specialist schools

[materpuerorum]

How does the spcialist schhol system operate. Presumably the point is that you can send your chilrden to school, which has a specialism you find important. Therefore can you refuse to send your children to school if it has a specialism you don't find important (such as in my case sport)?

I think schools have the specialisms because they are then allowed to select a small percentage of the intake.
Though lots don't take up the selection option.
You would think that you might be able to pick the most appropriate specialism for your child.
But I think that's as empty a hope as the whole school choice notion is .
In the state sector anyway.

I think that specialism is a red herring. The school can select up to 10% of its intake but that means that the other 90% are the usual non-selected, comprehensive types.
In my experience, schools don't make a great thing of their specialism - there may be some extracurricular provision - but the main thing is the additional funding that the specialism brings with it, which most schools spread across the whole curriculum.

Although you may not find sport important, it can't be a bad thing to have a school that specialises in such a thing. Our local comp just about manages to raise a football team and that is it. If your intended school can manage several different sports for both sexes, plus a bit of healthy living and general exercise, then that must be a good thing, surely.

Besides, as violet says, you don't have a choice; you can only express a preference.

You are being hugely optimistic OP!

The specialisms in the main don't have much bearing on admissions. Although schools CAN accept up to 10% on aptitude in their specialism the vast majority don't (those that do mostly seem to have music as their specialism).

I naively looked around a school with a maths specialism thinking it would be a good choice for ds (who is extremely able in maths). The head told me they only had the specialism so they got extra funding for fancy whiteboards and new teachers & there was virtually zero chance of out-of-catchment ds going there unless we moved.

Friends' ds just did GCSEs at his school, which happened to be a sports academy. He's not sporty at all but it was compulsory to take GCSE PE. Hopefully the C in PE won't matter at all with the rest of his A/A* grades...

Don't know if that was related to being an academy or if other schools have a similar policy?

The "sports college" that I know does NOT make GCSE PE compulsory, and is in fact a very academic school. They used the specialism money to invest in superb gym facilities which are used by both students and the local community, and the emphasis is on fitness and healthy living.

So I agree-don't let the specialism guide you much, but look at the whole school. Usually it all boils down to catchment areas in any case.

DS1 is at school with technology specialism and all pupils must take a technology option.

DS was accepted on aptitude for technology at a science and technology status school. We are out of catchment but they take 10% on aptitude.

They do seem to be science orientated but it may seem that way to us because of ds's interests.

A local school to us is a language specialist. Those who are accepted on aptitude for language got to do two languages in yr7 including Japanese.

The Sports Academy near us has dire results

It has also closed and re-opened with a new name twice (latest is as this Sports Academy) but I am soooo glad it is on the other side of town and not one of our immediate choices. (Original school had 7% GCSE pass rate for 5 A-Cs).

DDs school was specialist Maths & Science but they make no mention of this on the entrance criteria (Catchment is all), and DSs is specialist Humanities - but as a Grammar it is all by entrance exam.

I think they schools choose specialisms to get extra funding for those subjects.