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

We weren't talking about the average grammar though - we were talking of the 'superselectives' which should have the very, very able children in them.

They should still be getting a damn site better than a D - the top sets in comprehensives are expected to do better than that.

As we know the entrance tests are a crude measure, therefore not every child even at grammar school can get all a*

Hang on, this is more a case of the superselectives getting criticized no matter what - so if there were pupils who weren't A* material and they didn't getting kicked out, surely that's a good thing?

Always excuses for the superselective brigade.

But when a normal kid in a comprehensive downs tools, it's the schools fault, because it has been decided that by definition, (in some people's eyes) that all comprehensives are rubbish. No amount of telling people that there are good comprehensives and yes, they serve all their children well, not just a few, will make those people believe this.

Maybe they were expecting a C or better, or maybe that particular child preferred having a D to not having that particular Gcse, and the school
thought that more important than statiatics?

Out of a cohort of 100 or 120 it's only to be expected that some kids will get Ds, through illness, exam meltdown, whatever. It's a bit lacking in imagination not to get that some kids often go through a tough time around exam time, especially if they feel under pressure. Of course they might also down tools, as Hakluyt says. Most Ds at superselectives will have a reason, usually not good, to explain them. I wouldn't judge the school any more than the child.

So out of 1200 or so Gcse grades 5ish came out as D, 700 or so as A* - and that's not superselective enough?

That wasn't what I asked - they shouldn't get any Ds, except as Hakluyt explains you can't force a child to work. However, what were they doing putting someone in for the exam, if they were A/A* quality and they only got a D?

If DD2 does drama GCSE she will do it through her theatre group, not her school. It seems the sensible approach.

Theatre studies is not offered at gcse anymore

.... that made me laugh - had just seen that on the website.....

Hak - I bet Lawrie would have aced the practical, bombed out on the writing and been all 'it's not fair' when Nick ended up with a higher grade! ;) I make my kids read the relevant bit in summer term every time they have exams. Just to, you know, remind them...

aqa drama was marked very harshly this year I believe.

Theatre studies is not offered at gcse anymore

LaVolcan, I know which superselective it is and this school is regularly amongst the top 10 schools in the country, even including private schools. So out of 1200 or so Gcse grades 5ish came out as D, 700 or so as A* - and that's not superselective enough?

the 0.4% D equates to 5 D grades over the whole year's exams (over 1300 actual exams)

2 Latin, 2 Theatre Studies and 1 History.

(there were 12 C grades over the whole year too, mainly theatre studies - what is the betting that subject gets dropped))

^our local super selective grammar school
GCSE A* results for 2013 =59% (D - the lowest anyone entered did =0.4%)^

Don't the super selectives only take the top 5% or fewer? So is the A rate any more than you could expect? Why have they got any* Ds? That is a long chalk from being superselective quality.

Wouldn't a less crude comparison be to take the top seven (ish) from the top sets of a comprehensive and see if their full sweep of A and A*s compared with those at a grammar? Just thinking here, I think we have eight state comprehensives. In pre-comp days, there were four grammars, though both sec mods and grammars were smaller than almost any school would be now. Suppose we got two, now - that's 56 kids from all the top sets that currently exist, to be two grammar top sets.

Thinking about it in terms of numbers, it's really alarming to think how many would have to be taken from all eight schools to form two grammars! It's more than just the top sets (240 kids) by a long chalk. No wonder nobody wanted to go to a secondary modern.

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.

Hak when you ask 'why do wholly selective authorities not produce significantly better exam results than demographically similar wholly comprehensive authorities?' are you referring to the 5 A*-C measure? Because that seems to me to be a pretty blunt instrument when considering the top 10-20% of the cohort and comparing their performance in the different sectors.

just I suppose, even to make a crude comparison, you would be looking at the top sets at the comp and seeing how they did ie take the middle and low achievers from the equation.