First Conservative education secretary to send child to state secondary

[BananaChoccyPancake]

Of course, not your average run-of-the-mill state secondary ....

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10674662/Michael-Goves-daughter-wins-place-at-state-school.html

Lucky for them they weren't caught out by the adjudicators admissions ruling.

I wonder if that was one of the schools he was offering to show Simon Cowell round.

Sorry - x-post! So you have to specify that you are applying as a "non-faith" candidate if you are a Muslim? Or if you are a Christian who doesn't want that taken into account?

"Hackney has a lower proportion of high attainers amongst the general secondary school population compared to Westminster. Mossbourne's figure is well above the average for the LA. Also, as per my last post, faith schools will tend to attract the kind of parents who are likely to have high achieving children. I am not saying this is how things should be, just that the high figure for high attainers at this school does not necessarily mean there is any wrong doing."

No, I'm not saying that they have done anything wrong, just pointing out that the fair banding combined with religious selection is resulting in a skewed intake.

I'm not sure where you find the high attainers stats, I had a look:

St Marylebone (Girls, C of E): 74/148 (50%)
Grey Coat (Girls, C of E): 79/153 (52%)

Westminster Academy: (distance based) 25/176 (14%)
Paddington Academy (distance-based): 29/173 (17%)
Pimlico Academy (distance-based): 36/201 (18%)
Quintin Kynaston (distance-based) 54/206 (26%)
St Augustines (C ofE, but not oversubscribed): 17/118 (14%)
St Georges (Catholic but undersubscribed): 25/116 (22%)
Westminster City (Christian in theory, but undersubscribed in practice): 26/114 (23%)

So out of 1405 children in Westminster state secondary schools, 365 are 'high attainers', which is 25.9%

Appeals to the schools in 2013 were:

St Marylebone: 71
Grey Coat: 50
Paddington: 24
Pimlico: 1
Quintin Kynaston: 0
St Augustines: 0
St Georges: 0
Westminster Academy: 0
Westminster City: 0

So as you can see the two girls C of E schools are by far the most sought after.

I don't know what the break down of high attainers between girls and boys is, in theory it should be 180 of each, which in theory means that something like 85% of Westminster's brightest girls are at two schools. Of course in practice they will draw from outside Westminster, but you can see that most of the schools don't really have enough children to put together a proper top set, whereas both the C of E girls schools have got plenty of bright girls to teach Latin etc.

Excluding the two super-selective C of E schools, the overall % of high attainers is 19.2%.

Looking at Hackney:

Cardinal Pole RC 15/165
Clapton Girls 28/172
Haggerston 11/173
Lubavitch 10/18
Mossbourne 52/188
Our Lady's Convent 27/117
Stoke Newington 74/242
The Bridge Academy 27/182
The Petchey Academy 41/178
The Urswick Academy 12/132
Yesodey Hatorah 9/44

So 306 out of 1631, about 18.8%, or 17.6% if you exclude Mossbourne. So Mossbourne has about 50% more high attainers than it should, if you consider the rest of the borough, but the two girls C of E schools in Westminster have about 170% more high attainers than they should.

"The fair banding test will be a form of IQ test but the test for languages should be different. This must test specifically for aptitude in languages, not general intelligence. "

Aptitude in languages IS a form of IQ test. They will be massively correlated. Ok you are testing language aptitude, but ultimately it's an intelligence test. It's not like they are finding out who is the fastest to run 100 metres.

And you can certainly practise for them, I don't know if it helps I can't imagine that it wouldn't though.

I understand that the language places test is for general aptitude for languages and not proficiency in any one in particular. I've known girls get in who are total monoglots at the time of the exam.
I think if you pass the languages test, the distance tiebreaker becomes irrelevant, and so lots of parents who live outside of GC's three preferred parishes, attempt to get in via this route.

When a banding test is voluntary it is massively skewed. If I think of the 5 v low attaining kids in my ds's class, none of them would be turning up for an exam in a random hall on a Saturday morning (all have disengaged parents).

Fair banding is only fair when it's held at every primary school for every child.

Camden girls is another with a skewed intake despite banding. A) it's got a voluntary banding test. B) v high no of musical aptitude places wh invariably go to high achievers and then have knock on effect with siblings and c) I know of at least a dozen families who've moved next door specifically or rented, again tend to be v engaged.

Ps language aptitude tests tend to be a bit like verbal reasoning test ie v iq linked

rabbitstew, they admitted 151 girls (which is already an advantage over mixed) in 2013.

15 of these were language places. Language aptitude testing is a proxy for IQ testing. It's not an IQ test, but the best performers will have IQs anyway. journal.tc-library.org/index.php/tesol/article/viewFile/69/75

That leaves 136 places.

80 of these are allocated to girls with a reference from C of E clergy.

Of these, 25% (20 places) go to 'above average' girls. The school doesn't state whether this is national or based on the applying cohort. I believe it should be national, however they give no info.

Brompton Academy makes this much clearer:

www.bromptonacademy.org.uk/105/fair-banding-arrangements

that the banding is done relative to all children of that age, so to be in the top 25%, you would be in the top 25% of all children of age 11 in the country.

At Grey Coat Hospital a further 50% (40 places) go to 'average' ability, and 25% (20 places) to below average.

Within each band, they rank you according to supposed religious piety. The primary criterion is five years of weekly church attendance. If you don't have that, you must have at least one year of weekly church attendance, and here you score points, up to 10 in total, 5 for parent and 5 for child, according to various criteria, and the candidates within each band are ranked according to this, and those scoring most points get in.

28 further places are given to girls with reference from non-C of E Christian clergy, but on the same basis (25% - 7 places, 50% - 14 places, 25% - 7 places).

The final 28 places go to girls without a clergy reference also, 25%, 50%, 25%, with priority here allocated to girls who attended one of three local primary schools, and subsequently on a straight line distance.

The middle band of 'average' ability should be girls with NFER scores from 90 to 110 (this is the middle 50% of ability). This actually a massive band:

www.gl-assessment.co.uk/sites/gl/files/images/Files/GCSE_Technical_Information.pdf

CAT 90: ~28% chance of 5 good GCSEs
CAT 100: ~70% chance of 5 good GCSEs
CAT 110: ~93% chance of 5 good GCSEs

The school can potentially admit a disproportionate number of girls from the section of the curve closer to the 75th percentile (which is the top of 'average' according to this admissions standard), and few from the 25th percentile (which is the bottom cut-off for 'average').

We know already that religious selection is a highly effective proxy for for academic selection, so it's likely that religious scoring is resulting in the 'average' band containing a disproportionate number of girls who are girls above average (but still within the 90-110 range).

If you are wanting a genuinely comprehensive intake, then clearly a band from 90-110 is far too wide

" These schools tend to attract parents who value education and are prepared to jump through hoops to get their child into the school of their choice."

They're attractive to others who care about education too, but they can't get in, either because they have a chaotic homelife that prevents them making the commitment, or because they're not religious, or because they're from the 'wrong' religion.

So you have to specify that you are applying as a "non-faith" candidate if you are a Muslim? Or if you are a Christian who doesn't want that taken into account?

They are actually called "open places". "Non-faith" was my description.

When you apply you have to specify under which categories you are applying. There are four possibilities:

• Language
• CofE
• Other church
• Open

You can specify more than one category, although obviously you are unlikely to qualify under both the CofE and other church categories. If you only tick CofE you will only be considered under that category. If you tick both CofE and Open you will first be considered for a CofE place. If you don't get one you will go into the pot for Open places. In that category you won't get any priority for going to church.

because they're not religious, or because they're from the 'wrong' religion

This school offers 28 open places each year. These are available to anyone regardless of their religion or lack thereof.

28 out of 151? How generous.

The places aren't available to 'anyone', they are available in the first instance to 28 girls who go to one of three feeder primary schools, which collectively have a PAN of 144.

Given that there are therefore approximately 72 girls at these three feeder primary schools (two of which are also religiously selective) and only 28 'open places', it is reasonable to assume that if you aren't religious and don't go to Millbank Academy, St Matthew's C of E, or Burdett Coutts C of E primary schools, then you have no chance of getting in.

28 out of 151? How generous

There is no faith requirement for the places awarded by language aptitude either. So in total 43 out of 151 places are awarded without reference to faith. That is a higher proportion than many faith schools. The language aptitude places don't give any priority to children attending feeder schools.

But yes, to respond to AgaPanthers, for any school that uses feeder schools the chances of children who do not attend those schools getting places are limited.

"That is a higher proportion than many faith schools"

New faith schools aren't allowed to have more than 50% faith-based admissions. Many new CE schools are 100% open. In fact many old CE schools are 100% open.

"They are actually called "open places". "Non-faith" was my description."

It's an important distinction. People of faith can still apply for the open places. They're allocated without any reference to faith at all. However, it stands to reason that people who apply for them are happy to send their children to a faith school, even if they're not practising. There's no reason why it should undermine the ethos of the school.

That is why all faith schools should have 100% open admissions. The CE Diocese of London has a policy to encourage all of its schools to move in that direction, but most of them are conveniently ignoring it.

Here's what the Fair Admissions Campaign has to say about Mr Gove's choice (scroll down to the March 4th headline): fairadmissions.org.uk/.

My DD1 is in a comprehensive school that uses fair-banding. It does seem as though the intake is a bit skewed. There is a lot of focus at open evenings on academic results and discipline etc etc, which may put off the less engaged. I think my DD would qualify as a "high achiever", as she got all level 5s in her SATs, but she is in the third set out of 5, so pretty middle of the road.

IF faith based schools have 100 "open admissions", are they really faith based schools??????

Bet Govey had a private school lined up for just in case his daughter didn't get into this select (or should that be selective by the back door) comp.

IF faith based schools have 100 "open admissions", are they really faith based schools

Yes, they still could be: the values espoused by the faith would permeate the school e.g. RC schools would celebrate Mass, C of E would probably have the local vicar coming to the school regularly.

New faith schools aren't allowed to have more than 50% faith-based admissions

True but new faith schools are a tiny minority of all faith schools.

In fact many old CE schools are 100% open

CE schools are either VC or VA. VA schools are their own admission authority and generally prioritise on faith although a minority hold back a number of places to be allocated without reference to faith. The LA is the admission authority for a VC school. In general VC schools do not prioritise on faith although some LAs do include faith criteria for such schools. I would go with "some" rather than "many".

language aptitude tests tend to be a bit like verbal reasoning test ie v iq linked

To repeat something I said up thread, if the language aptitude test is a general IQ-type test and not a specific test for aptitude in languages that would be a clear breach of the Admissions Code. I would encourage anyone who knows of a school doing this to refer them to the Schools Adjudicator.

"True but new faith schools are a tiny minority of all faith schools"

It's a step in the right direction, and the next step in the right direction would be for the 50% limit to be applied to all schools. That might never happen, because the Catholic Education Service would fight it all the way. However, the CofE is more inclined in that direction. As I mentioned before the London Diocesan Board for schools has said that "Our policy is to encourage our Church of England Schools to have half open places and half foundation places. For the new schools we are promoting we are going for all open places".

Seems to me the "fair banding" system is a way of making things as skewed as possible, by putting off anyone who doesn't want to take some kind of test to get into secondary school.

re 'fair banding', it can be made fairer by making it non-optional. In Hackney so many schools use fair banding that all primary pupils sit the tests in their schools. Which at least means its not dependent on parents organising themselves to put their dc in for the test.

Would love to be a fly on the wall at Gove's daughter's parents evenings - poor teachers

Poor Beatrice.

"The education system as it stands is trying to turn us all into enthusiastic church goers."

And some church leaders are rubbing their hands in glee, whilst others are clearly uncomfortable with it.

That is why, despite the Diocese of London's policy to encourage open admissions, individual CE schools, with local church leaders in control of their governing bodies, are resisting.

Create a complicated admissions process and lo and behold, you mainly attract people intelligent enough to understand it
well said