What can parents realistically do about a badly performing school?

I think as the problem isn't behaviour I'd supplement with home tutoring subjects that are not your strength and support what is being covered at school yourself in the subjects you are confident with.

My dd was allocated a bad primary school. I tried it but the behaviour was appalling and scared her. Teacher basically told me she's doing her best but can't watch all kids all the time nothing is going to improve. Once my dd went from exceeds expectations to working toward in her SATs I pulled her out to home Ed. We are grammar school county and hoping to fuck she can pass and get I to grammar school because from what I hear all local secondary schools are just as bad, the grammars are only marginally better but better is better. I'm not sure what I will do if she doesn't get into the grammars as she's a bright kid and soon will surpass my ability to teach and I can't afford the amount of tutoring she will need to reach her potential.

I think if it wasn't a behavioural problem for us I would have left her in school. I work in early years and am ofsted inspected, getting good or outstanding is a lot of paperwork and ticking boxes it doesn't necessarily mean the teaching is poor maybe they just don't push the children. Maybe they are actually supporting their SEN kids so less time spent on paperwork or pushing the kids. Etc etc. Bad management doesn't automatically mean bad teaching. You also said it's grammar county so the highest achieving children are not at that school. I think with ofsted reports you want to take most note of behaviour and safeguarding and if these are poor don't consider the school

One academy is not enough to judge all academies. Some are good, some aren't - same as LA-run schools. In my area all of the secondaries are academies and they are all good or outstanding. Across the country, 80% of secondary schools, 40% of primary schools and 44% of special schools are academies. The fact that the op's school is an academy is not the reason it is underperforming. There may be lots of reasons, but unless they name the school we won't know what they are.

First hand experience of working in a state run academy so…disagree with you. Education is political.

Disagree. You are just peddling a political line with this.

Academy’s are run like businesses and therein lies the problem in the first place. They will do anything to make it look like the grades are good but from a holistic point of view behind the scenes you have a lot of very unhappy young people. Often it’s the trust that is the issue and their way of doing things. You could try and become a school governer, but apart from that the state school system in this country is truly broken.

@trumponomics strangely my dd also went to grammar in sixth form. There seems to be a lot of turn to page x and read and answer questions and often has a lot of cover teachers. It has made her reflect about her high school experience and says that some of the teachers really tried to make lessons engaging, lots of debate and they worked really hard with a tricky cohort. She said grammar school is quite boring in comparison - though am not sure sometimes if she means the lessons or what they all got up to! They all seem to watch a lot of netflix and play cards at school in sixth form.

Completely agree @Rocketpants50 . Ironically, my own child moved to a grammar school for sixth form. It gets stellar results, but he would say the teaching is much worse than at his comp. He is teaching himself a lot of the time because teachers either have such strong european accents he can't follow their explanations, or they are frequently absent (no cover provided in sixth form) or because they whizz through the content so quickly, knowing that their bright cohort will compensate. So even at that school he is very much learning how to learn independently. University will be the same, so the sooner he learns independence the better.

The problem with gathering parents together I found their issues were very different to my issues e.g. I wanted to know about the lack of progress in a subject whereas other issues were the lack of choice for food at lunchtime so it is hard even if you have a group of parents.

What I tried to do was speak to individual teachers where I could - try to put it positively and say my dd is struggling at this - how can we put in more support, what more can they be doing, can you recommend a book. Try to work with the school rather than against - though its hard at times!

Try also to have a good knowledge of what they are supposed to be learning, so my DD was taking geography and realised they hadn't covered the whole syllabus, and were due to sit their GCSE. I emailed the teacher and head of year with what they were missing and this proved useful. I think it is really tough on schools at the moment to recruit teachers and deal with so many issues.

It was obvious that if I had left it to the school she wouldn't have got good results - so we did spell it out to her that at the end of the day she needed to take ownership of her learning and if she wanted good grades then she needed to put in the work and not rely on the school. We did support her with this we got her a tutor and she signed up for lots of things online - and did very well! Whilst she moaned at the time about it - it has served her well as she is a very independent learner in her A levels.

Think about that a v small % of teaching will have been seen. If you support your child make sure they do any homework, make sure they behave appropriately in school and pay attention in class then all should be OK. With tutoring being very expensive I would not use that route, but encourage looking at the wider aspects of some lessons maybe. Management issues you can do little about.

And yes, help fund and support the PTA

Also, encourage your child to get into sensible hobbies. Nudge them towards a peer group who value learning

A lot of well performing schools/teachers are propped up by parents paying for tutors.

So if you can, hunt for teachers in key subjects

But also don't panic. Our local school does well but I would estimate a third if not much more of children are being tutored in one or more subjects

"If it was under LA "control" there'd be somewhere to go to (If I understand processes correctly)."

No, you have not understood correctly. In both systems, the place to go is the same - the governing body.

I'm a governor of a good school, borderline outstanding. We have an effective performance management system for teaching quality, but it is not as effective as it used to be. Underperforming teachers can be put on support plans but, if they don't improve, then SLT have to balance the option of managing them out with the knowledge that, in some departments, they will be difficult to replace. What is better, an underperforming teacher, or no teacher? In the past we would have had several applicants for every role, but now that is becoming rarer. It must be so much more difficult for schools that already have a "requires improvement" label, because they are never going to attract the best applicants. To attract staff they may be putting inexperienced teachers into senior positions (we recently lost a first year ECT to a HoD role at a 'requires improvement' school, which was a pay rise and more responsibility for him, but not necessarily ideal for the students at that school).

It's incredibly patronising to assume that parents who are generally positive about a school are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. It sounds like the school has some major issues but just as it's possible for an individual child to have a dreadful time in a school which is excellent on paper, so it is equally possible for a child to have a perfectly decent experience within a school which is struggling. The micro level can look very different to the macro. By all means be forewarned and forearmed but don't pre-judge the school and whatever you do don't let your child pick up on your negativity towards the institution.

I suggested doing what I said before you look at doing more – kind of in response to a PP who suggested getting a group of parents together and approaching the head. I mean you could do that but I am not sure what kind of result you would get or hope to get.

If teachers are not great, that happens, sadly. My DC had some excellent teachers and some that were less good. I am sure that the head was aware of who was less good. There is a limit to what they could do tbh, especially considering the teacher recruitment issues. I’m not saying at all that a child should have to put up with poorer quality teaching and it’s not something I am happy about. But the reality is that schools are struggling to recruit in some subjects – maths, science, English, MFL, CS to name a few – and if they have a teacher who is qualified with a degree in the subject, even if they are not a very good teacher, it might be that that is the best person they can find.

It's awful, for sure, I don’t dispute. Enquire about becoming a governor. As far as how far you go to support your child, well that’s up to you and of course depends on a lot of external factors (money, engagement of child, your own ability and knowledge). Is it right that you might have to do it? No. Is it fair on those who don’t have the knowledge, money, skills to do it? No.

Governors have to support and challenge the school constructively. If you are "that" parent, they may not let you be a governor because, depending on how you engage, you may be proving yourself very unsuitable.

There are other types of governor (trustee) as well as parent. If you are serious, email the chair. We are always happy to talk to potential trustees and can co-opt them onto the board. Trustees can’t change operational things but they can challenge improvement strategies and progress.

Is it the school or is it the catchment? Ofsted will always label the school with whatever- it's not an accurate judgement in reality. IF the school is full of children from homes where education isn't prioritised or there are unmet needs that the govt refuse to fund properly, and behaviour of the kids is off the wall/scale (it starts at home)...what can the school do? They are not miracle workers.

@Stevie77 the best thing you can do is support the school as much as possible, whether that be as a parent governor, a PTA committee member, or just an involved parent who supports your child and treats the teachers with respect and kindness (even when you feel frustrated with them).

All schools are struggling with recruitment currently, and underperforming schools are never going to be first choice for the best staff, so it's a vicious circle. However, rude, demanding and unconstructive parents who vexatiously undermine the teachers and school leadership team can only ever make things worse, not better.

Always talk your kids' school up, not down.

Nothing really. You can make complaints about specific things if you feel the school has done something wrong, but realistically parents have no power to change anything about a school. You could become a governor.

Become a governor and, or, supplement with tutoring for key subjects.

Become a governor?