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!

Oke doke

confusion solved

Bloomin' statistics - no wonder goverment use them so much - to confuse the results of stuff

skew the truth imho

But they will still be creaming them off with 11+ exam

won't they?

God yes, it's a very difficult place to get into apparently. And I don't really approve of that either. Children shouldn't feel like failures at 11 IMO.

BUT I don't want them to go to a rough, horrible school with shite results, awful bullying problems and more than 1000 pupils, either.

I'm just moaning because I don't like any of the options, really.

I have this idea in my head of a "normal" state school - not too big, no seriously tub-thumping religious agenda, not too big, not too small, reasonable results, good ethos/bullying policy. They don't seem to exist , I think the "specialist schools" are a shite idea, the remaining grammar schools are too big and too academically vicious, the faith schools are either very extreme or we're not eligible for them - the system is a mess. That's my view atm.

But as I say, my eldest is only 4. I do feel for anyone trying to make decisions now about this.

RTKM - sorry I didn't see your post below.

I don't think anyone is asking you to reveal the school of your DS/DH. You stated (based on your DS/DH's school) that the figures on the tables are wrong.

I am saying they are not and (probably not eloquently) trying to explain the methodology used in the tables.

The tables are not made up statistics, they are actual aggregated data of each pupil by school using their raw data.
The tables are only interested in pupils aged 15 at the start of the academic year in year 11. Those who are 14 at the start and 15 at the end will not be included (sorry it seems I'm repeating myself). Because those pupils are not taking the exams at the same time as their peers.

The whole system will have changed about 3 times before your oldest is 9 or 10 and you may have a pleasant surprize

The way I look at it is that if DS wasn't good enough to pass the exam {without cramming} then it wouldn't be the right school for him

IMHO that is how we decided where to send him - and he is very happy

It is the ones who get into a school after cramming that are unhappy - cos it wasn't the right school for them

IMHO anyway

I think the point about the early takers is that if they take some exams a year early, those results don't actually get counted at all: they don't get counted when they take it because they were not 15 at the start of the year, and they don't get counted when they take the rest because they weren't taken that year - so therefore the statistics must be less than 100%. This is why quite a lot of schools don't let children take exams early.

Exactly rusty.

Also you often get late takers - Private schools are sometimes more flexible about putting people in a lower year - esp August born kids and those childrens results don't then count in official tables. In my opinion one sign of a good private school is one that worries more about the interests of the children than their league table position and allows this.

At Ds's grammar the top maths set are being set up to do a statistics maths paper the yr before GCSE's and ds will also sit his chinese gcse at the same time (been doing that in an after school club) There is also the chance to do the science gcse early for those that will take the 3 individual sci subjects for GCSE.
FWIW most of the parents 80% in a recnet school survey of parents (97% response rate btw) said they did not believe their children were stretched enough.
DS (yr8) certainly isn't chained to his desk and as overworked as I thought he might be when we first debated the grammar school option for him...

I'm fairly sure early takers results are counted retrospectively now anyway Piffle, but I'm guessing your ds's schools top set are in no danger of not hitting the 5 grade A*-C total the following year even if a few extra earlies were discounted.

bit off subjecrt, but this discussion about individual children's results reminded me about the school magazine I saw at an open day at one of our local grammar schools. It had detailed listings by name to show who passed what GCSES and at what grades, so everyone could see how each child performed. I felt very sorry for the children who did the least well. In the reception are there were lists of names engraved on wooden plaques to name the students who had gone on to Oxbridge universities.

I found all this public naming a bit too obsessive and we chose another grammar school where individual results seemed to be less advertised.

It was interesting to see how each of the three local grammar schools we visited had a different feel to them.

Tigermoth

I completely agree with you about publicly naming the children

I meant I had access to the individual children's results by name because of DH being a teacher there and so is sent a list of all the results by dept and subject and form and name iyswim

Sorry to be misleading

In any league table, there will be people at the bottom end. But there is a big difference between the "least good", and the "badly broken".

We have far too many failing schools, or ones that disciriminate on the basis of religion, or are actually physically dangerous becuase the authorities refuse to impose order.
But at least we have a national centre for sporting excellence, so that's all right then.

Kanga, no worries, my comment was a general one, not aimed at you at all