More of a WWYD

[ThunderR0ad78]

Just posting here for opinions and traffic!!

DD is heading in to year 6 so we are on the verge of applying for her secondary school place this October.

She currently goes to a Catholic Primary school in Surrey and due to this qualifies for a place at our Catchment Catholic secondary school. The secondary school feeds 7 Catholic primary schools across Surrey - as a result it is not in our local area, it's about 10 miles away from where we live.

Lots of the children attending my DD's school go on to this secondary school, along with the children from 2 other neighbouring schools. The children are all required to catch 2 trains followed by a 10 min walk to school. The is no school bus despite lots of attempts to reinstate the service. However, like I said the station is packed with children all travelling together.

This school is incredibly high achieving, in the most recent published stats 97% of students received 5 A-C GCSE's - is ranked in top 100 across the UK.

On the flip side she also qualifies to go to our local secondary school based on our address. In contrast this school is ranked about 1500 nationally and approx 60% of students achieve 5 A-C grades. However, this school is a 15 minute cycle away and would obviously significantly reduce the amount of travelling and of course our safety concerns.

In terms of her friends, they will be split between the two schools possibly slightly more going to the local school - am not majorly bothered by this!

DD is my most academic child, a real grafter
and really tries her best - the Catholic school is renowned for its strictness but much of this will not apply to DD as she doesn't pose much challenge to any teachers, unlike her mother when she was at school!!!!

Another thing to consider is that my DS (two years younger) does not go to same catholic school, did not feel it was the right environment for him so unless I move him to a Catholic school in the next couple of years he will go to the local school....... so if I choose this school for DD then they will be together!

However, I am very happy to keep them at separate schools as I've definitely seen the benefit of choosing the right school for the child.....

So WWYD, which school would you opt for?

I'm very much of the ethos 'it's a case of choosing the right school for the child' the best fit. Put her in an environment she's more likely to thrive in.

I would look round both schools with DD and get a feel for them.

I travelled to an outstanding catholic school ( there was a bus though) and will be doing what I can to get my children to go to the same school. Its more than just the academic side for me it's the ethos and faith practice which I think helped shape me as a young adult and allowed me to question my faith and find out more about it and other faiths.Your daughter will most likely be expected to study religion to GCSE and it will continue to form a small part of her sixth form education is she chooses to remain there. Are you comfortable with this? Yes these schools do tend to be stricter but if you have experience of secondary education you will already have an opinion on this.

The main thing is what is the best fit for her and looking round will help with that, I would strongly encourage you to look round during a working day if you can make the opportunity.

At the secondary school I attended, it wasn't cool to want to learn, and I was bullied. There was often disruptive behaviour, which reduced our learning time, right through the school. It took quite a while after leaving, to realise that wanting to learn wasn't taboo for everyone, and to find at university some people had come from schools where there was actually good behaviour and a supportive ethos. I can certainly see how various factors can affect the outcome for young people.

So, I don't agree that a hardworking and bright child will "do well anywhere". Some may do well despite the odds, but it's less likely where there are low expectations of effort and achievement, lack of discipline, bullying, an ethos among students that learning is uncool (with significant numbers of their parents having the same view), a lack of resources, unmotivated teachers, no attempt at a decent pastoral care system, OFSTED "inadequate" for good reason, etc. There are so many factors which contribute to a child succeeding in a particular environment.

Its a really nice thought that the same success would alight on every child whether they're at a top-performing, supportive, well-funded school, with strong leadership, great pastoral care, a variety of extracurricular activities, excellent behaviour, bullying rarely a problem, proper differentiation in lessons and imaginative teaching, or somewhere very different in every way; but IMO it is, sadly, very unrealistic.

No reflection on anyone here, but I've found it hard sometimes to listen to "they will do well anywhere" when it comes from someone who has done all they can to get their child into a high-performing school, by whatever method they have access to (moving to a more expensive area, paying fees, moving somewhere which has grammars, suddenly becoming a churchgoer, etc). Many of us wouldn't be able to jump through those hoops, and those making the claim that it doesn't matter which school a child goes to are "safe" from their own champagne socialism, because their children are at a high-performing exclusive gold-plated school.

Thunder, I think I might know the School you are talking about. My daughter has just finished year 11. PM if you'd like. Apologies in advance if it isn't the same School, but, your description of distance from station & feeder schools fits. If, "Don Bosco pray for us" is familiar, it's the same school.

My DD was very happy there, results were excellent. It is a caring & nurturing environment. The teachers were all there on results day, giving hugs & letting all the pupils know how proud they were of them. I'm an ex pupil as are lot of the parents.

This thread has contained some really interesting and positive discussion and I hope it has helped you work out what you want to do OP.

What Sequence said. So much teaching time can be wasted in crowd control and disruptions in a school where discipline isn't a high priority. The more academic the child the higher the loss can be.

If your child doesn't mind the commute send her to the school which will best suit her potential.

In my experience children who love to learn and know how to work hard will thrive no matter where they go. Personally, we are an academic family but I would prefer my child to go somewhere closer so that they could have more opportunities for extra curricular activities with less travel time, but that's just me!

If your daughter is engaged, and you are engaged (which it sounds like you are!) then she will do brilliantly anywhere.

In my experience children who love to learn and know how to work hard will thrive no matter where they go. not in a situation of near anarchy, they won't

Well, I loved to learn and knew how to work hard, and ended up doing better than everyone else in the entire country at both GCSE and A-level in spite of going to an "anarchic" comprehensives. And I had fun and looked shit cool doing it. So ner.

The commute may seem a big deal now but she'll get used to it very quickly so I wouldn't let that be the deciding factor.

I think you'd be nuts to pass up an opening at a high achieving school. It is obviously so much better.

IKEA....

Yes this thread has been very helpful, thank you all.

Interestingly, regarding your point about high achieving girls achieving well in middle class environments - without experiencing and learning the skills to interact with people from varying social classes etc......

This really resonates with me! I had an extremely working class up bringing, lived in high rise Council flats all my childhood. Through the jig and the reels I've managed to do okay. However, throughout the past 10 years, having 5 years out of work when kids were small I have spent my time socialising with predominately middle class families and at times I have struggled with how easy life is and the opportunities and material things our kids are given without even a desire on their behalf - I'm guilty of this too!

My DD went to a very middle class infant school, where the option to mix and engage with children from different cultures / ethnicities was limited! When it came to progress to junior school I chose the Catholic School for this reason. It is situated in the poorer end of town - (sorry to say, but true), had a number of children from Eastern European countries and ethnic minorities where English was a second language. But if I'm honest mostly because I felt she would be mixing with children from a range of social classes - she was the only child from her infant school to move to this school so left all of her friends behind.

Shortly after she stated the school in Yr 3 my DD was invited to a "pool party".

I have no doubt that in her mind she would have been expecting an inflatable pool in a big 150ft garden, a BBQ, a huge trampoline to play on, an Xbox set up in the garden playroom and all the add on's that she and most of her peers at this time were privy too!

Well this wasn't the case and I'm glad, when I dropped her off the family had set up a paddling pool on a balcony......the girls had a great time with a tradition table of party food!

Noticeably too the party was very much about the child only, there were no cheese and biscuits of flutes of proccesso around the place.....a totally different vibe!

So on this point I have thought long and hard and genuinely believe both schools would have an equal mix of kids stemming from a range of backgrounds so maybe herein lies the answer.....

For what it's worth, my hubby who had a very disadvantaged upbringing, much more so than myself thinks she should go to the Higher achieving school - he thinks it's our job to enrich her with the skills to socialise and relate to all different types of people in this world and her school is about her exam results only 😬

Well, I loved to learn and knew how to work hard, and ended up doing better than everyone else in the entire country at both GCSE and A-level in spite of going to an "anarchic" comprehensives. And I had fun and looked shit cool doing it. So ner.

anyone can learn in their own time at home, but sort of defeats the object of going to school, doesn't it. You would not have learnt a thing in many of the lessons at my comp.

Lots of good advice much of which I would echo (and I think, despite being the most lapsed of of Catholics, I'd go for the high achieving school).

My only point would be regarding the safety concerns. She won't be 11 forever. I have a friend who's sent her child to a school that involves a similar commute and all were very used to it within a few weeks.

If there are the numbers you're describing travelling, I wouldn't use it as a consideration. Sounds like your DD has her head screwed on anyway.

< high fives thunderroad >

copper - I didn't learn much in the way of academic stuff in lessons either. No high achiever, at any school, is going to be able to get straight 9s at GCSE or the top results in the country at A-level without putting in significant time by themselves. What I did gain in lessons was an understanding of poverty and working class culture from the inside (my family were not well off at all, but we weren't in the homeless unit like some of my friends), a ton of brilliant working class friends, and a kind of lived knowledge of the myriad of issues that confront those who are not well off, that has stood me in enormously good stead in my career as a novelist/academic researcher. I also had an enormous amount of fun, including being incredibly naughty most weeks, and skipping every single session of netball by having a fag with the music teacher. As this probably tells you, discipline at my school was lax and detention consisted mostly in poker games with my history and English teachers, who would chat to me about AJP Taylor or Chekov.

I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't imbibed a solid mistrust of all authority and a disrespect for all rules at school, I wouldn't be as creative a person as I am today, and probably not such a PITA as an activist either. What's more, the intellectual independence and graft I learned really singled me out above peers who had been on the receiving end of far more expensive/selective educations once I got to uni - it gave me the freedom to be original without worrying about what anyone thinks, and a drive that comes from inside me, not from external pressure. Those things aren't currently valued in middle class careers where conformity is important - they were a positive hindrance in work I did with the civil service - but they are really important in other areas. The tradeoff is that I'll never be in a profession where I earn megabucks, have an enormous gated detached house in the suburbs and a RangeRover, but as you can probably tell, I wouldn't enjoy that sort of lifestyle anyway.

OP have you said how long the journey to the Catholic school takes? Despite the changes and a 10 min walk, if it's straight forward, it might not be too troublesome.

My DDs go to a school where most children travel in by public transport, anything up to an hour and a half is not unusual. We live 20 mins walk away and we're the anomaly.

From the perspective of just starting yr 6, prospect of your child growing up and travelling alone is quite daunting. But they learn and adjust quickly, especially if there are lots of other school kids doing the same journey - it will enable them to make "train friends" as well as friends within their year group cohort.

My main concern is your statement 'we qualify for the school because we go to x school. .. we qualify for the nearer school on distance'. It might well be true but it isn't set in stone - sometimes some feeders are given priority over others and distance to 'qualify' changes each year with the numbers and distances of people applying. Some years the distances will be 1.5km under category 4 nearest school other years it could be 500m. Just bear it in mind and make sure you use your 6 preferences!

Pm me if you want more info on how it's all worked out!

Zigzag.....

Yes point noted, nothing set in stone but I don't envisage any issues. 5 children in my road, also within a feeder have got a place at the Catholic school starting this Sept but I know birth rates play a big part!

Actually her Catholic primary is a named feeder for the non Catholic secondary school too and in terms of distance we are very close to this one! Only time will tell I suppose but the only other school is a school also in very high demand for which we do not fit the criteria!

We really are very lucky and don't have much to complain about!

@ikeadyounot you would not have learnt any of those things in our local comp anyway, and I'm so glad you had an enormous amount of fun being incredibly naughty most weeks. I don't suppose your class mates remember you antics with such affectionate nostalgia, particularly if they were not in a position to compensate for sabotaged lessons with resources at home. You sound almost as if you are proud of ignoring and disregardsing the thousands of pounds worth of education provided for you.

Singapore.....

The journey takes about an hour from what I'm told - haven't actually done it myself as yet.

Somebody once told me to pick a secondary school based on the 14-16 year old that will be going there, not the 11 year old! They are not this young for long so in terms of the journey this resonates with what you say!

copper - I think you've missed the point. I WENT TO THE LOCAL COMPREHENSIVE. FOR FREE. I am sure it was every bit as anarchic as your school.

copper - I think you've missed the point. I WENT TO THE LOCAL COMPREHENSIVE. FOR FREE. I am sure it was every bit as anarchic as your school

I am really not sure what point you are trying to make, Ikeadyounot . I have recommended the catholic school as it has a reputation for good discipline. The Ops child might not need discipline personally, but she will benefit and learn more in lessons if the children she is sitting with are behaving well.

In some schools learning is made impossible by atrocious behaviour.

From your description of yourself, you sound like one of those individuals who behave atrociously, and probably stuffed up the educational chances of some of your peers.

But you say that's ok, because you enjoyed yourself, and learnt everything you needed to outside of lessons anyway?

so what is your point exactly?

If my child wasn't that bothered where they went and they were fine with the commute, then personally I would choose the catholic school.

Even though I do not believe exam results are THE indicator to show how successful a school is, IMO if you swapped the teachers it probably wouldn't make the slightest difference to exam results!

But to ere on the side of caution, a school that 'shows' it pupils to be academically successful and my child was academic - that would be the deciding factor for me.

Well I would never send a child of mine to a Catholic school because I think the church is a hotbed of misogyny and homophobia.

If that doesn't bother you though, I'd go for the academic one if you think it'd suit your dd.

I don't see the problem in going to the comp down the road. If the OP's DD is bright and hard working, she'll get in the top sets with all the other bright and hard working DC. High achieving schools imo are the ones that squeeze out the As and Bs from the B and C students. If the OP thinks that her DD will get the As regardless anyway it matters less where she goes.

So OP perhaps dig a little deeper into how they set at the more local school and if you think your DD will be disadvantaged by going there instead of the Catholic one. Speak to them about how they will specifically support the high achievers and if you think they will be able to help your DD achieve her potential there. Ask them if they think your DD would be better off at the Catholic school and see what they say.

copper - my point is very straightforward: that a bright child will succeed anyway, and they'll develop resilience and drive in the process, which will serve them well later in life.

You come over like the Mumsnet version of Seth Dozerman.