Top London Secondaries? Non grammar or catholic...

[BewitchedBefuzzledBewildered]

Seems to me that from (my fairly superficial,I admit it)!reading, that the top state schools in London are either Grammar (well maybe not quite London, but close enough...) and /or Catholic.

Where best to look up league tables of the top state schools where you don't need to find god or sit the 11+. Moving into catchment, well that is always doable. Finding god, not quite so easy :-)

Should have added :

1c. People who enjoy socialising online. If you're bored with the people you meet in RL, you're bound to find someone who shares your interests and opinions on the internet. And if you're a bit shy, deaf, socially anxious etc, then sites like Mumsnet can open up a whole new world of communication.

"do you not think there are parents lacking motivation and aspiration?"

Of course there are. But in many cases their aspirations and motivations are just "different" rather than "lacking".

I'd define the "lacking" ones as motivations/aspirations that :

• lead to dependency on others.
• are at odds with the talents, aspirations and motivations of their children.

Aspirations/motivations tend to be inherited characteristics, and it can be hard to break the cycle of inheritence. That's why we need a great state Education service, and support services rather than a "every man for himself" culture.

OP, if you spend time on MN you will see that your OP possibly came across as 'Where is the best school and I'll buy my way in' - which is a matter of some raw discussion on the Education Boards.

People have rightly pointed out the subtleties of looking beyond the league tables, and IMO, especially utterly spurious lists such as the Tatler list, which is based on no actual statistical evidence on the progress or achievemnet of pupils at all, but on the social cachet and m/c pulling power of schools. For example, last year my DC's school was a better performing school than Camden Girls in terms of both progress (value added) and outcomes on the comparison facility on the DfE site (you can look at a school against others of its type by clicking the pale blue box 'similiar schools' on the R of the school's page), but is not listed in the Tatler guide..probably because of it's location and lack of Dinner Party profile. (this year the 2 schools are in different categories, but DS's school is still the best of it's type that is not a faith single sex school in London.

No-one wants to send theier child to an under-performing school and anyone who is moving will want to take schools into account. But a child's happiness and success at school depends on a lot more than it being 'top' in some table.

Good luck!

Frogs- Nice post and I agree.

But how do you know if a school gets a reaonable number of children with 10 A or A* grades at GCSE. Is the information freely available?

Beautifulvisit - schools are generally pretty forthcoming with information about their high fliers. Start by looking on the website for info about the previous year's GCSE results, a school that's doing well for its pupils will generally want to showcase good results. They won't always name individuals on the website for eg (though some do), but they usually have that info in some form among the prospectus information.

Failing that, if you ask them for the results of their highest achievers I'm sure any school you'd want your child to go to will be happy to tell you.

Frogs - thanks.

You really do have to examine each school individually. Simple as.

My son's at a state comp in the sixth form (yr 13). What's noticeable versus his old selective independent school is that the kids at the comp are encouraged to be far more cautious about their university choices. I have written in .

OP, something else to think about. Just like when people are investing in property, and looking for the "up and coming areas", there are some "up and coming schools" that aren't yet oversubscribed but soon will be. They can include previously-failing schools that have new leadership, or new buildings, and also newly opened schools that haven't yet established their reputation.

If you research/visit and are reasonably confident they're on a secure upwards trend then you will find them easier to get into than a very oversubscribed school (and if you buy a house nearby you'll probably find the value of that shooting up too, as the popularity of the school increases).

Ugh, how vile.

Yep, it is vile isn't it. But at least it might encourage "aspirational and motivated" people to support up and coming schools, rather than overheating the already high performing ones.

It's a complex story isn't it? Too many people pick on raw GCSE results, but that's a very bad way of doing things. Assuming, and they usually are, that your child is in the top ability quartile, you need to look at outcomes for this group. And then consider things like subject choices (an 'up-and-coming' school that gets good results by throwing in a lot of vocational qualifications might not be a good choice if you want your DC doing French, German and three sciences).

The problem is that the MC parents gravitate to the raw GCSE results schools meaning that the resources for the things they want (traditional academic subjects) are much less likely to be available at other schools, which as a result end up rather less than 'comprehensive'.

Marrieddad
you are sitting on 18 years of property profits in your house
I bought my house for £63,000 - it is currently worth £250,000
I now work part time so could not get the mortgage I originally got, let alone one larger
so, do tell me how many 4 bed semis with driveways and big gardens round your way there are for under £200,000 ?

"moving into catchment" is only an option for the arrogantly rich.

thewave
rather than selecting "comp" you need to select OUT all the types you know you do not want ....
they take time but the data is sound

"moving into catchment" is only an option for the arrogantly rich"

Or the not-so-rich with the nouse to do some research (ref my previous 2 posts).

Yes, I think people read the raw GCSE results (ie the 5A*C inc Eng & Maths) as equating to the probability of their particular child achieving those grades.

So if a school has an incredibly mixed intake, and is getting (say) 64% of kids through that benchmark, people read as if it means little James or Charlotte has a 64% chance of leaving that school with 5 decent GCSEs. And obviously that will look bad next to the semi-selective school in the leafy suburb of detached Victorian houses where 84% of kids meet the benchmark. But of course those stats tell you nothing at all about a given child's chance of achieving good grades, it's simply a snapshot of the school's overall intake.

If both those schools have equal proportions of dc gaining (say) 10 A*/A, then a given child with the potential to get those grades is equally likely to achieve them at either school, going purely on the stats. Or you could even say that the lower-achieving school is doing better, since they are getting similar results for the top of their cohort with a very different overall intake.