Would you be happy if you child was allocated a place at a senior school that........

[HRHQueenOfQuotes]

had these statistics

% of 15 year old pupils achieving 5 or more grades A*-C - 2002 26%
% of 15 year old pupils achieving 5 or more grades A*-C - 2003 24%
% of 15 year old pupils achieving 5 or more grades A*-C - 2004 27%
% of 15 year old pupils achieving 5 or more grades A*-C - 2005 19%

I have a few friends whose older children go to the school these stats are taken from (found them as a result of the thread elsewhere on MN today about siblings and schools). I was really shocked at how bad those sound - yet some of my friends were really pleased when their children got places at this school!!

The next 'best' school local to be had 46% getting A-C in 2005, and the 'best' had 58% for the same period........the school I hope to get DS1 into when he's old enough averaged out at 88% for the last 5yrs

How can people actually be happy with schools like that - I'm genuinely shocked that parents can settle for such poor school and not demand improvements!

Oh God yes! They paid for this research??

I've just spent the last 2 years teaching the top three sets in biology. The very top set....you could lock them in the cupboard under the stairs and they would still have got an A*!

Very bright, bloody delight to owrk with, but no real teaching needed at GCSE. They have had a bit of a shock at AS level tho!

Something else to watch out for, and which will be published alongside the GCSE results in the tables next year, is the actual % gaining Maths and English at GCSE. As schools can now include GNVQs in their % pass rate it can be quite deceiving ie a student sitting an intermediate GNVQ which counts for 4 A-Cs only has to then get one more to count as 5 A-C student.

Where I teach there is 40% difference in the A-Cs including everything and the A-Cs of Maths and English. ( just glad I don't teach Maths or English!)

I know, I know, there's research for everything! However, I find that bit useful for people with able kids who feel that only private school is good enough for them.

The only thing that I do feel for the brighter end of the spectrum is that it can be fairly shit socialy to be in a mixed ability class. And while they do well, they don't enjoy it much and get bloody good at hiding it. bullying can be an issue. Doesn't affect the outcome significantly but can make for a shit time (personal experience of this one )

MB, exactly the dilemma we faced with ds.
I think it is important socially for children to fit in as well as be academically well catered for within their individual abilities, wherever they lay.
DS has suffered so much bullying/ribbing/boffin/swot remarks, now at a high performing grammar, that aspect has disappeared.
So it is as much down to how a school suits an individual child as much as what a school can attain.

I can really relate to mb's post. Looking at my oldest son, he is very much affected by the general standard and expectations of his peers and teachers. He moved primary schools three times, doing much better at the school where expectations were the highest. He is still easily influenced by disruptive behaviour. Add his generally laid back/lax attitude to work and I am sure his level of work would really suffer if he went to the sort of school HRH talks about.

His head teacher (state primary) even took me to one side when ds was in year 5 to urge me to aim for a 'good' secondary school for him - by implication grammar or private - as he is so easily led.

That made me think, as in our borough, the comprehensive system rules and there are no grammar schools, so the head teacher was really not towing the party line when he had his private talk to me.

As I live in a London borough with low secondary school results, I am very used to talking to parents who send their children to secondary schools well below average in the league tables. There is little choice if you stay in the borough, unless you are catholic (the catholic comp schools have better results). My ds goes to a grammar school outside the borough.

I know lots of parents happy in their choice of borough comp, once their child starts school in year 7 - they seem pleasantly surprised by the ethos, the teaching and their child's progress in year 7 and 8. Their children seem happy, too.

However I have known some very unhappy parents of older, possibly more rebellious children - once their child gets to studying (or not) for GCSEs. As I don't know as many parents of older children, I am less sure how widespread this is. And actually, the most worried parent has a son at grammar school.

The youth drama class my son attends has lots of 12 - 16 year olds from the local comprehensive schools - they seem like a really nice, hard-working bunch of individuals.

Sorry, not an answer to your question, HRH, just some random observations.

I was at a very academically mixed small girls' private school. I was almost an ability group of my own. Few went to university. I got the best A levels in the school. I'm not sure I'd even call it comprehensive because there were so few clever girls there. It fels isolating. Hardly anyone else was able to discuss anything. No streaming except in maths at it was too small. But no disruption in lessons or anything like that. I didn't want my children to have that.

"Were the most able pupils creamed off by a grammar school? "

No - there are no grammar schools round here.....only the local private school - which is 'average' as private schools go (and overpriced for it). There are 3 or 4 excellent primary schools in the town, lots of good ones, and about 3 or 4 'poor' ones. So lots of very bright pupils are ending up at pretty dire schools and ending up not fufilling their potential at all. The intake at all three schools is very 'wide' - ie the whole town - and children from all ranges of ability.

Thats eems bizarre QOQ
Here primary schools are fantastic (maybe its the 11+ needs that cause this but even so...)
You think that a number of good performing primary schools, feeding a few secondary schools would have reasonable results.
What are the Ofsted and rankings like when comapred to national average?
Are the schools failing kids of decent and/or average ability.
I'd be concerned too if that was teh case.

piffle - I think part of the problem is that the 3 senior schools don't have enough places for all the children in the town - so parents have to look outside of the town to other senior schools when choosing a school for their DC. Some of those children will be offered places at schools outside the town (they have to be or they'll have nowhere to go due to lack of places in the town), and some parents will fork out the money to send their child to private school. Unfortunately it's not a great town we live in (though I still like living here ) with lots of 'social' problems.....and they reckon we have one of the highest teeange pregnancy rates in the country outside any of the cities!!!

the one with the 19% rate has an appalling Ofsted (been on special measures for 2yrs now). The other two I've just looked at

the one with next highest level has the following at the start of their most recent (march this year Ofsted)

"The overall effectiveness of this school is inadequate because pupils do not make enough progress or achieve high enough standards. Examination results at GCSE are significantly below average and the progress students make is inadequate when their levels of attainment on starting the school are taken into account. The school recognises this and has started to tackle the weaknesses. Early signs of improvements are evident; however, it is too early to judge the impact of the actions being taken. Further improvement is still required. The quality of teaching and learning is inadequate, with too much that is not effective. Teaching does not always motivate and engage students."

The one with the 'best' Ofsted report - and the best results it admits in the report could be slightly biased as many of the pupils currently doing GSCE's and A Levels are from the days when it used to take 10% of it's pupils after they sat a test (they stopped a few years ago). I suppose it's not a bad school.....but it's in a horrible area - and I certainly wouldn't want the DS's walking home from after school activities later afternoons from there.

It has a lot of problems with bad behaviour too...

Well for your worst school, a third of the pupils have SEN, with a fair number having statements. The school is under special measures (so one could argue that something has happened under Labour), and the school's intake is well below national average in terms of attainment - if your Year 7 pupils are not able to read fluently, then you are going to behind in many subjects I would assume. It is also undersubscribed, whereas the other 2 are full, so in general parents are making a choice!

In terms of looking at league tables you need to be careful about getting too fixed on one measure. For example one of the other schools has half a dozen pupils who ended up with 10 A/A* GCSEs. Clearly there is a wide range of ability and achievement.

But I'd have to say that I certainly wouldn't be thrilled at the proposect of the "worst" school. I think that the only possible sweetener might be if it was significantly better in terms of tailoring pupils towards suitable vocational courses/apprenticeships.

Presumably if you don't get into either of the higher ranked schools, then you are commuting out of town for school, so I imagine not everyone would be thrilled by this. Though I see that the worst perfroming shcool of your 3 has a large number of vacancies - funny that!

Blu 'agree about the critical mass - I was just interested in heifers example, where 'non-grammar' gets 78% - which sounds fantastic for a noin-selective school'

I totally agree that 73% (I typed it wrong) for a non selective school is fantastic - I am so pleased we are moving nearby...

Obviously as my DD is only 2.10 I know that things can change, but with so many good schools around the area, it sounds ideal.

I am from a comp background so don't really know much about Grammer schools, especially single sex ones.. But I reckon that with so many different types of schools there, there must be something to suit DD when the times comes.

My question is, how come the wirral came produce such good results - especially the non selective compared to other areas? - including my current town.....

ahh - but Lady - that 'failing' school - only about 6-7yrs ago was a pretty decent school (so one could say what good has Labour done in that it's gone downhill so rapidly???) .....the 'best' school where you quote half a dozen pupils getting high grades - well yes - those pupils would probably have been in the 'selected' (through a test) 10% a few years back (test now been scrapped).

One of my friends actually put that school (on special measures) as her top choice of school for her DD!!! Why would you put a failing school as your top choice??? That's what I'm questioning really - how as a parent you could actually be quoted as saying you were happy that your child was given a place at a failing school!!!

HRH please tell me that the 15 year old is a typo

and that it should be 16 year olds

cos I am confused

Kanga - all info table from the links from this website}

but a yr7 child isn't a teenager - especially not at the time of applying (in yr6......)

so Fio - are you honestly telling me you would happily let your child apply to, and go to, a failing school purely because the child wanted to go????

This school is the one that we all debated on here last year for this swearing story!!!

We have arounf 20% of our students on the SEN regester. We have a 59% A* to C pass rate. We do well by them.

When you look at all this stuff you have to take into account the dynamic within the school and the sorts of children the school accepts.

We have 20% on the SEN regester, but the majority of these are not EBD, they are dylexic/praxic, adhd, and asd.
If you are looking at 20% of the children on the SEN reg having EBD due to highly disfuctional families, you are looking at a very different school.

We are lucky that tha vast majority of our children come from nice families who want them to do well, and the few that come from dysfuctional families we can 'carry'. Increase that number and the critical mass thing come into play.

I would not let my child choose to go to a school in special measures with a terrible ofsted as I do not believe a 10/11 year old can have any real or meaningful idea of what that could potentially mean to them and their future. I would discuss it with my child and take their views into account, but in the end, I would feel comfortable making the final decision. This is simply too big a choice for a child to make unilaterally IMO.