Please can someone answer this simple question about state selective schools?

@TalkinPeace , a couple of years ago I glanced at a RAISE online transition matrix and 90% of children with a KS2 SATS achieved a GCSE A/A, 50% the A. This was national data, not just Chipping Norton or Grammar County.

Wilshaw et al keep telling us any L5 should get A/A* which is a bit silly given that 5c is different from 5a, but I expect many schools are now trying to deliver.

We don't yet know what becomes of L6 and how the GCSE changes will impact on this, but I imagine the overwhelming majority at any type of school will get their top grade.

--
Ignoring failing schools with daily riots, good school/teacher versus mediocre school/teacher is a relatively small factor in outcomes. That's in common exams though, so I suppose one difference might be in access to Latin lessons or something.

Clavinova Mum - It's ridiculous to keep citing Watford Grammar for Girls/Boys and Parmiters as only taking 25% on academic selection

If it is preferred that I refer to the schools as a grammar I'm happy with that. However, I was under the impression that grammar schools are more commonly know to allocated 100% on the basis of exam and would imagine someone going to a grammar to question whether these semi selective schools can be compared alongside them. If the general feeling is that they can then I'm fine with that.

What these semi-selective schools do demonstrate is how difficult it is to compare like for like on paper:

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/23/watford-grammar-school-girls-gcse-rankings

This article refers to the girls grammar as "is not a grammar school but an academy". By taking the middle ground these schools are more commonly compared to non selective schools, which as Clavinova suggests, is not really accurate.

Clavinova, I hope you are right that "cleverness runs in families" as it means that my DD who is quite a bit behind where my DS was at this stage will have no problems academically.

Also to be clear, the Boys Grammar offers 19 distance places and 21 academic places in the inner catchment. Am I right in saying that the siblings of those 19 distance place children will be as bright as those who gained an academic place?

Regarding the property, the reason I made this point is because the properties within the 250 metre catchment area of the Grammar schools are significantly more expensive than other comparable properties in the same area. This trend is not found around Parmiters (a distance cut off of 1384 metres), I am intrigued as to why that is.

I agree with StillWish. I am actually a bit surprised by the results of some of the superselectives - they are excellent, as would be expected by their level of selection, but a private with comparable "superselection" gets nearly 87% of the grades being As at GCSE and 97% AA.

A colleague of mine says an able pupil ought to be able to get 'a good clutch ' of A*s.

Another says more A*s than As. And if you take too many that's your look out

Obviously this assumes a half decent school and no other flags.

Mum - It's ridiculous to keep citing Watford Grammar for Girls/Boys and Parmiters as only taking 25% on academic selection - you only have to look at their stats and admissions policies to see that they select by stealth. All three of the schools have between 73% and 80% high attainers and only 2% low attainers. At Watford Grammar for Girls the number of 'nearest school' admissions is only 18 (10%) which is the same as the number of specialist music places also on offer. Not only do they admit 25% from the academic test but nearly 50% seem to be admitted under siblings/cross-siblings and teachers' children. If you have a son at Watford Grammar for Boys then your daughter can get a cross-sibling place at the Girls' school without sitting the academic test, freeing up an academic place for another girl. Of course cleverness runs in families which is why they've weeded out nearly all the low attainers. You previously linked to a cheap property in the WD25 postcode catchment area for Parmiters - any child living in that property is more likely to go to Francis Combe Academy (also in WD25) which got 50% A* to C last year.

RabbitOfNegativeEuphoria I haven't made any inflated claims for DS's comp. I don't believe anyone has said you have.

I haven't made any inflated claims for DS's comp.

I am sorry I cant remember all the posts. I contributed to a very similar thread recently. Some one stated their very able DD got mostly As, a couple of A* in her best subjects and a B or 2. She asked how much better the results could have been.

As I said before in either a selective or a private school the brightest (and the vast majority in a superselective) will be getting 5 or 6 A*s in academic subjects. This does matter- these are the grades needed for medicine, law or Oxbridge. They will not interview with less. Unless we give these bright (most able 10%??) the opportunity to get these grades (rather than the couple of Bs being tolerated) we will not have any state educated representation at the highest levels where the decisions which affect us all are made.

Thought this might be of interest (the schools has 25% academic selection):

www.watfordgrammarschoolforgirls.org.uk/docs/exam_results/results-2013-for-website.pdf

RabbitOfNegativeEuphoria word Yep. Lots of tutors at DS's comp as per my point. If the use of private tuition is common, they how much are the results of your DSs school attributed to the efforts of the school itself? Is the school really as good as it claims to be?

Just to pick up on a couple of points.

The nearest Grammar school to here is 25 miles away in another county.
There are two local Catholic schools that are not strongly Catholic but get great academic results.
We are knee deep in private schools, many of which cater to out of county families.
All the other schools near here are geographic comps.

Extract from DCs school website for 2013
67% Achieve 5 A-C including English & Maths ~ 56% of all entries graded A, A or B ~ 40% of all students achieve EBAC

To the best of my knowledge, in the last three years they have had roughly 20-30 kids getting nothing lower than an A out of a cohort of 300.
Certainly on results days there was a huddle of them with solid A^ / A* / A grades (and the top sets all took between 11 and 14 subjects)

Now I'm sure those kids might be able to convert that into straight stars and hats at a superselective
BUT
I'm utterly not convinced that the kids at the superselective would not still get their stellar grades if they were in groups of ten and twenty at their local schools.

word Yep. Lots of tutors at DS's comp. I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't go that route for him too (but god knows where we would find the time or the cash - the parental taxi service is already pretty jammed every evening and the cupboard, she is bare).

Tutoring is a thing in all sectors.

You will regularly hear posters say they are not going to send their DC private and will spend the saved cash on enrichment activities and tutors.

RabbitOfNegativeEuphoria I don't know anyone at our superselective who uses private tutors which is why I emphasised that I was referring to my area. I will add that I am in a semi selective area not grammar or super selective. Interestingly, however, the schools do boast about their excellent results - Parmiters, Watford Boys & Watford Girls.

BTW I know 2 boys at Queen Elizabeth Barnet who are using tutors. I understand that this school is classed as a super selective. Again their parents claim that this is very much the norm. However, as I don't have DCs at the school, I am happy to stand corrected if this is not the case.

Molio Are you quite sure that it's not yet another urban myth? Given that these are friends who have not only told me they are using tutors, they have actually given me the contact details for the tutors in case I want to use them.

That's interesting Mum and a fair point if true across the board for selective schools.

It doesn't explain why 65% of L5+ children fail to achieve A*/As in English & Maths in non-selective schools though.

That doesn't square in any way with my experience Mum. I don't know of a single friend of any of my DC who is using or has ever used a private tutor to 'supplement' teaching. Certainly none of my DC ever have. Even if I had the spare cash lying around, I'd consider it dangerous to have two different people teaching the same thing - potentially very muddling. Are you quite sure that it's not yet another urban myth?

I don't know anyone at our superselective who uses private tutors except the people who want to do theory exams and can't stay behind after school for the free theory lessons because of the school buses (this includes/has included all my kids (including the one at comp)). Theory exams aren't part of a school's remit obviously but they can help with GCSE and A level music so I suppose it's not completely unrelated.

In the exam threads over the years I've seen lots of mention of booster sessions etc. I expect the parents of kids attending those don't consider them to be tutoring - but they are. No booster sessions at our school. Just regular lessons in lesson time.

Marni23 Ofsted produced a report ('The Most Able Students') in 2013 which stated that '65% of pupils who achieved Level 5 or above in both English and Maths at the end of Year 6 failed to attain A* or A grades in both these subjects at GCSE in 2012 in non-selective schools'.

I can't find any comparable data for state selective schools but suspect the figures would be very different.*

Unfortunately what the various statistics will never show you is the proportion of children at the various schools who are also using the services of private tutors/tuition services etc.

From personal experience, every child I know who is planning on sitting the 11 plus is currently using a tutor/tuition centre.

I know a number of families who have children in the local selective schools who are still using private tutors even though their children have gained a place at the selective school. According to those parents the use of tutors is very much the norm.

From personal experience alone, I would say that the biggest corruption of perceived performance at my local selective schools is the use of private tuition. It makes it pretty much impossible to know how much of the actual attainment is down to the efforts of the school.

Exactly Word. There are very unworldly comments on this thread. There's also a distinct lack of reality about the spread of grades that an average child at a superselective will get. It's incorrect that 'most' get all A*. The top 8% or so of that top 10% might, with a fair wind behind them.

Hakluyt, could you tell us what your DD's school website says about their breakdown of grades, either for 2013 or this year? You know, numbers of exams taken, numbers of A*/ A/ B etc. Because I'd expect a fair smattering of Bs or even lower, not just a few. 20% maybe, at a guess?

I am a parent who totally disagrees with the whole principle of grammar schools but would still expect there to be the odd D - there were NO Es NO ungradeds

the expectation of not getting a D can be there for anybody - does not mean the result on the day will be "as expected" Should they get an A* even when their dad just died the week before the actual exam, their parents split up, they have a bad illness

or they had to walk to the exam because the car broke down a mile away and they got bad blisters,soaking wet and freezing cold (my friend when I was exam age - many moons ago)

stuff happens.

Oh this is stupid.

Clever children get sick,they get heart broken , they get scared...

Of course the odd child will bomb!

What we're discussing here is how high ablity children achieve as a group!

Hak - anyone can get sick. Or have something terrible happen. Of course, until it happens to you or someone you know you don't see it that way. Sadly having passed an entrance exam several years previously - or just being bright - doesn't make you immune to disaster. :(

Re Miranda - she fell in the heffalump trap though. So perhaps not (she is my favourite, for sure. There's an ongoing thread about the name Rowan in baby names - I was surprised you hadn't shown up...)