Secondary schoools achieving <30% at GCSE facing closure - this is the MAJORITY of schools in our area!

[tortoiseSHELL]

We live in Bristol, and this news report about which schools are facing possible closure due to not achieving the minimum benchmark says that the MAJORITY of secondary schools in Bristol are on the list!

The education has always been bad here at secondary level, and it is very very stressful thinking about where the kids will go!

I'm still not completely convinced by the private school argument...

All the bright well behaved kids have parents that can afford to pay ? That can't be the whole story.

I can see that if as DG says people who value education move out of Bristol that could cause a swing, but it just seems odd that it affects a whole city rather than a few schools (as in most places).

The whole idea is a load of bollocks though isn't it - I mean if all 600 schools don't turn themselves around they can't just close them down can they?!

Desperate measures of a desperate government sadly.

Dumbeldoresgirl, Gordano in Portishead does have a v good reputation but it serves a v wealthy m/c catchment and I would imagine it is almost impossible for those who live in Bristol to get places there. I went to primary school in Portishead and my old primary is rated 'outstanding' by OFSTED, but if a school based in that catchment wasn't rated outstanding serious questions should be asked - most YR children go in to school already able to read and write!

Snorkle, I ponder the Bristol education system frequently. We are new to the area and deliberately picked our location on the secondary school (although even then, I am not happy with it and look longingly at the private schools that abound round here). All I can say is, a lot of people must be beggaring themselves to get their children through private school as there are simply so many to choose from in Bristol (surely more than in other cities?). Alternatively, they are move out to the catchment areas of better schools eg round where I live. I can think off hand of at least 6 families I know who have done that and I am not a very sociable person!

Having taught in both 'good' and 'challenging' schools I honestly believe that the problem is not the quality of teaching but culture of the area the school is in. In better schools teachers can be much lazier tbh, in difficult schools the pressure is higher, you simply have to be good to survive. The problem often is that a small amount of children can really destroy a school and if a good deal of parents are anti-education its really difficult to attack the culture of failure. A really good head who will work with the LEA to remove the unteachables and bring in more kids from supportive families is the solution imo..

Also, in Bristol, didn't they close down a few failing secondaries without replacing them? So the pupils from Knowle West ended up at Brislington iirc, which didn't do their results any favours. Same for Southmead kids going to Henbury/Monks Park, and Lawrence Weston to Portway.

Seems like that might not have been managed very well.

Attracting headteachers is also a massive problem, why would anyone want that job? Massive pressure, massive workload, relativly poor pay (compared to similarly high pressured massive workload jobs). I agree with the idea that it isn't just poverty thats the problem, but I'm sure that the parents of the kids in these schools have few qualifications. I also think that SEN is underfunded and closing soo many special schools and pru's was a massive mistake.. i could go on and on

They closed down Lockleaze school (a year after spending LOADS of money on equipping the art dept - sensible decision making there), moved Fairfield, closed down another successful school (St Thomas More) - I think I've got those the right way round, but they might be the other way round. Redland Green school is in the wrong place catchment wise, and is impossible to get into. St Mary Redcliffe school is good, but very hard to get to, but that might be possible for us, as might Colston Girls or Bristol Cathedral, depending on how they settle down.

I think my step sister is hoping for St Mary Redcliff for her family TS.

This is one of the annoying things when the govt comes out with these sweeping 'reforms'. There are individual schools that are failing because of various combinations of factors, but in Bristol surely it should be tackled at LEA level, instead of just threatening to shut the schools. They've done that already! And it didn't work.

Don't know much about Bristol - is there a huuuuuge disparity between the best and worst parts of the city? The worst like inner-city Manchester and the best basically being Chelsea-South-West?

It's like that here in Sheffield. You can basically tell which postcode people come from - or make a decent guess - the minute they open their mouths. And all the "good" schools (major obviously required at "good") are in the areas with 200K+ house price brackets. There are about 6 schools in our city threatened by this measure, I believe.

I share others' cynicism about "Academies" - two schools here have been put through this rebranding rebirth and and it doesn't seem to have made a blind bit of difference. Thick, unmotivated kids are still thick, unmotivated kids, whether they are wearing baggy sweatshirts and sitting in old classrooms or wearing nice blazers and sitting in gleaming new state-of-the-art interactive workplace station unit interfaces.

Absolutely every non-grammar within 12 miles of our house is on that list - AND there's a very long waiting list for one of the schools (perceived as the best of a bad lot locally) which got 18%. The school ds was offered got lower than that which is why I had a middle class strop and got him a place at grammar. It's truly appalling and cuts off life choices at such an early age round here.

One of the most positive changes that you can make is to get kids involved in courses that actually appeal to them. We have started offering a Btec in Construction to some of our most demotivated kids, and they are loving it. Because it is mostly portfolio bases they see the effect of each lesson, and getting in means that they can move on to collage and do a full course once they hit 16.

We can't go on pretending that academic style courses suit all kids, as it is obvious that for some kids they are just a big turn off.

our local is still on that list - 21% however hopefully this years results will see an increase.

MB, that's an excellent idea.

Totally agree, MB; one size does NOT fit all.

I bet there are quite a few schools on that list that haven't tackled that issue yet.

the school dh went to in Bristol is on the list. He got his GCSEs and a degree, as did his friends. The school did go downhill a bit after he left, but it was never great. They've now knocked it down and built a brand new school, with great facilities - but the numbers of kids there are still low, and the results not very good.

Our local catchment senior school is on that list, and DD1 is going there over my dead body.

It's not just the lack of academic achievement, it's the overall lack of aspirations and pride that the pupils have. I appreciate that the staff are working hard and with a difficult target group but I don't want to risk my daughter's education for a social experiment.

Peer pressure and social influence is a huge factor in teenagers and I would rather DD1 was friends with teens that have some desire to achieve something in life.

There is something odd about Bristol - I think the whole management of the city is up the creek. It is a wealthy, intelligent town (has a great university etc unlike eg Swindon) yet the schooling is terrible and the healthcare is APPALLING. All the Bristol hospitals are also failing (apart from the eye hospital). I don't understand what it is about that place - I personally think it is something to do with it being a very insular place - I think there are a lot of people there who get public sector jobs because they are from Bristol and their families are known. Certainly my lovely FIL (now deceased) was Chair of the United Bristol Hospitals and he didn't know which way up to put a bedpan and was a country solicitor by profession.

I don't know. But I wouldn't want to give birth, educate children, or get sick there. And I certainly know a few people who have died their earlier than they should have, thanks to the APPALLING cancer care in that city

One of the schools in our area is on the lest. I went there not that long ago and it was one of the most depressing places that I have ever had the misfortune to visit.

It was a 1970s building that was substandard when it first went up, everything screams 'You are shite, kids, and this is all that you are worth'

The windows have to have steel grids over them to stop them getting smashed, but that soes stop the kids from gobbing on the windows underneath.

My dd turned to me (she is 11) and said, 'I can't believe that this is a school , mum. How can people work in a place like this?'

We almost moved to Bristol a few years back - glad we didn't!!

No surprises on that list for my area - one of the schools on the list is closing in the summer anyway!!!!

But the one thing (poor results) does not always indicate the other (bad ethos and shit surroundings).

In the end the only results that matter are your child's. And if the school is improving, the head is fantastic, the teaching is good and the ethos is supportive is it not worth taking a punt? Especially if the alternatives are worse (for different reasons). I think that results cause a sometimes non-sensical knee-jerk reaction in parents - good scores mean a good school, bad scores mean a bad school. Well not always.

There is a big disparity between certain areas of the cities, but that isn't the root cause I don't think. Until 2 years ago there was NO state secondary school serving the Henleaze/Bishopston/WestburyPark/Redland area, which are all fairly affluent areas. So they built a new school, which is highly sought after, in the Redland area, but I believe you have to live ridiculously close to get in. We are not in the catchment, and areas have been divided by the catchment lines. There is only 1 other possible school I would consider, and that is St Mary Redcliffe school, which is a CE school, and we probably would get in. But it is the other side of the city, and ds1 would certainly have to go on his own.

Bristol City Council is shockingly bad. They have NO IDEA what they are doing about anything - in particular education, health, transport. The transport in Bristol is a joke. There is none. The bus system is sporadic and useless imo and that is it. The Council had the money to build a tram system which should have alleviated some of the gridlock in the city centre. But they couldn't agree where to put the terminus, and they argued for so long that the Government took the money back again, so we didn't get a tram system.

So I think they are probably going to have a congestion charge, which is typical of our council - don't provide a service and then charge you double for not having it!

OrmIrian - that's true, and in fact ds1's primary school is not at all the best in the league tables, but we love it because of the ethos, the head, the care the children are given, the extra curricular stuff. But I don't think the secondaries ARE improving.

My parents live just south of Bristol and they used to whinge like mad about their council tax because the rates were so high

Doesn't Bristol have this freemason-like secret society with fingers in all the civic pies?