Private school to ditch GCSEs, write own exams

This is also a big factor, parents (maybe a few exceptions in MN) push for highest ranking tend to push the highest for GCSE.

It is automatic.
I think you are probably quite unusual as everyone I know who applied to SPGS was obsessed with their exam results!

99.5% 7-9 vs 92% 7-9?

Perhaps you mean 8-9 % then it is more than 10% in 2019 but again the school has a large junior section.

I wasn't actually particularly interested in grades when I chose my daughter's school since she is clever and I think she would have done fine in almost any school in terms of grades (not so much in terms of fitting in). But when you look at the 2019 grades linked above by Noble, we have 47% 9s at Latymer compared to 85% 9s at SPGS. Which is quite a difference, I think. I don't think Latymer offers automatic entry from the junior to the senior school, does it? If it does, that would obviously make a difference.

I can't find Michaelas detailed GCSE results but anyway the whole point is that parents choose particular schools for a whole variety of reasons, not just exam results.

I don't think it is 10% differences.

Here is the spread of GCSE results in the same year at DD's school (I haven't calculated the percentages but on a quick glance, it doesn't look like that to me).

https://spgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/GCSE-Results-2019.pdf

The feeling of grade superiority is definitely a feature for some schools.

We can take a LOOK GCSE 2023
SPGS 98.8% 7-9 93.9% 8-9 no junior school
NLCS 99% 7-9 93% 8-9 with a large junior school
HBS 97% 7-9 97% 8-9 state grammar 1/3 of funding (but some GCSE is not direct comparable)
LU (coed) 93% 7-9 with a large junior school

Yes, it is. But it is interesting to me for exactly the reason I stated which is that when you talk to parents they all claim that results are very similar in all these schools. I assumed that was true, but it obviously isn't. I hadn't actually bothered to look before because I had not considered any of the other Hammersmith schools since I didn't think they'd be a good fit for my child.

I'm not doing Latymer down. I am sure it's a good school and hopefully its pupils are happy and fulfilled which is a lot more important than results. I'm just interested because I hear a lot of this 'all these schools are much the same' and that clearly isn't true (quite probably because of the selection process).

@PutYourBackIntoit it is so disappointing how few schools in the uk use the ib middle years programme, which appears far more interesting and robust than gcse. Unfortunately none of the schools near us offer it, despite many offering IB.

I can see the utility in having national standards for math and English, but having the entire curriculum oriented around prescribed exams results in a stultifying educational experience. The absence of SATS was a big draw for us to dc current primary, as it allows so much more freedom to create an interesting and stimulating educational experience. I get depressed thinking about moving to senior school - an alternative to gcse would be incredibly appealing for us.

These London super selective private schools do bear very similar results, if you take out the "selective" factor (most school has pre-school will go straight through) - all you end up is few percentage point (usually less than 10%) differences.

Bit isn't that the school that gets almost the top results in the country? Once you take out the 'top' 4 or 5 they are all fairly similar ish.

The results at my child's school are an awful lot better.

Those results are really interesting to me, as a parent of a child at another selective school nearby. They bear no comparison. When you talk to other parents in the local area they do tend to say 'oh, all these schools get similar results' but that clearly isn't true based on that table.

As it happens, I didn't send my child to the school I did because of the percentage of 9s or whatever, but because of the opportunity to do a lot of stuff outside the curriculum in lesson time and because it is very liberal (probably the exact opposite of Michaela).

People are 'banging on' about it being selective, because it is, at age 11, in terms of the ridiculous numbers of kids in London applying for all these schools. That obviously doesn't mean all children there are guaranteed to get 9 in everything. Some may be stronger at Maths, others in English, or Drama or Music.
Some may have SEN, some may struggle with exams, have family issues, have just arrived from Ukraine ( more than a few in the last year or so).
A lot of people seem very put out by the schools decision- not sure why as it's not affecting your children. There's about 180 kids in a year so not many in the grand scheme of things although I suspect others will follow.

Is your school selective? How many nonselective secondary school you can find in the country with a top set let's say top 30% less wide spread result than this? I bet is none.

Even for selective secondary you won't find many schools with the results much better than this.

@hammersmithgal

I've had to prove my GCSEs for jobs despite a levels, a degree and a postgraduate diploma- they wanted to see I had 5 GCSEs but I have lost my certificates (in house moves) and wouldn't budge so I didn't get the job (neither my old school nor that exam board exists now, i can't be alone in loosing bits of card???

A national baccalaureate doesn't need creating, there already is a really good IB middle years programme curriculum in existence.

For some reason it hasn't been as popular as the IB diploma (16-18), but it's so much more well rounded and less prescriptive than gcses.

"Yet there's a pretty wide spread of results"

What makes you think that from the attached result?

That book's an interesting read (and is on offer at 99p on Kindle this month) but it's specifically about girls' boarding schools up to 1979, but mostly earlier, and most of them weren't aiming for an academic education for daughters. Private girls' day schools (or grammars/grant aided schools) would have offered a much more academic education at that time than most of the schools described in the book, with better preparation for external exams.