at filtering in Excel, you can download a spreadsheet with all the courses, results and grades here under 'Associated resources'.

If the school has the banding results and does the choosing, it can offer places to the top performers in each band

No they cannot. AllMimsy is correct - that would be illegal selection. Harris City Academy uses random selection. By law there must be an independent observer for this process. If the EFA found that they were "randomly selecting" the top performers in each band they could lose their funding.

In Lewisham, the way it worked was that the children in each band were ranked according to the admissions criteria. Their banding result was completely irrelevant. PRH is the expert, but I would be amazed if it was legal to use the banding results in the way you suggest, sugarfoot. That would be academic selection by the back door.

There is also the question of how places are allocated within the bands. If the school has the banding results and does the choosing, it can offer places to the top performers in each band.

AllMimsy is correct about how it works in Lewisham.

I haven't checked Haberdashers but if Mimsy is correct the methodology is different but the outcome would be the same as Harris - the intake would reflect the ability range of those applying.

There are in essence three approaches to fair banding:

• use national scores so the intake reflects the ability range across all schools in England

• use local scores so the intake reflects the ability range in the area (usually the LA)

• use the scores of those taking the test so the intake reflects the ability range of those applying

To make this clearer, imagine that there are, say, 25% low achievers nationally and 15% in the LA but only 5% of applicants to the school are low achievers. If the school uses national scores for fair banding they will end up with 25% low achievers (provided enough low achievers apply to fill that many places). If they use local scores they will end up with 15% low achievers. If they use the scores of those taking the test they will end up with 5% low achievers. So in this scenario using the scores of those taking the test would give all applicants an equal chance of getting a place. The other two approaches would give low achievers a higher chance of a place.

ThreeTomatoes, my children are grown up now but when they were at a Lewisham primary school ten years ago Lewisham's banding procedures went like this:

1. At the end of year 5 all children took the banding tests.
2. At the start of year 6 the child's band was notified to the parents. There were five possible bandings: 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3. 1 was highest. The banding was done by ranking all the children by their total score in the tests and then labelling the top 20% as band 1 and so on down the list.
3. Child's band was then automatically fed into the CAF so it was available when applications to Lewisham schools (and Greenwich, which was using a similar system) were being processed.
4. Each school aimed to take 20% of its intake from each band. So in effect five separate admissions procedures were run in parallel for each school. They could be oversubscribed in band 3 and undersubscribed in band 1, for example. In those cases they would leave the Band 1 places unfilled rather than put children in from other bands - although there came a point in the late spring/summer when that went by the board and unfilled places would go to children of any band.

The effect of that system was that if the school managed to fill all its places in the right proportions, it would have an intake broadly comparable to the borough profile.

However, at Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham, the system was different, more like the Harris academies described above. They tested all the children who applied (using a different test from Lewisham) and then allocated them to bands with reference to a national scale. So say a child got 182 they'd look at the scale they were using and say '182 - that means Band 2'.

Say they had 3000 applications altogether and 600 of them turned out to be from Band 2. They'd then say 'OK, that means this year we should allocate 20% of our places to Band 2 children'.

Now of course if they had 50% of their applications from children at the bottom end of the ability range then they'd end up allocating 50% of their places to lower ability children. But in practice they were getting a very high proportion of their applications from children at the top end of the ability range, so quite legitimately they were taking a very skewed intake, but were still labelled as comprehensive. The intake was representative of the applicants, but not of the borough.

Health warning: this may all have changed in the intervening years!

Can't remember what it stands for (possibly Cognitive Ability Test but don't quote me on that) but the idea with CATs is that you set the levels based on the population of the entire country. It means that your ability spread reflects the entire country rather than your local area. So if the school is in an area with a lot of high attainers and hardly any low attainers it will end up with an intake that has a higher proportion of low attainers than other schools in the area (hope that makes sense).

Given the way Harris do it you are spot on. If parents of low attainers don't apply it will end up with a lower proportion of low attainers than other schools in the area.

I find it interesting that you make the assumption

I thought about making my post neutral but didn't on the basis that most people think that the parents of underachieving children are likely to be less motivated.

It's not e case that HArris fair banding is intended to produce an intake comparable to other schools in the locality

There is some serious misinformation on that thread, not least in that it is totally incorrect as to how Harris band. They do not use CAT scores at all. They split the applicants into 9 equal groups (or as close as possible given that there will be tied scores) based on their score in the NVR test. Their intake will therefore accurately reflect the range of abilities in their applicants.

It's not e case that HArris fair banding is intended to produce an intake comparable to other schools in the locality - the discussion here www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/03/why-always-the-harris-federation-who-decides-and-is-this-monopoly-legitimate/ explains how banding against national scores in a low average CAT area will give a school an advAntage

Is it true that if you teach at a Harris Academy you get a 10% discount at Carpetright?

I haven't assumed anything about whether the children are at the top or bottom of the ability range - though I find it interesting that you make the assumption. My view around the skew in intake is down to the parental involvement and motivation to apply for and sit the post CAF exam for the school. I personally believe that parental involvement and motivation will have an impact on the results,especially as you are excluding those families whose home lives are so chaotic that they won't be able to sit a test (and there's plenty of those in Croydon B and Bs). So yes, I take the view that any school which has an additional entry hurdle over and above the "standard default" comp is skewing their intake, whether by asking people to attend church, sit selective tests or even sitting non selective tests. Yes the children may come from the full spectrum of ability, but just by being brought to a test on a December Saturday they have motivation and support which is not available to many.

I'm not suggesting that the admissions code has been broken at all. Just that the technical definition of "comprehensive" covers say both London Oratory and Archbishop Lanfranc. I don't think the boys at Lanfranc have turned down their Oratory place to go there.

By having any type of entry test, Harris is not being fully comprehensive

Quite a few schools use fair banding these days, not just Harris. It is becoming increasingly common in community schools. It is seen as a way of preventing selection by affluence, with places going to those who can afford to live close to the school. It is permitted because it ensures that a comprehensive school is genuinely comprehensive by increasing the chances of children from poorer homes getting places at popular schools. Your conclusion that the test means the school is not comprehensive is only correct if you think that the children who don't turn up for the test are the ones at the bottom of the ability range. I'm sure you will be pleased to know that, according to the statistics I have found, over 98% of those who apply for places turn up for the test.

parental input as well innate ability both have an impact on the results

Even if that is true (it shouldn't be if the NVR tests are constructed properly), that has no bearing on the child's ability to get a place. If they used the tests to select the top performers it would but as they take evenly from across the ability range the child's performance has no effect at all on the likelihood of getting a place.

My sister is in year 10 at one of these. It's bloody awful.

My dd1's school also uses fair-banding. Alghought the test is only advertised as being on one day in November, in reality they offer lots of additional days to ensure that everyone that wants to can access the test. But as mentioned above any kind of test may put off some less motivated families.