If you are considering an academically selective school at 11 plus...

[NorhamGardens]

What sort of I/GCSE & A'level A-A*% pass rate is a good one?

I know these results don't tell the whole story but looking for an approximate minimum expectation for an apparently super selective independent school.

I would have thought it should be more than say 20-40% A-A* for example?

One thing that nobody else has mentioned is that many selective schools, both in the public and private sector, take on a whole raft of new pupils for 6th form. This is obvious in single sex schools that are mixed for 6th form but many other schools do this also. It is not actually necessary for existing pupils to be displaced. The extra places are planned and available regardless, and the school may be seen to be 'top heavy'. However, the new pupils will be expected to have excellent GCSEs and there may well be other aspects to the selection procedure.

Cont!!!
My nephew recently sat some sort of math Pre U he felt although it was much harder it was more challenging and therefore more interesting (if math can ever be interesting) he found universities liked it and the the equivilant grades to A level carry more UCAS points acknowledging that it is harder.

Just to be fair though my daughters' schools hardly took any new girls into the sixth form. They don't need to. The selection at 11 is so competently done that most of the children do fine.

Why would someone say I was suggesting only money matters? The best selective private schools are better at everything, not just exams. Their children are better at music and sport and as they are good schools with good chidlren they tend to be nicer environments too. People comfort themselves with thinking well this may be a sink comp but everyone is happy and had my little Johnny had a high enough IQ to go to XYZ school he would have had big problems. It is just not so. The better schools are better at just about everything as indeed that is how life is - you get some people who are total losers at everything, 25 stone, no exams, out of work and then you get women who ear a lot are fit and happy. It's only the jealous poor who like to comfort themselves that women who earn a lot must be miserable.

Your name suggests that you may be from the Oxford area so you might be familiar with these independent schools:

Magdalen college school - (very selective also get a good intake into the sixth form): A-level 92% A/A GCSE 99% A/A

Abingdon School (quite selective take about the top third from DS1's academically average, non-selective prep) A-level 73.2 A/A GCSE 82% A/A

Our Lady's Abingdon (non-selective - they have an entrance exam, but the vast majority pass) A-level 95% A-C (couldn't find A/A statistic); GCSE 66% A*/A

There are rumours that Abingdon does a bit of culling after GCSE - I don't know how much of this is worried parent hysteria though. I think that that the OLA results, especially at GCSE, are impressive - bearing in mind they don't select and are surrounded by highly academic schools, which have tended to take the brightest children at 11. I would use their results as a minimum bench mark for what a properly selective school should achieve.

As others have said, it is critically important to look at the statistics in context - i.e. ask how did the school get those results as much as what the results are.

Xenia whilst I agree with you that the top selective ndependent schools are always going to better in every way than anything offered in the state sector IME and I wouldn't classify myself as one of the "jealous poor" having/earning lots of money doesn't guarantee happiness.

Years ago I used to ride horses very seriously as one trainer said to me if you have an extremely talented rider with all the time in the world jaw dropping facilities and a £10 000 000 horse you can achieve extraordinary results in top competitions (Charlotte Dujardin). But it's just as impressive to get your average rider and an average horse to qualify at regional level achieiving way beyond the riders inial aspirations. Ditto education.

I agree. It's all relative. Our local comp got 34% A - C at GCSE. I expect they may be pretty good at adding some value. They seem to specialise in tourism and travel GCSE too and do a good line in car mechanics GCSE. However I would not want my children there. Just as I would expect lots of people who think we're a pretty unsuccessful family relative to them would make different choice from mine. There is always someone more successful than all of us.

I agree money does not make people happy but nor is it true that the more you have the less happy you are. Happiness is about balance of brain chemicals in the brain and those are improved through good foods (is food better in schools with a higher budget for meals?) and more sport and being outside which I suspect the private schools again exceed the state schools in.

And indeed that's the joke really - that we are happiness as a species when we are outside, moving all day and eating unprocessed foods with sunshine on our bodies (i.e. what the very very poorest tend to have on this planet)

I'm not sure the schools Xenia thinks are better at everything have a very good track record at producing first rate car mechanics . Such schools are only good at what they do and what they do is not what we want the whole country to be doing. Unfortunately, the people educated in these better schools also don't seem to be very good at working out what to do with the rest of the country and seem to think that, whilst the hoi polloi "only have IQs of 100" and no cash with which to help themselves, that they ought to be able to sort themselves out. Talk about fiddling (with great aplomb, of course) while Rome burns.