secondary education - not privates school choices

Four cornered You have not seen the latest admissions report? All the schools oversubscribed, RPA finally seeing the fruits of it's improvement, you can see lots of good word of mouth on these threads, lots of local state school parents investing or intending to invest in it. You could hardly blame parents for refusing to when there were knives in the playground but when it comes to "choice and diversity" (the name of the Council's education strategy ) then parents refusing to be pressganged into the Kunskapsskolan model wasn't exactly "asking for it". I would have no problem sending my girls to RPA now but they would be bored rigid sat in front of computer screens all day at TA.

In any case it is no matter, the pupil bulge has started to hit, there are 146 more pupils in this cohort and in fact applications have gone up by more than that. All the schools are oversubscribed. The Council say it will be all right because 32% of parents can be relied on to drop out, but that is an awful lot of parents deterred by their "choice and diversity" or finding themselves without any school place, and it is a hell of a gamble that they can rely on them to go away................

I don't know. Somebody on another thread said that good universities (I think that means Oxford and Cambridge) want more than As, and children in comprehensive schools are being let down because they foolishly think that a string of As is somehow impressive.......

fourcornered
By law the LEA must find a place for every child in it's area.
Yup, and the Education head at the council to which shootingatpigeons refers is openly and fragrantly flouting the law, but the police have more important issues on their plates.

If it were other than a Tory council, Gove's cronies would have been in ages ago, but as Bliar was also 'pro' catholic schools
its a perfect storm in which the parents are swept along in a hideous maelstrom of politics

which is probably why Bohunt school has quite as many north east out of catchment kids as it does!

SCs school is slacking, it no longer offers Latin

Oh, why aren't they good enough? Because they're un-enriched and all?

I tend to agree with you, Nocomet. I do concede I am a more than slightly slack mum, though.

I had a realistic choice of at least 12 state secondaries for DD, some with Outstanding ratings, all qualify as comps + one academy. I couldn't choose so I let DD decide.

But I do now realize after reading other threads that A*s are not good enough..........who knew?

And some of us happily send our DDs to a state comp that's been good, satisfactory, SM and good again in the last 5 years and are very very cynical about the whole thing.

I suspect that most state schools are good enough for most DCs and that Ofsted would be much better off concentrating on those with very poor GCSE results and major discipline issues, but that wouldn't keep the angst ridden, can't quite afford private MC happy.

Can I join in? I have a child in a secondary modern!!!!!

I do have to carry a bell with me everywhere I go in case any other children touch mine and catch "oik" from him. And all the other mother's heads are just slightly to one side when they talk to me. But I struggle through.

Shocking typing, should not use iPad when trying to deliver sensible opinions.

My DD goes to our local comprehensive. I don't think we actually have any private schools in this area, not that it would be an option for us anyway. We definitely do not have any boarding schools.

By law the LEA must find a place for every child in it's area. If people didn't buy out of the system en mass then all the schools would have the same potential to be good. If just 10% of those parents chose to send to a RI improvement school (or heck, lower) then the schools would improve. If you don't get the critical mass of average and better students in from average and better homes there is no hope. It's a situation that IMHO parents of the borough are not helping and by setting up a free school the problem is being exacerbated. The council were it appear out of order on the catholic school situation but the parents could do a lot more to help them sleeves if they were willing to look at what much of the rest of the country has to accept status-quo.

Yes Aga but I always enjoy a chance to get that one off my chest and shame Lord True. We were wondering if we could use all the papers from the Judicial Reviews to hold back the floods

And yes coming up for parents at the new Catholic School, "Bingo and Prosecco Night". No wonder the Head is touting around the local Catholic primary schools that the new school is a "private school without the fees"

I wouldn't bother, it's all inverse snobbery in this thread.

Perhaps I should step in as Aga has not come back. Yes indeed you can put down six preferences for good comprehensives in the London suburbs and not get into any of them. And yes 40% go private in Richmond and other South West London suburbs. It's not just that 40% go private, Richmond has one of the highest proportions of state school pupils (that is those that get places in the primary schools in the first place) going private in the country, far ahead of the affluence of it's residents, that is because many find themselves scraping together the money (or moving) because they realise they are not going to get a state school place. The good schools will be oversubscribed 5 to 1 by parents putting them first preference, who would be only too happy, as I would have been, to send their children there. The catchments shrink ever smaller, house prices wiz up on the doorsteps of school and we nearly just had civil war between the parents who pushed for a new Catholic School to be established and the parents who just wanted a new inclusive school to meet the needs of the pupil bulge everyone can see coming through Primary Schools. But our Council Leader is friends with lots of VIP Catholic establishment so the existing school site went to the Catholic Church and parents had to put together their own Free School proposal for an inclusive school. That has yet to announce whether it has a site. Since there were more applications than places this application round even if that school opens it seems likely there will be parents without a school place. Even the schools the Council gave to a Swedish education provider to experiment with teaching methods (children sit in front of computers instead of having formal lessons, OFSTED haven't exactly fallen over themselves with enthusiasm and both schools "require improvement" ) are oversubscribed.

So those of you with an LA who actually does make sure it provides local school places perhaps turn down the cynicism a bit. These are lots of first time buyers struggling to make a decision about what is for them a substantial investment, not a lifestyle choice. If you want the full story it is here www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/ ( website of the pressure group set up by dissatisfied parents) and here www.turinghouseschool.org.uk/ website of the parent led Free School and here www.strichardreynolds.org.uk/ website of the new Catholic School.

My children don't even go to school. They go down t'pit.

Well indeed, if the school suits your child exactly then there are no gaps, both my children have needed extra support with things that the school haven't been able to offer so maybe that's influenced my view.

Gaps in the gums, caused by chair throwing?

What gaps?

Or not filling in gaps, as the case may be.

Awww Hun dyawannatalkaboudit ?

I'm waiting to see if my dd has got in at our local comp, there is a thread [[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/1980002-March-3-Sceondary-results-Waiting here] waiting for offers day.

Those who are spending their own money on education and those who are in areas/situations where finding a suitable school is tricky are most likely to be the ones posting. There are probably quite a few of us happy to use local schools with varying degrees and styles of 'filling in gaps' outside of school.

I do, OP, but then of course you must bear in mind that
a) I bought a massive expensive house in a leafy catchment first which is exactly the same as going private.
b) I do not give a fuck about 'patchy' provision elsewhere, and am therefore - suprisingly - the biggest problem there is with state education
c) I have low expectations
d) dd1 gets beaten up in the refectory every day because she is clever and
e) dd2 beats other kids up in the refectory every day because they are clever
f) I'm plagued by a sense of my own inadequacy and that of my beige children in their crappy comp. This does confuse me, given (a), but there it is!

Well, as about all but two of the posters on the thread (before it descended into chaos) were against the idea of separate boards based on how a school is funded, then I'd say that you need to give it a few years. But as it's a nigh on annual February tradition to have that thread, then I expect it'll pop up again in about 12 months.