The most Socially Selective schools in England.

Wow this thread has been fascinating! Just to throw my oar in, you are all so lucky to be able to even consider the options for your DCs, we have 2 secondary state schools within a 40min (car) drive radius. The first one we tried for primary but found that the career and education expectations of the children & parents was well below our own, DS was told by teacher in his 2nd yr that as he was above average he would just have to sit the year out and wait for the others to catch up! Many of the parents refused to bother with homework as they didn't see the point and one daughter woke up to find her single mum had OD, (and died!) it was then announced in assembly to age 6-11yr old kids! The other school is a Grammer and has the police outside it to keep the drug dealers away from the kids! Yes some kids do come out doing well but the aspirations for most are very low. So we have opted to go private, nearest school is 3hr drive and we get funding help but our DC are both now doing well and are happy. We could have applied for FSM in the state system but chose not too. We work very hard to pay for our DC education and get no help from family, we go without everything and often we do not know where the next meal is coming from..but if you met me you would never know! Also, I went to a state school and I did a paper round every day before school to pay for my riding lesson once a fortnight..I went onto become an International Event Rider before 'retiring' as a broodmare!

Sorry for the long post but have enjoyed this post and wanted to dispel some myths (except that yes, Slough is a dump!)
I also believe that every state school child should have FSM and children should be taught proper table manners and healthy eating. School gates locked from 9am - 3.30pm so they can't eat rubbish from the high street, all kids would be = and well nourished! And yes I can explain how to fund it but you won't like it!

Aren't they advertising that as 2013 though?
Have all the final re markings and moderating happened now.
Should they be advertising 2014 now?
This is the one that refused several dc to attend rehearsals for xmas concerts as they didn't have high enough attendance.
Shevington used to be on a par with Standish there was nothing between them at all.
I'm still leaning towards Rose Bridge or Brittanica, whatever they call it these days
This second audition in Feb can't come soon enough.
I suppose could always continue H.ed but said I didn't want to do Ks3

Smoke

You are scaring me now with your knowledge, I think I will employ you to find the best school should it come to it.

Smoke, yes I know and St Peters we aren't in Catchment and St Edmunds is t'other side of borough
We are close to the not very impressive large Cof E school, in fact round the corner.
It may seem silly but if she has to go to a school round here the school I mention above with the high SEN and 39% A-C is good with performing arts and would be more approachable for time off for dd to perform. The high performing schools just wouldn't allow it, I know from other dc in dds ensembles.

Thanks Sooty

I know I may sound harsh on the local schools but 2 of our dc had the worst luck in terms of schools. One went to a really bad school which improved drastically whilst he was there but he had to endure the most awful environment. Then ds2 went to the school I mention when it was good and it went drastically down hill until he left.
Our dd may have the chance to receive a good and fitting education, I hope she achieves it too.

Marling school did build an aeroplane. They have engineering speciality, it was sponsored by a major company(possibly bae) and then sold to repay the grant. I dont think that it cost the school much at all.

Ds1 goes to a school in the top 5 on the list. We are certainly not wealthy as both minimum wage parents.
We know other families who can only get their dc to school because gp pay the bus fare.
We would be better off if the dc got fsm as the pupil premium would allow them opportunities access now.

Yes morethan I would expect a new head to be turning things round. Hope your daughter succeeds in getting to the planned next stage in her schooling.

Talkin

We lived in Norfolk well the border with Suffolk
our dc would have attended Loddon High school if we had remained there.

ilovesooty

It seems to be, there's a new head who seems good, but I haven't really looked much tbh, didn't even bother applying for a place because they are all pretty similar, there are better ones but they are usually full before they get to our streets there are 27 secondary schools here, I believe that 7 are special schools.
The next school available to us had 39% 5 A*- C GCSE passes which is really good as a high percentage SEN
There are a couple with low to mid 60's and one school with 82%
I am only finding results atm and haven't dug any deeper yet.
Hoping I won't have to.

morethan - presumably that school is improving then?

My cousins all come from blue collar backgrounds. Their children attended Great Barr, were university educated and all bar one with health issues have been successful professionally. One works for the diplomatic services.

Smokepole I'm surprised to see you so negative about equestrian activities. I thought your brother was buying your daughter a pony when you were planning to move North?

well, just looked at our nearest school and it has received a grade 3 this September after 4 the year before.
Its the one dd would be likely to gain a place next year.
You have done me a favour as I need to look for local schools just in case, but I'm dreading it.

A random county : but an interesting way of looking at the problem of getting a Secondary School place
www.digitalnorfolk.com/webpages220140902101108/PRINT_AHgraphic_020914_Norfolk%20school%20allocations%20copy.pdf

Talkin

You'd find a few round here, I will have a look at those in our borough.

smokepole
the opposite list will be those schools that are so undesirable that they have hundreds of empty spaces
even though other schools in the area are over subscribed
and that have almost no high achieving pupils

now, where could I think of finding such schools?

Root

We took dd out of school for exactly this reason, she couldn't see the point of being there when all she wanted to do was music.
Hopefully she will reach her goal soon, she has a dream and we had to let her go for it.

However, many people don't realise this at all and pardon the language here and it pains me to say that we have Thatcher to thank for music being part of the curriculum at all.
She read out a prepared speech wrong and the word should have been maths, but she said music. It was talking about how improvements needed to be made etc.
Ok seriously gone down hill now but the story is true.

You don't get many rural kids who are into showing livestock and riding - most pick their camp early - yfc or pony club. V rarely do the two meet.