help us decide between two secondary schools, really am at my wits end!

[mumof4needshelp]

Ok, dd is in year 5 and will be applying to secondary school next year, we live just in catchment for two schools and without wanting to jinx anything its almost a foregone conclusion dd will get into both.

School 1 (with VI Form) is in the middle of leafy suburbia, all catchment houses are either 5,6,7 bedroomed victorian affairs in the 'best' area of town or large 3,4 and 5 bedroomed houses on a few housing estates, basically its intake is solidly middle class and 'nice'.
It gets about 80% at GCSE including english and maths. The top 50% can take 3 separate sciences and all children have to take a language and any combo of history, geography or classics.
They are introducing the IB in september so it'll bewell established if DD wants to do that instead of A Levels (or the 'diploma')
There are 2 orchestras, 3 choirs, 2 popular plays each term and lots of sports.
They run an annual ski trip and last year there were trips to New York, Sri Lanka and China. So far so good. However the GCSE results have been slowly but steadily slipping over recent years and the value added is only 990ish, 1000 is the expected so the pupils aren't making the progress expected of them.

School 2 (no VI form) has a much more mixed intake spanning the same middle class suburbia of school 1 to a quite rough estate with a bad reputation for being dangerous and quite frankly a bit unsavoury.
Only about 50-60% of pupils get 5 or more good GCSEs incl. E+M and GCSE options include 'hair and beauty', 'construction' and sociology. Students can't take history and geography together or 3 sciences and last year there wasn't enough interest to warrant a french class so no-one did a language GCSE...
However its on the up with the pass rate increasing each year and a value added of around 1030, so it does a lot better than its intake would suggest.
There isn't a choir or an orchestra and the school play seems a bit half hearted.

Both are 5 form intake so school 1 is bigger as it has a 6th form but year group size is the same. DD seems pretty bright, is already working at a level 5 in english and maths and me and DH expect her to go to university (its fine if she doesn't want to its just that all our siblings, parents, grandparents, neices and nephews etc have.) School 1 doesn't stream for anything expect maths in year 10 and 11 while school 2 streams in english, maths, french and science from year 8.
DDs friends will almost certainly be split 50/50 to each school and pastoral care seems excellent at both.

So which one do you think O wise ones?

Speak to some current parents and children at the schools. Ofsted and the grapevine can only tell you so much.

But from your inital summary I would suggest no 1.

Go and visit, talk to the Head, get a sense of the atmosphere. Some schools with great success at GCSEs etc are actually pretty bleak. And see if you can find out about staff turnover (quite how, I don't know, unless you befriend some local teachers) - that's a good indicator of whether the school is a "happy place".

i would choose 1 on the grounds that I think 3 separate sciences and a language are important. It really depends on which subjects you and your dd want her to do.

I think the feel of the school is at least as important as the paper results etc, so you do need to go and look round both with an open mind and consider which one you can see your dd being heppy and settled at.

But on paper I'd say that School 1 will give her more opportunities - both in terms of the subject choices for more academic subjects plus music and drama. If she was not particularly academic, then School 2's vocational subjects might outweigh the lack of separate sciences and language GCSE, but not if her background and ability so far point to university being probable.

I would do #1 as well - as long as the atmosphere is good, and it is a happy place where children are valued, and not just herded through.

If you dd wants to do more vocational courses, then she should be able to go to a local college, or where ever - but it seems it would be harder to go the other way (if she was in school 2 and she wanted to do a language/orchestra etc)

80% is quite high, so even if it slips a bit, then it still has a far way to go before its in trouble.

Why not just ask the headteacher at that school WHY the results have been slipping? There may be a good reason.

Has school 1 had an Ofsted recently? Your description certainly sounds like the school could do with a boot up the backside. But I would still go with school 2 rather than school 2.

(80% is pretty high nationally, especially for a non-selective state school. Many areas don't have any schools with results of this kind of level.)

School 1 without a doubt, because of the limited subject choice in school 2.

school 1 no doubt about it

number 1 - cannot see the dilemma...

number 1 too

But it depends what would best suit your daughters needs obv.

The value added (VA) is interesting. There are some who think that it is not nec a good indicator of how good a school is as it is fairly easy to get a good VA score if the kids coming into the school have rubbish grades to start with as any form of progress will beef up the VA score, but not nec mean amazing GCSE results. I am not saying this is the case however, just quite a widespread opinion amongst teachers.

I would go to open evenings/tours of both, see what you think. Gut feeling of atmosphere of a place is v important.

Also do you know any parents of kids already at either school? they might have some good feedback for you.

Re 3 sciences... by law all secondary schools have to offer 3 sciences to students from Sept 09 so you'll prob find that situation changes in school 2.

Hope that helps!

VA stuff gets on my wick - BIG TIME!

For ours to have a positive result they all have to have like A*'s in everything (which is impossible for a whole year group).

From your descriptions sounds like you've chosen! Which does your child feel most comfortable in. Have 3 at secondary and in the end they did the choosing....

Have the catchment areas changed recently? Might explain changes in results? I think your daughter sounds like she will do well at either school and both have good results. Personally, I'd be worried about how much trips to NY, Sri Lanka and China are going to cost

stillenacht exactly what I was trying to say in a roundabout way! V annoying

Of course i meant that VA scores are annoying not your post

tinker - I thought that too ! Our 'best' school frequently offers trips that are way beyond the means of most of the parents

Funny you should say that about VA stillenacht. As a parent I find VA much more helpful than final GCSE scores in general. Being quite selfish about this I don't really give a stuff what marks others pupils get - but I do want to see that the school makes an improvement while the children are there. If my son who got level 5s in his SATs can improve, I can hope for great things.

However I am thinking of my son's school in a poor catchment, that doesn't acheive brilliant results overall, but has outstanding teaching. VA is very good. I can see it would't be quite so useful in a school with an above average intake.

I just think VA are another load of statistical bullshit tho.

When will anyone ever factor into these things that we are talking about teenagers here - they are unpredictable in many cases.

VA stats i meant