To think that the best non selective comps are really selective?

[Cortina]

Thinking about GCSE results at the following non selective state schools:

Thomas Telford that got 46% A/A, Dame Alice Owen, 67% A/A, Parminters, 53% A/A, Watford Grammar for Girls 67% A/A, St Aidan's Harrogate, 59% A/A, Lady Margaret, 60% A/A, Hasmonean High, 55% A/A, King David High 55% A/A, JFS, Kenton, 50% A/A, Thomas Telford 98% A-C including English and maths, 46% A/A, Cardinal Vaughan, 57% A/A, St John the Baptist, Kingfield, 51% A/A, Camden for girls 44% A/A*.

These are impressive results for non selective comps! If really the case then perhaps these are the schools we should consider moving house for?

The Holt in Wokingham is all-girls and in the middle of a very affluent area with house prices to match. It does not need to select by any other means, tbh.

Hasmonean, JFS and King David are Jewish schools. Depending on whether it's the Manchester or Liverpool King David, some none-Jewish students may be admitted to the school. So I suppose it's a form of selection - though a poor or a low ability Jewish child is unlikely to have trouble getting in to King David (unsure but would assume similar about Hasmonean).

I agree with senua. The assessment at year 6 is very broad brush, and there's quite a large range in the top band. Achievement at GCSE is much more closely banded, so if you manage to pick the very best kids from the top year 6 band then they will probably achieve stellar GCSEs and you will appear to have added loads of value.

I've just checked our local comp, and it's getting 82% A-Cs at GCSE including English and Maths, 95% not including English and Maths. I believe it's genuinely comprehensive (based on what a friend who teachers there says). Obviously house prices make a big difference - but I think that house prices in our catchment area are quite a bit cheaper than in some areas with less well performing schools.

So no, I disagree. I'd say that at least one best non-selective comp is not selective, nor overly biased by house prices.

Dd was at the Holt - its catchment is ( or was when she went) the same as the boys' school the Forest which doesn't get such good results.

That's true Rusty - but I have no idea why the Forest doesn't get such good results as the Holt? Still, they're not exactly bad either!

St Aidans in harrogate takes in children from the whole diocesewhich is very large.There is huge competition for places and, certainly at the time last years yr11s applied the criteria would be.
Attending church every week for more than 2 years parents and children.Both parents and children doing service for the church and community .
there were 4 pints for parents and four points for child for 'service to the church' and three points for parents and three points for children for 'service to the community'
.people battle to the death to get on teh PCC for the valuable points it carries or get their kids into acolyte roles or the choir or doing voluntary work like riding for the disabled.
You have to have a lot of time and good contacts to be able to do all this stuff

Definitely VERY VERY selective!!

Coopers Co and Coborn School (when I was there in the late 80s early 90s) selected on the basis of an interview with the child and a form where you filled in your interests and things and they could tell from that if you were reasonably literate etc. The parents were very specifically excluded from the interview (and some put up quite a fight about that). I believe now they have a proper exam but am not 100% sure on that. I do know that my year got the top "comp" GCSE results and we were on the front page of the Telegraph and at the time we all thought it was ridiculous because it WAS selective. It was widely known as the boff school and I got given hell at my primary for the last two terms because I had got in. But never mind, I have two degrees and a professional career and to my knowledge some of the bitches little girls who picked on me really don't! (sorry, sore point)
Provided they select on ability and motivation I don't really see the problem but they should be more open about it and not call themselves comps.

There is a reason that the 'best' schools are in the best areas. The school I work at is just fab(cannot understand why some local parents send their kid 15 miles to the not fab independent) it is truley comprehensive but has a swing to the top end, the school is simply in am area where to put it bluntly the parents give a shit, the parents to the largest extent are successful and expect their kids to be, there is also excellent SN provision. There is absolutely no selection. Have worked in a lot of schools (including independent) won't be moving on.

correct me if I am wrong, but Catholic schools do look at how well kids are doing in primary schools before offering them places

that happened to my friends kids in West London

Old Swinford Hospital is a boys' state boarding school.You have to pass an exam for the 16 coveted day places and pay an out -boarders fee of about £4,500 a year to cover meals etc.! The boarding places are non-selective but you have to pay a boarding fee of about £10,500 a year. It is incredibly misleading that it is described a a state comprehensive as it is not an option for most boys.

Those are not that good results if they were in the private sector. My daughter's old school (which is private and selective got 96% A* or A never minder A - C).

It was a long time ago, but I remember that two children from my primary school desperately wanted to go to St. Aiden's. They had to attend church regularly, do brownies/choir etc. It all added up to give them more 'points' on their applications. It seemed to me, when I was 10, like a lot of stress and pressure.

I was the only child in my primary class who travelled to Ripon to take the 11+. I did not know what the test was for when I took it. Later, my mother took me to look around Ripon Grammar School and I really liked it. She then told me that the test that I had taken was to get into that school and that I had passed & been offered a place (although this was still conditional on her being able to raise enough money for bus fare/ uniforms etc).

Although Ripon Grammar was selective and St. Aiden's was not I think that the children applying to St. Aiden's had more worries about getting in.

Not sure what the differences are in the grades though.

Xenia, if my DCs went to a private and selective school I'd expect 100% grade A.*- C. I think you've been done!

Sorry typo - A* and A.

Small rant, since this is AIBU.

Any school selecting on musical ability is selecting on class /income grounds by stealth, imho.

Show me the primary school that can teach a child a musical instrument to grade 4+ and I'll ... I'll ... be utterly, utterly amazed.

Most schools around here don't offer universal instrument tuition at all, never mind tuition that can help a child, even the most gifted, achieve that standard. My dd's last school offered recorders from yr 3, and her current one, no instruments at all.

So you can assume that a lot of children only learn instruments prior to secondary school if they have parents able to pay for tuition outside school.

Rant, rant, rant.

I wasn't disappointed by 96% A* and A, don't worry and schools aren't just about exam results. For us the music was important too. If you want children in the private primary school getting good music exam grades so that the quality of the primary orchestra and choir is good enough then you often do have to go private although for those women who chose careers which mean they cannot afford school fees, they can still do things out of school. It's just a lot easier if the school fits what you need as a family.

There's an inherent deception in state schools saying we take all comers but expecting some parental financial contribution or as said above interviewing the children/parents etc etc

Anyway most parents want a good school for their children so it's great that many work very hard and state and private sectors to find the best one. We aren't as a people non competitive. It's why humans prevailed over the Neanderthals etc. We aren't just co-operative. We want to help our own individual child and I woudl be very very worried if I lived in a country where all schools were the same. It would smack of a communist society. It would be a bad thing. Indeed even the communist countries still managed to retain schools for the elite.

animula - My son started trumpet lessons in Year 3 at a CofE primary school and by Year 6 had achieved a distinction at Grade 5.

He was not alone. There were a couple of Grade 5's from that class - one flute, one clarinet.

All achieved in class at primary school - no outside tuition at all - apart from attendance at Borough music centre when they'd achieved roughly grade 3 - 4 standard.

It was a CofE in a nice area, parents saw the importance of music in the secondary school selection process and music played a major part in primary school life, with a wind band, orchestra, and brass band having opportunities to play for community,

All pupils who wanted music places at secondary schools achieved them. Some went to grammar schools, some went private, and some went to local comprehensives - a real mix.

I'd echo what whyamibothering says, almost word for word (exchange trumpet cello in one case, clarinet in the other, and exchange borough for city).

It was a 3-form intake primary, so there was the budget to carry a part-time supernumary music teacher, who did whole-class teaching.

My experience reflects that of animula - the smarter, church schools round here offer much more access to music tuition - every child learns the violin from Y3, recorders from reception. These schools also ask for voluntary contributions from the parents of upwards of £750 a year plus their school fairs raise around £15,000 a time - used to fund the peripatetic music teachers, stock of musical instruments etc.

Our school (state, non-Church, good Ofsted but not an affluent school for round here) is not bad: it has a good music room and great music teacher but she's spread pretty thin in a school this size. It offers keyboard lessons (though only to children with a piano at home...) and violin to a few from Y2 who have an aptitude for it and whose parents can hire the instrument. I'd be amazed if children were achieving Grade 5 by Y6 without outside tuition.

Truly staranise - my son and three others in Y6 had achieved Grade 5 with NO outside tuition - plenty and plenty of practice though.

Did not take Grades 1 - 3. Grade 3 in Year 4
4 in Year 5 and Grade 5 in Year 6.

Amazing tuition in class with a music teacher the children loved and were anxious to please. Of course, not all children achieved this. Some happily plodded on without achieving any grades, but it is ppossible to achieve Grade 5 at primary sschool if child is motivated, dedicated and has musical ability.

The 3 Grade 5's in my son's class, together with him, all achieved music places in selective schools in North London / Herts. One was succesful in passing exams to top boy's grammar school.

I think it's slightly disingenuous though (and as I say, my children's experience mirrors yours). Yes, they only had school tuition. But we can both play, to a tolerable standard, all the instruments involved, we own and can find our way around a piano, there's space and time and encouragement for practice, we can tune string instruments (a regular problem for violin learners), fiddle with clarinet reeds (ditto), of course we can both read music in most clefs, with a bit of swearing we can figure out transposing instruments to hit the same notes on a piano, etc, etc. And when the time came for regional and city ensembles, we have the cars and the working patterns and, again, the willingness to ferry. Saturday mornings now almost mandate two parents and two cars.

We're both aware of what's involved in, and what the benefits are of, learning an instrument, and can communicate that. Yes, the direct teaching resource they're using was available to all their classmates, as are the central emsembles; the context that opportunity in is specific to the middle classes. The learning of an instrument is a discipline and a set of skills that help across the board, even before you consider that the exams and so on are well regarded in other contexts.

One of the things that Gove and others want to see is a way to offer these middle-class experiences to a wider audience. I don't know how you do it, but just saying "ah well, the opportunity is there" (I realise that isn't what you're saying, but it's a common response to comments about the ~95% white orchestras in ~50% BME schools) isn't quite enough.

I agree entirely Tokyo.

Though I wasn't doubting your children whyamibothering - I meant that I would be amazed if the children at our school were achieving those sorts of grades by Y6, given the very patchy nature of music teaching.

TBH, I think reintroducing the recorder to all children from, say, Y1 would be a good, cheap place to start - teaches them the rudiments of music theory and gives them the opportunity to play in a group etc.

My DC's go to a decent state primary and they have absolutely no music teaching at all. The music teaching they have is very basic and is just concerned with rhythms, singing etc and no musical instrments.

You have to pay to have instrumental teaching at the school which is a lunchtimes, and some parents pay for this, although I do not think that the teachers provided by the Council are very good. Some of the children have music lessons out of school, which provide a better standard of teaching.

Of course this is a method of selection. The childrren who do very well at music are those with parents who pay for lessons, and who are commited to encouraging their children to practice and take exams etc. These are likely to be the same sort of parents who help their children with school work, do lots of reading and have private tutors etc.

At mu DC's school it is the same children who have music lessons who also go to the French club, have a tutor etc.

So schools like Watford Grammar and Parmiters only select I think about 35% and then select about 25% by musical ability. The remaining children who attend the school are mainly those who get in on the sibling rule. Therefore these schools are also entirely selective.