Richmond Borough Schools Chat 5

[BayJay2]

Welcome! This is the latest in a series of threads about Richmond schools, which was first triggered by the council's publication of its Education White Paper in February 2011.

Please do join in the chat. There’s a bunch of us who’ve been following the thread for a long time, and we sometimes get a bit forensic, but new contributions are always welcome, and if it’s something that’s been covered before we can always direct you to that part of the thread.

We generally talk about local education policy, the impact of national policy, the performance of the borough’s schools, and admissions-related issues. We began by talking about Secondaries, but tend to talk a lot about primaries too, so the title of the thread has evolved this time to take that into account.

If you have a few hours to spare and want to catch up on 2 years of local education history, then below are the links to the old threads. We have to keep starting new threads because each only hold 1000 posts. The first two threads run in parallel, as one was started on the national Mumsnet site, and another on the local one:

1a) New Secondaries for Richmond Borough?: Mumsnet Secondary Education (Feb 2011 – Nov 2011)
1b) New Secondary schools for Richmond!: Mumsnet Local (Feb 2011 – Nov 2011)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 2: Mumsnet Local (Nov 2011 – May 2012)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 3: Mumsnet Local (May 2012 – Nov 2012)

1. New Secondary Schools for Richmond 4: Mumsnet Local (Nov 2012 – Oct 2013)

1. This thread: Richmond Borough Schools Chat 5: Mumsnet Local (Oct 2013 - ????)

Finally, to find out how to add links, as well as smilies and emphasis, see these Mumsnet guidelines.

netballcourt I can't find evidence for or against but could the 82% figure be for 5 GCSEs excluding Maths and English? That would still be interesting if equivalents have been rejigged this year so that a practical BTEC course may just be worth one GCSE instead of two or three. Orleans Park has in recent years scored about 80% on that measure - it doesn't do many BTECs or D&T options - while Grey Court scored about 99%, the headline figure with E&M still being fairly similar. Some parents don't bother looking at this, but I like to think every child has the chance to do well in subjects they enjoy, even if where they might struggle in traditional academic subjects. Hampton Academy does have good facilities and courses in performing arts, for example.

It would be more honest if every school produced both figures, and then gave contextual notes, rather than trying to fudge the issue.
I heard a group of local parents at the nearby Palewell Park Saturday football clubs ( local children primary upwards) who seemed to have formed the view that Richmond Park Academy were probably holding back publication of their results until the Year 7s were installed in the school, to avoid parents being shocked and choosing alternative options - obviously less likely to do when the Dc are used to the school, making friends bribed with bait of PGL trip etc. Local parents are very well aware of the difference between 5 A*-C inc E&M, and excluding.
So far, neither stat has been published, which cannot be good for local confidence. This could have a knock-on effect on next year's intake if the school are perceived to be trying t pull the wool over people's eyes.

In recent years (see 2013 example here) the Education & Children's Services Department have reported provisional exam results for formal scrutiny, early in the Autumn term, with all results in a standard format.

However, the scrutiny process has now been redesigned, and the E&CS department has been transformed into Achieving for Children, so I don't know if the same thing will happen this year.

I agree it's confusing, and I like to compare data too, but consider:

(a) Results are provisional - appeals are still going on.

(b) It's the case that all schools been selective in giving info - I haven't seen any information on Ebacc pass rates for any of the schools that have been traditionally successful, for example. Maybe the data in terms of individuals (rather than entries) is still being validated.

(c) 'Official' full results are published by the DfE in January for detailed comparison. For 2013 results you can download full data on courses, grades, etc. per school here, under 'Associated resources' and perhaps they will publish 2014 results in January 2015.

(d) The 5 A-C score including English and Maths measure was arguably easiest to game, especially if equivalents were counted, and encouraged schools to focus on the C/D borderline rather than stretching brighter pupils. That's why the league tables are being redesigned for 2016.

It could be the case that where schools are trying harder to meet the Ebacc measure, encourage more to sit for single sciences and languages, etc. there's more of a risk of unpredictable or lower grades. That could be the case for RPA, but perhaps it was necessary for them to adjust the curriculum in this way rather than go for 'easy' passes. It's worth asking them directly.

(e) For all those applying to schools now for 2015 entry, extra printed information on results is almost always available from the school at the open days and they will/should answer questions from parents.

Mummytime , the reason why the A-C in Eng & Maths is vitally important is that most 6th forms ( don't know about RPA as theirs is new so they may have relaxed the reqs) have a strict requirement for min Eng & Maths Grade c in order to do A levels ( any A levels). Therefore the A-C without Eng & Maths is misleading, and in fact I would be very suspicious of a school where that was dramatically lower, as it would indicate they are gamin the system by going for softer subjects.
Parents really need to be aware of the tyranny requirement for the Eng & Maths GCSE min C grade, as I have seen several DC having real problems with 6th form courses as a result of missing the C. Schools owe it to parents and DC to make it very clear what their results are for Eng & maths, not just cherry-picking one that has improved (Eng in the case of RPA?), and also their value-added.

Sorry, I mean MuminLondon

I agree the 5 A-C figure is misleading if you can't compare like with like and Maths and English are important subjects. If you were to ask a school directly about their results they shouldn't refuse to give you an answer because you could demand it under freedom of information. If they held back from distributing it at open evenings then I'd join you in being suspicious. Is RPA the only school not to have given that figure or is it also the same at HA and TA?

Hi, no idea about those schools as RPA is the nearest school so of greater interest to people with primary DC in this road

I can't see that headline figure for Christ's on their website either.

I think the reporting on the RTT article is confusing, actually.

For example, it gives clearly states 5 A-C pass rates of 78-83% for Teddington, Grey Court and Waldegrave 'including English and Maths'. But then at Orleans Park '80 per cent of students achieving at least 5 A* to C grades'. If you look at their website it's actually 68% including E&M but that's not given in the RTT.

At the end of the article, the 'overall pass rates' at the end are for entries, not pupils. I'd be wary of the figures for A/A: brighter pupils are often entered for extra subjects where they get top grades (e.g. three sciences, statistics, additional maths, Latin), and if you restrict single sciences to the top 20% ability set of the school you are more likely to achieve a majority of A/As.

At least Christ's do list all the subjects, and show a very respectable 78% for maths. Parents who have to list their preferences for secondary very soon are likely to be unimpressed by RPA not even showing the list. Foe those us who are not religious, the Christ's boundaries are now quite tight, so no longer a realistic option anyway

I agree it would also be more informative if they gave the actual numbers as percentages can be misleading - you could eg score 66% if you only had three entrants for a subject and two got grade C... if that was the case, three out of class of 30 taking the GCSE would not be impressive....

I'd expect them to distribute a list at the open evening. Or be grilled by parents like you who, understandably, want transparency.

I am not the grilling type, so will need a stiff drink beforehand...

For info, next week's Admissions Forum agenda is now online, here, including a report on the Reception and Year 7 applications for 2014.

I've also noticed that schools don't publish detailed results on each subject until they've all been verified/appealed etc. which can be well into the New Year. Do grill them Mrs SM - I'm sure they will be expecting it. You can grill individual subject teachers as you wander round - you don't have to do it during the Head's question and answer session!

On a slightly different subject does anyone have any idea how many students have enrolled in each of the school sixth forms? Not covered by the admissions forum I see. I would have thought LB Richmond would be concerned about that given how much money it has sunk in the project. There doesn't seem to be any information on any of the schools websites.

LProsser that is a very good point. I was wondering about that too. I have heard that there are only 31 at RPA, but not seen it verified anywhere. Would be interesting to see across the Borough.

Richmond Sixth Form College was created out of the Tech in the 70s because the school sixth forms were too small to be viable and they could only offer a narrow choice of subjects.

Chris - from what I have seen they are offering quite a wide choice of A-levels but not much else. They only have half the number of places of lower years in the school and it has obviously been anticipated that a lot of students will go elsewhere especially for vocational courses. However I'm not sure if the places they are offering are getting filled. I think Teddington has had a reasonable level of uptake but it isn't totally full. I'm not sure if it has hung onto all or most of its high achievers. The situation in the sixth forms has quite a big knock on effect lower down the school as the schools do their best to recruit good teachers most of whom want to teach A-level.

Agree about the knock on effect, which is one of the reasons the Richmond schools struggled until recently - people who could afford to send their DC to independent schools with 6th forms did so.
Even so, people I know with DC doing GCSEs now re very wary of being guinea pigs early adopters and are still preferring Esher College as a well proven establishment. will take a big leap of faith for people to bet on the new fledgling 6th forms - especially when the teaching will mostly be done by people with no recent (if any) experience, and no experience of university applications.

BayJay in reference to the 2014 Admissions report, there are schools with classes with over 30 children in reception if I read that correctly? What a shambles. At least I did my bit by moving out of borough....

The School Admissions Code applies to all children in all boroughs so it's not going to be better elsewhere - exceptions to rules on class sizes include late applicants who have SEN or are looked after, twins and children of service personnel. Some boroughs have even worse shortages than RuT like Wandsworth.

BTW, was wondering how free school meals was affecting Richmond? I heard that the amount per head given is lower than some schools were getting from parents so they having to jiggle finances. That on top of constant building works is a hassle I'm sure they could do without.

RPA does seem to be getting its act together. And, I suppose, fair to take into account when comparing with private schools that these have a selected intake and should be doing better but if comparing like with like, perhaps not such a difference?

Mrs SM - the schools have all recruited quite a lot of new staff with A-level experience to teach the sixth form, and new Heads of Sixth Form who are very experienced and know all about University admissions so that is not such a worry. The worry is that they won't have recruited enough A-level students to hang onto all those shiny new staff for very long!

The Orleans Park Head reported their Sixth Form numbers at a meeting last night for parents from (former) feeder schools - 110 students in total, 90 of whom were their own students staying on. They said that was more than expected for the opening year - I think they have room for 250 in total across both Sixth Form year groups, so it sounds pretty healthy.

She also said that their newly recruited staff will be teaching across all year groups, not just in Sixth form.

And Waldegrave have 120 too.