Dd entered externally for gcse by own school

@TammyWhyNot

Would you put your friend in touch with me, on the email address above, please?

The word ‘culling ‘ is interesting.
There is a much feted school with the name of a seaside town on the S Coast, a college with a bit of a personality as Head. Co-ed.

Someone I know also received an email by accident; an intimidating e mail to subject heads about “culling” students from course choices in which they would not be guaranteed an A/A*.

Classic example of everything that's wrong about performance management in education or the NHS. Organisations taking decisions based on maximising their score on a random performance measure rather than what's best for the child/patient. The best organisations will do what's best for the child and accept the impact

Did you choose the school based on its published results?
This is the obvious outcome of league tables and parental choice. No surprise here.

There was a body called Culling4Results that specialised in exposing this practise. You'll be hard pressed to find any of their findings online now...
Their twitter page is still there but links are dead.

@horsemadmom - must be private as state schools haven't the funds to be litigious!

I'd love to see some FOI requests on this though I am not sure if private schools need to respond.

The school involved is viciously litigious. This is very different to the St Olave's case as it is one pupil only- that we know of.

This can't be legal, can it? How have other schools not jumped on this bandwagon. It seems to good to be true, just enter all a schools low achievers as external candidates and hey presto your schools results will improve dramatically.

Is it that legal/simple?

Lawyers working for a group of parents at the school initiated judicial review proceedings. The school capitulated and told the "kicked out" students they could return. The head was suspended and has now resigned.

I was just going to suggest you find an interested journalist, OP. It would make a fascinating story if someone revealed what top schools' results would look like if they entered everyone on the roll as at the beginning of Year 10, and if they took into account the results of pupils entered for A levels externally.

There was a recent media furore about a supposedly high-performing school which was kicking out students who didn't get high grades half way through their A level courses. After the negative publicity, the school backed down

Yes. And this school then had the nerve to boast about its A Level results again this year. An education journalist (who should have known better) actually said it showed the school knew what it was doing.

That can't be correct, HPFA, because the media storm was last August and September, just prior to the start of the current school year. See, for instance, www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/01/st-olaves-allows-rejected-sixth-formers-to-return-to-school

Parents could ask at all open days/evenings:

• what proportion of pupils tend to be entered as external candidates for all secondary public exams.
• what numbers of pupils the school tends to 'move on' half way through GCSEs or A-levels for 'behaviour' reasons.

All senior staff will be able to provide this figure.

Do what you can to help her get all A*s. They'll be kicking themselves.

Also wonder how much the constant focus on GCSE results from start of year 10 (or 9 in some cases), focus on detailed predictions and endless revision sessions etc laid on is really for the benefit of the DC or school results tables. DC must sometimes feel they are just a statistic entirely defined by their results. Yes the DC get great results but at what cost without balanced approach and great pastoral support.

There was a recent media furore about a supposedly high-performing school which was kicking out students who didn't get high grades half way through their A level courses. After the negative publicity, the school backed down

Yes. And this school then had the nerve to boast about its A Level results again this year. An education journalist (who should have known better) actually said it showed the school knew what it was doing. You couldn't make it up.

I don't want to go back to the days when parents literally had absolutely no idea of how schools were doing but really it is terrible to see schools behaving like this.

It happens. A few years back DD had a friend at a (THE?) top academic girls school whose name was similar to that of one of her teachers. By mistake she received a staff email detailing the criteria under which girls might be required to drop subjects prior to GCSE. There was a level of panic and the girl was sworn to secrecy, but it was obviously too funny for her not to confide in someone from another school.

That school seemed pretty focussed on results. Comparing preparation for maths challenges was interesting. At DDs school it was optional. Something you did one lunchtime if you felt like it. At the other school several lessons were spent on preparation. But the independent sector allows for choice, especially in London where you might have more than one good school within the same post code. When DD was much younger a friend who was part of the SMT in a third school said they had a conscious policy of sticking with girls through thick and thin. (Or goth to anxiety?)

DD knows three girls in her age group at the first school who were sufficiently unhappy not to make it through to the end. But equally knows plenty who loved it and have emerged with the results and confidence to take over the world. My advice to OP and others is to recognise when something is not working. London schools know a lot about each other and are normally willing to take those unhappy elsewhere. And in most cases they seemed to thrive, indeed are sometimes transformed, with a fresh start. Get those GCSEs, start afresh, and don't look back.

Pigshave etc. Not NLCS. Nobody in my DD's year is in this position. When similar things have happened in the past, they have invigilated girls at home if they aren't ready to come back. I've known one who repeated year 11 at her parents' request. Nothing to do with league tables and everything to do with best medical advice about reducing stress for the girl.
OP, I hope your DD is getting stronger and healthier in every way. That is the most important thing of all.

Thanks @sanam2010. That is very useful.

FANdobbyfloozy, in their detailed gcse results, you should compare the number of entries for maths, english etc vs the actual number of girls in a year group. At the top schools, they all have to do maths, english, english lit, triple scince etc. So if you know 90 in a year group and only 87 entries for Maths and 82 entries for physics, for example, someone is missing.

This is allowed because parents don't want to create a fuss and embarrass the child. It's awful though, particularly given how vulnerable girls are to mental health issues in these top schools.

I'd love to know how widespread this is. Is there any way to work out how many schools do this from looking at the results, other than a FOA request?

The National Assoc of Head Teachers has recently launched a committee to look into an alternative secondary school accountability measure that will mitigate against all these perverse practises that are not in the spirit of providing quality education and care. It'll be relevant for state and indies.

www.naht.org.uk/news-and-opinion/press-room/naht-proposes-an-alternative-vision-for-accountability/

Agree with the views of others - it's a push and pull tension, but we as parents and consumers should put a more proportionate value on attainment % - vis a vis how else the school is performing, and it's ability to educate and inspire kids to use their strengths to lead the most meaningful life they can.

This frenzy on attainment as the prized output of education still isn't making us the most competitive, equitable or productive nation is it? Theory fail.