Do your strict British schools get good academic results?

[Briwi]

I'm a Brit who left UK for New Zealand 20 years ago (still hanging around Mumsnet like a restless spirit!)

I'm often quite shocked by some of the threads about schools and how strict they are. Detentions for doodling?! Detentions for 13 yr olds in the first week of high school because they have the wrong shoes?!! That would never happen here.

I realise this is a massive, big picture question, but just to focus in on the strictness and detentions - do they help? Are they a good thing? Do they make students more successful academically?

Like any education system, NZ has it's pros and cons. I like the positive, respectful nature of education here - but it's also not terribly academically rigorous, imo.

@noblegiraffe What's your view on IGCSEs? In NZ some elite schools offer them as a nore rigorous alternative to the local NCEA equivalent.

I am a Brit living in NZ whose son has gone from being academically very good to now struggling in certain areas. While he loves his intermediate school and has many sporting opportunities, and is happy, the academics are not up to scratch. I am also a bit over the "she'll be right" attitude and I will scream if I hear one more person say, "if they want to do well they will". Bollocks.

We are turning to private tuition as we can't afford private school (which I don't agree with on priciple and in any event the one near to us is not all that great).

Private tuition is exactly the same as private schooling. You are paying for 1:1 lessons rather than the average private school size, so even more specialist! I've had this chat with a lot of grammar school parents who tutor their kids to keep them in set 1 then become snooty about private schools. It's the same principle whatever way you want to cut it. If the state option isn't cutting the mustard I don't see the point in pretending you filling the gaps with tutoring makes you morally better than someone taking their kids out of the system and saving the amount on the state having to educate them.

Sorry - wtf? At what point have I said I think I am morally better? I said we can't afford private school. Just because I don't agree with it on priciple doesn't mean I wouldn't do it. It's the system we live in. I would prefer a socialist utopia but I still have to live in a capitalist system!

They've introduced petty rules because they're cheaper than hiring the pastoral staff those schools really need, not because there's any evidence to suggest increasing the number of rules and raising the level of punishment does anything but cause a massive amount of stress for everyone in the building.

An atmosphere of mutual antagonism, loathing, and suspicion between students and staff is not conducive to productive school days.

We did it too because of the sheer inadequacy of what was being taught in school. I mean, you expect a tutored child to make quicker progress but I feel mine learned more in weeks of tutoring than she had in years at school. I could list various things about NZ that are better than the UK. The education system is certainly not one of those things.

That is partly reassuring and partly depressing! I can't believe how much my son has gone backwards. I honestly question if he has done any work since starting yr 7.

Don't get me wrong, I love it here and I would never move back to the UK - but the education system does not compare.

My DC went through high school in the US, in the suburbs but in a very mixed area. My experience here was that the best teachers and staff were clear and consistent on rule enforcement (there are some very progressive types who are really anti-discipline and only believe in restorative justice) but that the petty minutiae don't seem to make a difference. The schools that try it, the 'no excuses' schools, don't seem to produce better results, and the discipline gets associated with failing schools.

Now, not enforcing rules over inappropriate electronics use always seems to result in disaster.

@6thformoptionsI live in an 11 plus county with 13 grammar schools. The vast majority of the non grammars are great schools and way better than many comps elsewhere.

Yes, some parents are anxious about schools from age 11 and this transmits into dc and promotes anxiety. The coaching some endure is ott. The parents who take it in their stride tend to have more relaxed dc. They support the secondary non grammars and these are often professional parents who realise the grammars won’t suit dc. In the end, their dc achieve around the same as similar dc in the grammars.

In my LA the best progress 8 scores are mostly in the grammars but they take around 25% of local dc overall. Not 5%. Any secondaries with 95% should be great schools. It’s all about SLT and leadership.

My DC worked out who the brighter dc were. That’s fairly normal at primary school but it wasn’t divisive. If anything it was the parents who separated themselves out into desperate and laid back groups!

That sounds better than my area - here the SEN numbers for Grammar are very low, so the state options have the majority. The "stricter" of these, a Catholic school, has a rating of AVERAGE progress 8 with a score of 0.002 and only 34.6% getting a grade 5 or above in Maths and English GCSE. This is the "sought after" state option that parents desperately try to get into. The grammars end up with average for county results but with more staying on for 6th form.

For me the Grammar system segregates boys and girls on aspiration with the boy's school being known for science and the girls all having to compete for spaces at 6th form when they only allow a set number in who weren't previously at the school. The subjects dd wants to take aren't offered by the girls grammar but are at the boys - compounding the 2 tier education still further within the grammar system. The whole area feels educationally stuck.

What I have noticed taking dd out of it is how much better private schools can deal with SEN. Obviously the grammars don't have to consider behaviour from this angle as the % they take is so tiny, but as a result their progress 8 should be far better, which it isn't because they take the kids who were highly trained through primary to pass 11+. It's a depressing area to live if your child doesn't want to go to the only school that gets average grades because of the selective attitude the kids there have, particularly to SEN.

Actually having checked, neither of the 2 grammars got to the Local Authority Average bar but the girl's school managed just above the National Average.

What grammar is just at a county average though? Where there are grammars, most dc are not selected so here, the grammars are way above average results - the majority obviously.

There are many secondaries here with above 34.6% for maths and English. My local non grammar is 46.1%. 59.5% is LA score and very much dragged up by grammars. The best non grammar I know of is 55% grade 5 stat.

It really isn’t segregation by aspiration. It’s more to do with speed of learning. Some dc take the slightly slower route in the secondaries and many have very good 6th forms and dc go to RG universities from them. Grammars do not equal poor secondaries here. There’s no brake on learning, aspiration or final destination.

At the local boys’ grammar, 1 child out of 9 is a middle achiever but progress is “well above average” for the school. So every child is not a genius going there!

Which was why I didn't choose that for dd - apart from the bullying and lack of SEN pupils, if a selective school can't get to the national average or only just but not above the average for the authority, it doesn't say much for the teaching.

@6thformoptions Is it really a comp? It cannot be remotely selective? With 13 m, ours are not super selective but still outperform every secondary - as you would expect. I don’t believe a grammar only gets 36% on the grade 5 stats. It cannot be a grammar in the accepted sense of the word. It’s just some academy pretending to select but clearly it’s not a proper grammar. It’s below many secondaries here with 25% plus of local dc not in them! Your grammar has no bright dc at all in any number. What’s progress 8? What % high achievers?

Mine did. Grammar school, poor areas 95% working class kids, strict on behaviour, uniform but also nurturing, aspirational, fair, excellent teaching. Outstanding results.

I work in a school (as admin) that when I first started I was scared walking across the playground!

The school actually had a reputation for bullying and people had started to pick other schools. It was noisy and send pupils struggled. The results were just above national average, but looking at the cohort they should have been much better

A new head arrived. They put in a strict behaviour policy, everyone moaned on social media. The school feels safe now and their progress scores went up massively last year (no scores this year) but their attainment is top 20%. Its a comprehensive. Their sen support pupils actually did better than national average also.

It wasnt overnight, it was a few years journey. People dont really get detentions for uniform as, after an initial push back, they get over it and wear the uniform fine. I dont think the uniform rules made a difference to learning. But the classroom rules and calmer behaviour in corridors has.

Yup - I seem to have managed to move to the only area where the grammar schools do worse than most area's State options.

In this area at least, the grammar system isn't working. It does do very well in other parts of the County, as the Local Authority data shows. I've no idea what % SEN they take but we wouldn't have been in their catchment at 11+.

We've digressed from the OP though.

I think you're using the strict state school example I gave to show what the system has done to the other non-selective options - the Catholic school.

As I said neither of the top 2 Grammars met the average for the Local Authority.

@6thformoptions They are not grammars then are they!! They are non selective called grammars. Like Bradford Girls Grammar. No selective state grammar has results at LA average. By definition, that’s not a grammar.

I assure you that they are grammars. The town has 3 and I haven't even tried to explain how bad the 3rd one is for a selective school. It's not your average grammar area, I understand, but the pressure on the kids to achieve not much is frankly bizarre in my opinion.

Although I would love to see that definition explained to the parents.

So what grammars are they? I’m happy to name the grammars here and our very good secondary schools. I’m in Bucks. Where are you? If you won’t say, I’m dubious about your stats.

Sorry to but in, but are you 2 talking at cross purposes? Is 6thform talking about progress 8 while you, Tizer, are thinking of overall GCSE passes and grades?

@CecilyP Grade 5 passes in maths and English I thought. Hence the % quoted. Progress 8 isn’t a %.

It's my fault; I was looking at what I thought was the same box but the DofE website had me download data for the boys school and I've ended up looking at the EBacc figures. The 5 or above at GCSE is around 90%, so obviously above the LA Average of 47.9%.

Ebac score is a funny one... often it just shows which schools have a compulsory MFL at GCSE and which don't. Or who insist on History or Geography. In our LA one of the schools with worst results (progress and attainment) had the highest Ebac as they all had to do the same GCSEs.