What do you think of this school?

Everyone has to do GCSE art?
My kids would hate that.
I think at gcse it is important to be motivated and feel you have some agency.
It's quite specific, is there no gcse photography, pe, IT or computer science?

It sounds like it would be a very sink or swim environment - for the right kid in the right circumstances I imagine it could be an absolutely gorgeous experience, but for anyone else, stifling and limited.

The schools are run by the XP Trust. (There are two of them locally)

I was going to ask if these were XP schools. I have a friend whose children go there, they seem to love it but to be honest the whole thing seems to "experimental" for my liking and knowing my kids personalitites they wouldn't learn enough this way to be able to do well in GCSEs.

Sounds great for kids with SN, or those who are highly anxious. Sounds absolutely awful for your run of the mill NT kid. Avoid!"

And at topic rather than subject based learning. It's a novelty gimmick with no sound evidence pedagogically - at least not at secondary level.

No way. Even if I loved the school I wouldn’t put a tween / teenager through that commute

There's a school near us that was "requires improvement" because of, among other things, the appalling results thanks to topic based learning. They are now in the 3rd year of a new trust with a new head and its much improved and they do a lot less topic based learning. It's great at primary school but topics don't seem to give the scope for the depth of knowledge at GCSE and more importantly onto A level.

I think it sounds fantastic. I would have loved a school like this and my daughter would love a school like this.
You could switch to a different school at 14 for GCSEs if your child wanted more. Some colleges do a 14-16 scheme and UTCs mostly only take from 14+ anyway.

Having said that, I think this would suit children who are not academically inclined, but well behaved.
The problem for children like that is, in a normal secondary, they get stuck in bottom sets with the least well behaved children. It’s not a nice experience.
No setting would be good for children like that.

The topic based learning alone would put me off.
It’s okay for primary, but not secondary.
How do you shoehorn the periodic table, the Holocaust and Shakespeare into a topic?

Ds did 14. DD is doing 10. Neither are off the scale bright.

14 is too many, but able ones should be offered more than 8

The only positive I can see is no uniform.
All the other things mean I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

Teaching by topics doesn't really feed into taking separate gcse exams.

Not being able to personalise the curriculum at all is a big negative to me.
My Dc were really glad and excited to choose options of some subjects they really enjoyed, and to give up others they didn't in year 9.

Two form entry is tiny. 7 form entry might seem big and overwhelming when you are used to a small primary, but having sent my Dc to a large local comp, I can see the benefits of bigger.

The secondary I went to was quite innovative. We had an excellent HT. We had topic based learning in Y7-8: social studies, English, history in one. This got broken out later. There was no setting for Maths till y11 and no setting for English ever. It was a school of 6 classes intake (180). It actually worked very well and we did some topics in the first 2 years of secondary which I've never forgotten. I think it did inspire a thirst for learning and much more rounded learning, so I'm actually quite into topic teaching after that experience. It's probably not great for getting high grades in the kind of GCSEs they do these days, which is a whole other topic of discussion.

I don't understand form groups staying together. 25 is too low a number in my opinion for forming friendship groups and being able to work with similar ability peers at secondary level. If all 50 students were able to mix, and they were set for English and maths I'd consider it.

I think it depends on ability if your child. One if my kids would have thrived in a school like this. Doesn't like larger groups, not very traditionally academic. Do you know if they have higher SEN intake? I would look into this depending on your child's needs. If your child is academically gifted I wouldn't recommend something like this for to lack of choice, lack of competition, lack of sets. If she is not, I think it would be great and a much but interesting way to learn, and worth the journey. I wish something like this had been available to my ds1.

They only do 6 GCSE? All of them? Even the brightest?😨

If you pick a more local school your child can meet with his friends. My DSS came to live with us 2 days before starting secondary poor thing and he had to get 2 buses to get to school it caused great stress when he wanted to go out there to meet his friends worrying if he would manage to get the last bus home ect

No way.

I'm a teacher and have recently done some quite extensive research into the impact of topic vs subject teaching.

I would advocate for subject-based every time and at secondary level the pupils must have an increasing degree of autonomy and choice over their subjects!

Lack of choice of subjects would bother me somewhat but lack of setting wouldn’t. My ds attends a (specialist) school where there’s no setting because there’s only 25 max in the year group and they achieve high gcse results across the board, every single year without fail. Ask to visit at another time if you can’t make the open evening.