Gcses. The gap between independent schools /grammar and vs comprehensive and across England. Should progress 8 try to push more students into targets of 7-9 gcses? Are local secondary schools doing enough to stretch higher ability pupils?

Really interesting observation and great that you acknowledge the cultural capital that your son has had.

Having teachers in the family (whether parents or grandparents), especially if a bit involved is probably THE strongest predictor to get an offer at Oxbridge.

The original Comprehensive vision was intended to "preserve all that is valuable in grammar school education for those children who now receive it [whatever that means] and make it available to more children" ... https://education-uk.org/documents/des/circular10-65.html

It is certainly true that grammar schools with their highly selective intakes have an easier time with recruitment than schools with the most difficult intakes who often have to take anyone with a pulse because teachers don’t want to work there for obvious reasons.

I've taught in all three types of school and all of them had excellent teachers, jaded teachers, less good teachers, keen but inexperienced teachers - I'd say motivation often depends more on the nature of the leadership team and the context than the type of school.

"Grammar and indies do however attract and retain the best teachers"

No. They attract teachers who want to focus on teaching students capable of getting the top grades. They are often high achievers themselves, e.g. grammars/Indies appear more likely to have teachers who are Oxbridge graduates or PhD graduates. Sometimes (in my own DC's experience of a super-selective grammar sixth form) they have a lot of knowledge but are poor teachers.

Comprehensive school teachers need to be able to differentiate their teaching for a broad skill set, and need to retain the interest and focus of students from different backgrounds and different levels of motivation. They therefore have a more difficult job. Many do it brilliantly.

But kids like your DD will always do well academically.

Bold assumption. It's actually quite common for gifted children to underachieve dramatically when they're systematically deprived of adequate challenges and stimulation.

My children are ‘bright’ pupils, who attended both state and private, and I can tell you that there is a substantial difference.

At state the stretching was a few ‘extension’ questions if they were done with their work. Independent, there are so many things: a morning club for pupils identified as gifted where they do science projects, different papers when working in class and at home, maths competitions with other schools - many competitions actually (spelling bee, creative writing, etc) either just for the school or with other school etc.
I also noticed that clubs at state were mostly about sports or art whereas at private school they also have many options like chess / physics / biology.

I’ve no doubt some are but I doubt that was typical.

I’ve just remembered the period of time when schools used all the 1:1 catch up funding for tutoring kids ok the 4/5 or 5/6 boundary at KS2 because it’s much easier than getting the kids on the 3/4 boundary it was intended for to improve and has the same affect on the schools KS2 progress scores.

They have longer holidays, so the teaching hours even out over the year,
Grammar and indies do however attract and retain the best teachers which is what parents choose to pay for.

@noblegiraffe i totally get where you’re coming from, and all I can say is that I was confused (and maddened) too. It’s a long time ago but I think I remember DS’s target grades gradually degrading over time, like ‘oh you just had a lucky day with your SATS’ (narrator’s voice: he had not had a lucky day with his SATS). It really was an unbelievably crap school for academic progress — at that stage it was one of the worst schools in the county <proud face>. So I’m not saying it’s typical! But some schools really are that bad.

I'm a bit confused by the idea that kids who should have been getting 7-9 being told that a 5 is 'terrific' when if they had performed well in their SATs, their target would have been a 7-9 and a 5 would have been flagged as underperformance.

My experience is out of date now but my older son’s academy school was really disappointing in this way. I looked at their progress 8 scores at the time and they were positive for the lowest SATS tier and then progressively declined until they became outright negative for the higher SATS tiers.

My kid was ok because he comes from a family where everyone (including all four of his grandparents) had degrees, several close family members had gone to Oxbridge, several had higher degrees, books everywhere etc etc. But I was really struck by some of his peers, who were evidently smart but did not have the same family background. They should have been shooting for 7+ grades but were told by the school that hitting a 5 or a 6 was ace, fab, terrific. And for some kids it is! But for some, they can absolutely aim higher with all that means for uni choices and employment prospects. Not to mention being fucking bored beyond belief.

It was a good school in some ways (I was really impressed with the social cohesion and absence of bullying) but bloody hell, the poverty of its ambitions for the students used to make me mad. It’s not the middle class kids from naice families who lose out — it’s the kids from more hard scrabble backgrounds whose potential is never recognised, let alone achieved.

The local private schools finish at 4 and often do an hour of compulsory after school activities or in school homework / coursework on top. Plus half day Saturday. The local comp finishes at 3, and earlier on Friday. The private school is doing at least 8 hours extra teaching per week excluding extra curricular. And the classes are nearly half the size. Even allowing for different intakes and Sen etc the private school kids are getting 1.5 extra days of teaching time a week and that will obviously show in results and allow more time per subject and more subjects.

Large proportions of EAL students or students from cultures or families where education is valued and seen as the route to getting a good job/better earnings. It’s basically a parenting thing not a school thing.

Even on MN where parents are more ‘aware’ than your typical parent if you’d posted asking for suggestions of work books for daily work and holiday work you would almost certainly be told that children need time to be children or something similar.

In addition, for slightly more complicated reasons both HA children and EAL children tend to have higher P8 scores than MA or LA children. This might make some schools appear on paper to be better than others if you look at overall P8 rather than P8 for individual demographics.

The most able pupils have more able peers, though, and there is often a high performing team effect.

I never had to worry about 'covering the syllabus' in a grammar. We had time to do extra stuff.

I have relatives in state schools who certainly should have been stretched but came out with 7s/6s, decent results but these were 8/9 level kids. Family couldnt afford independent but completely regret not trying to find the funds.

In our independent, it was a bit better but again the focus is to bring children who are at a 4 to a 6. Still no stretch for those who can get better than a 7.

We are currently looking at other independent schools purely to stretch, results for gcses are around 85% 8/9s.

The gap in results is for obvious reasons.
It doesn’t mean ‘bright’ pupils are pushed more in independent and grammar schools.
They are selective and therefore have more ‘bright’ pupils than a comprehensive that takes all comers.
Individual ‘bright’ pupild in comprehensive well get good c results -you are comparing the whole cohort which is illogical.

Why can't the everywhere have state schools that replicate the SW in terms of achievement?

There is no point targeting the grade 7s until youve got the rest of the country passing!

And yes, im a parent with a child that would have benefited from the top being stretched, but id really, really really like the bottom not to become so disillusioned with life they think stealing cars and driving them the wrong way down a duel carriageway is the way to treat others.

@Greaded your original post is not well written, making it difficult to respond to. What data are you using as the basis of your argument? The Government can't publish Progress 8 data for 2025 or 2026 because there is no baseline SATs data (due to Covid).

In principle, I agree that many comprehensive schools find it difficult to meet the needs of their full range of students. It's very difficult to differentiate teaching in mixed ability groups. I'm a governor at a comprehensive school and I do see decisions being made that benefit lower attaining students to the detriment of higher attaining students. But I also see that there are no easy answers.

State schools are massively underfunded. They just can’t do it all imo

Until recently I taught at a comprehensive that regularly appears near the top of league tables. The focus internally is almost entirely on pupil premium students/those needing a lot of help to get "standard passes" (4s) in English and Maths as that's what the government and Ofsted mainly seem to care about. There is very much a view that high achievers with home support will get on with it without stretching, apart from a bit of Oxbridge/medic prep.

For my part, as an approach, I think it does make sense with limited resources.

• feedback /marking homework

In my experience, in many different state schools now, it's a couple of pieces of assessment and the rest is tick and flick. Pupils mark their own work and occasionally peer assess but teachers aren't doing much beyond "live marking" (getting round books in the lesson) at least in secondary.

Lots of talk of plugging gaps by checking data, entry quizzes, exit tickets and shiny whiteboards but many are still being left behind.

• end of year exams

Still seeing this happening, just not often outside of the classroom until KS4.

• more appropriate homework set

Continues to be a bone of contention, in terms of marking, accessibility and value/meaning. Much is online now.

• more setting in some subjects

Mixed ability has taken over. Teaching to the top. Levelling up. Mantra that if you are scaffolding/doing well for SEND then it is working for everyone.

• spelling tests (now scrapped at the primary ) and spelling tests and grammar mfl

Surprised scrapped at primary. In my experience, even though a lot was online homework, spelling was still a big deal because of hothousing for the SpaG paper in year 6 SATS.

Many linguists I know still test spelling and grammar and Wikibuild is the latest thing for literacy.

I do agree with you though that with less provision for what used to be termed gifted and talented cohorts, now prior high attainers, you are relying on them pushing themselves, taking up any opportunity open and hoping they have the sense to be proactive.

Parental involvement from Day 1 is key here.

I’m not sure why you’re coming at me for sharing my personal experiences. I note that you haven’t shared yours / your DCs own experiences. I’ll start by saying that I’m not denying anybody anything. I’m simply stating that children like my DD are not being well served by our local rural catchment comprehensive where setting for the first three years is non-existent. She would have learnt very little. Just as others, quite rightly, advocate for the needs of their SEN or lower ability children to thrive and learn at their own level, I feel that children like my daughter should also be adequately catered for. In my personal experience this is not what happens in our catchment comprehensive. Do you actually believe that higher ability children simply have to ‘suck it up’ as they will ‘do well anywhere’ (highly debatable) and that all resources and ‘good teaching’ should be directed at lower ability / SEN?

My DP DS got 3 xA, 7xA and 1xB plus a u in further maths on Thursday. His best mate got 11xA and a distinction in further maths - both boys are in the local comp