As anybody read the total rubbish in the DAILY.... about Reading LA achieving 45.9% at AAB

[soul2000]

On page 10 of the Daily Lie, it claims that 45.9% A Level students in Reading LA achieved AAB . It also claims that in Trafford 34.5% of students achieved AAB. This is total nonsense Reading/Kendrick School achieved 49% of students , the best in Trafford was 29% at Altrincham Girls/Boys .

These statistics don't make any sense and since there are under 20 state schools in the country that get over 30% of students at AAB . Can somebody explain how these statistics make sense.

I can't see the article, but I don't understand what you say about Reading/Kendrick getting 49% as Reading School had 59.3% AAA+ and 86.7% ABB (link here

Dept of Education Performance tables 2012 say 49% AAB of which 3 are Facilitating subjects and 70% of which 2 are facilitating subjects.

There is obviously some difference in calculation . The article is on page 10 of the Daily mail under the headline
: Tory Blacklash after Ofsted Chief Sneers at grammars.

Ah, mine were 2013 figures. Well, without the Grammars Reading would be bottom of secondary tables - they are already 3rd from bottom in Primary :(

Reading has two of the best grammar schools in the country - so hardly surprising the figures are skewed by them

Actually Milliways - I think you are missing the A in the A level results in the table you posted for Reading School it says 72% A/ A and 91.8% A* /A/ B. It explains the fierce competition to get into the school which has a huge catchment area and I think only 25% of the intake come from Reading itself. It ranks above the likes of Tiffin in the FT league tables when looking at Oxbridge entry and facilitating subjects grades. Hence you can see why it and Kendrick skew the results so much in Reading LA.

I have no doubt that Reading/Kendrick achieve great A Level results as described, but i can't see 45.9% AAB across Reading LA.

Reading/Kendrick = Approx 260 pupils.
Other LA Schools = Approx 1000 pupils.

Excluding Super/Normal Selective Schools the average % of students achieving AAB would be lower than 10% on average at most schools.
Across all pupils less than 5% achieve AAB at A Level, this of course makes
sense by the No. of RG Universities available for the most academic 5%.

Therefore despite the skewing of the statistics by Kendrick/Reading School, i can't see 45.9% of all pupils who sat A Levels in Reading achieving AAB.

The numbers of pupils relate to YR 13.

Paper from Sutton Trust.
It says that the Reading LA had 387 pupils completing sixth form study. Of those 78.7% went into Higher Ed (Appendix 2, Table 12) and 52.6% went to highly selective (i.e. the sort that are likely to ask for AAB) Universities (Table 13.) Trafford was 77.0 / 36.3%.
The figures don't seem too far from the newspaper's.

Senua. Reading LA had approx 1287 pupils in Yr13 in their schools.

That report is therefore saying 900 Yr13 pupils did not complete year 13 in Reading LA. That can't be right . I accept that a lot of students may not have taken a Levels but surely more than 387 completed YR 13?

Maybe 387 = The NO. of students who entered Higher Education last year.

Interesting report - I picked this out as it is telling:

"State pupils in Reading, Hammersmith and Fulham, Sutton and Buckinghamshire are more than 50 times as likely to be accepted at Oxford or Cambridge than pupils in Hackney, Rochdale, Knowsley, or Sandwell........"

But then remember these figures are skewed by large number state pupils coming from outside Reading to Kendrick and Reading.

"In Reading, more than half of those staying on beyond GCSE progressed to one of the 30 most selective universities and an extraordinary 9 per cent went to Oxford or Cambridge."

I wonder if that "more than half who stayed beyond GCSE...." figure and "9%" is all state school or includes indies like the Abbey which taken with other indies and the two grammars and faith schools might account for the overall high figures going to top 30?

Another interesting fact is that reading school has approx 144 students in Yr13 Kendrick has 116 so 260, assume 90% of these students went in to Higher Education= 234 . The other 1000 or so pupils from other Reading Schools =127 or Approx 12%.

It's rubbish the situation in Reading. I don't know anyone who has got children into Kendrick or Reading without at least a year of tutoring. Reading and Kendrick should be forced to limit the distance that children are accepted, or preferably be made normal comprehensives. I didn't go to a grammar and don't think it does anyone any good, those that go and those that don't go. I am putting my hope in the free schools that are starting up to be a viable option.

I am really sorry MrsJ you may not know anyone who did not get in untutored (though not sure you would know everyone's situation anyway as often people won't disclose) but my son did get in - ok we did practice at home for about 4 months but not intensively - a couple of papers a week except a few more for a week or two only in the summer holidays before the exam and the only tutoring by me was talking through familiarisation where he got it wrong and the rest was all just his practice but he has a very good grounding in the first place - v. strong maths and reading, so it was more just familiarisation and timing he needed to focus on.

I also know those who tutored for one and two years and others who were bright and tried from prep schools that did not get in, so it really isn't that straightforward.

Some if not most children do get in because they are actually in the top 5% academically already across the board as is my son at his school in most subjects.If he wasn't so inclined, I wouldn't mind and would just accept the grammar environment would not be for him and he would be better off somewhere else.

It will certainly do him good to be surrounded by like minded driven children like him who can work at a fast pace, where academic excellence is cool, and with a cohort who like to vie with each other in a friendly way in the academic sense.

I have to add if getting in by 11+ was all down to intensive tutoring for a year plus then more kids would struggle when they got there - as it is the excellent results at GCSE and A level show that that is not actually the case. The 11+ as limited as is is in its scope, does seem to act as a good predictor of future academic success in these schools at least.

The whole thing makes me sick. They should not exist in this day and age. People should not have their career and future set out by getting the answers right in a test at age 10.

But that applies in many places - whether Eton pretest at 10 or 11+...but why do you think it maps out their future if they don't go to grammar?

That must be because you think the alternatives will not fulfil their potential...then that is what your attention should be focused on, not the top 5% who really benefit from excellent grammar schools because they are more academic.

"I have to add if getting in by 11+ was all down to intensive tutoring for a year plus then more kids would struggle when they got there"

It doesn't work like that when a school is that oversubscribed. What you've got is far more children who could do well there than they can offer places to - several hundred children of superselective grammar standard, none of whom would struggle at all at those schools, but of whom only the top hundred or so will get in.

What the tutoring does is get children not just into the top few hundred where they would be anyway without tutoring, but into the top hundred specifically, which is what actually gets them the place.

but if as you say the vast majority are tutored then tutoring is no guarantee of success either ...as we said we didn't tutor (I think tutoring means intensive coaching rather than normal familiarisation and practice) but know others that did and did not get a place- no -one should take a test without familiarisation of format and timing but I think if a child is naturally bright and good at maths and reading, you don't need tutoring honestly as there is a certain plateau they will reach even after a lot of practice

I didn't say tutoring was any guarantee of success, just that you can't conclude that not many people are being tutored based on the fact that everyone who gets in still gets excellent results.

Personally I wouldn't put a dc in for the Reading or Kendrick exams with only a few practice papers for familiarisation unless they were standout brilliant (top 0.05%? Not just top 5% anyway), so I knew they were a cert to end up in the top dozen or so applicants, or unless I was very happy with my plan B option so I just didn't care that much if they passed or not.

There are too many very clever children sitting those exams, and coming 150th is no good even if there may only be 1 mark between your exam result and the person who came 100th. It's a lottery even amongst the cleverest children, it's not a way to separate the clever children from the rest because so many of the clever children don't get in. (That's good IMO as I don't personally subscribe to the view that the brightest children need to be kept safely apart from all the rest with some arbitrary line defining who counts as 'clever and academic' and who counts as 'the rest').

iought. If there were more grammar schools around, this nonsense would not happen. Why is it frowned upon to suggest that 25% of pupils could benefit from a grammar school education. I believe that the other 75% who would go to a non selective school are dragged down by a Malignant 15-20% .Who are either not interested in education or need motivation and a different path forward.

I am going to suggest something that for Mumsnet is very controversial , why not separate the malignant 15-20% from the rump of pupils in non selective schools. Therefore a system would be= 25% Grammar/ 60% High School / 15% Specialist/ Vocational education...

I believe with the 15% or so out of the High Schools, that the standards of educational achievement there would jump massively.

The point is everyone says you have to tutor ...but I know people who tutored for two years with children at prep school who did not get in, we chose not to tutor because we thought we could deal with it better ourselves...yes our DS is bright but needed practice and did improve with it especially on timing ...at some point though he plateau'd out but we thought it was good enough and yes, we had plan B which was private....so I guess for us, it was not be all and end all.

Soul, what you said is sound, and I don't see why the vocational should be looked down upon...there could be well motivated but non academic children who want to go down the vocational...but I wouldn't lump them in with the anti-school who may need specialist help. Some of the specialist help might be a more modern type of schooling that involves more outdoor etc. anything that motivates a child or builds team work to actually want to come to school to learn anything rather than leave at 16 feeling it;s all been an utter waste of time with no qualifications at all in anything.

lought...your argument is one for more grammar schools...at some point though there has to be a cut off be it 5% or 25%...that doesn't mean anyone just below that should be consigned to anything less than they deserve and the alternatives should be decent and with top streams.

It's not an argument for grammar schools - to quote someone from another thread, there's really no argument for the person 1 mark above and the person 1 mark below the pass mark being educated separately with different aspirations. Having more grammar schools just moves the cut-off lower, it doesn't magically make grammar schools take in all the 'right' children and leave out all the 'wrong' ones, neatly. People just don't fit neatly into those boxes.

The argument for grammar schools is similar to the argument for the death penalty in that to be justifiable at all it relies on an assessment (or in the case of the death penalty a criminal investigation and prosecution) working perfectly, and never ever coming to the wrong conclusion.

The problem is that neither 11+ exams or criminal investigations do always work perfectly. So the death penalty falls down amongst other reasons because it will certainly lead to some innocent people being put to death, and grammar schools fall down because they certainly lead to some children spending seven years being educated in a way that's not tailored to them but tailored to the group they were sorted into in one crude test on one day, and which actually may not be a particularly good match to their needs.

death penalty example is a little dramatic...but if you have good schools that are not grammars in the same area it should not matter so much ...the issue is there is too wide a gap between those schools and the (best) grammars even when taking the top sets vs the grammars. Having said that we had the I guess of plan B having been a good private so never really had to face that issue as a reality.

For us, the grammar was better than many of the local privates based on its results and type of highly academic environment we wanted for DS.

we had the option......i mean