Secondary schools: retention from feeder primaries

[Cornopean]

Still sitting here in south-east England waiting for our house to sell and feeling ill, so I've resorted to some more data gathering and crunching about Edinburgh schools, focusing on which catchment secondary schools retain the most pupils from their primary feeder schools. One interesting fact: even adjusting for the fact that primary schools contain seven year groups and secondary schools only six, the primary school population is 19% bigger than the secondary. Some of this is due to rising birth rate (19% from 2003-2009, a little recent to directly account for this increase, but the earliest I've found), some will be due to pupils leaving secondary before Highers, and some will be due to going into private schools or moving out of the city.

There is much information I can't find in sufficient detail to draw conclusions (e.g. post-16 leaving rate, take-up of Advanced Highers), so the absolute numbers here aren't so important, but the difference between schools is enlightening. For comparison, I've also included the latest HMIE quality rating (simplified), school roll, and a single-figure, value-added Highers result, which takes account of all A-C Highers results and adjusts for % of free school meals, normalised to 100.

123% Gracemount High, Very good- (2013), 632 pupils, Value added highers: 26
113% Balerno High, Good (2011), 784 pupils, VAH: 43
113% Craigmount High, Good (2009), 1274 pupils, VAH: 48
102% Currie High, Very good- (2007), 812 pupils, VAH: 51
99% Leith Academy, Satisfactory- (2008), 901 pupils, VAH: 35
95% Trinity Academy, Good- (2014), 883 pupils, VAH: 33
89% Boroughmuir High, Good+ (2008), 1139 pupils, VAH: 64
89% Portobello High, Good (2007), 1336 pupils, VAH: 39
89% The Royal High, Very good- (2007), 1250 pupils, VAH: 49
84% Queensferry Community High, Good- (2009), 789 pupils, VAH: 48
82% Firrhill High, Good (2006), 1111 pupils, VAH: 53
82% James Gillespie’s High, Very good- (2010), 1129 pupils, VAH: 64
77% Broughton High School, Satisfactory+ (2011), 908 pupils, VAH: 40
77% Drummond Community High, Good (2009), 502 pupils, VAH: 34
71% Liberton High, Satisfactory+ (2014), 650 pupils, VAH: 29
64% Wester Hailes Education Centre, Satisfactory (2010), 345 pupils, VAH: 33
58% Craigroyston High School, Good (2015), 400 pupils, VAH: 15
54% Forrester High, Good (2009), 628 pupils, VAH: 25
50% Tynecastle High, Satisfactory+ (2008), 560 pupils, VAH: 26
42% Castlebrae High, Weak+ (2011), 251 pupils, VAH: 11

Gracemount probably takes a significant share of erstwhile Liberton pupils, but then Liberton probably takes some of Castlebrae's prospective pupils (two Liberton feeder schools also feed one of the other secondaries).

Schools above 100% attract more students from out of catchment than they lose from their nominated feeder primaries. Traditionally near-top-of-league-table secondaries such as Firrhill and James Gillespie's stand out as lose a significant portion of their feeder populations despite good performance in exams. Some of this will be to private schools, some may be out-of-catchment students who managed to get a place in the primary but not the secondary.

Well I found it interesting anyway.

V ery interesting - especially interested to read about Gracemount as I went there, and Drummond as it's catchment for my dcs. I think people get caught up with anecdotal ideas about what schools are like, and are very focused on private schools in Edinburgh (this board very much so) so it's good to see some quantitative evidence re quality of schools. For example most people I know wouldn't consider gracemount yet I enjoyed my schooling and attended a Russell group uni after 6th year and have gone on to do 2 further degrees so the teachers did something right to instill a love of learning!

Interesting. I didn't enjoy my schooling (non-Edinburgh) but also went to a top-10 uni and did two more degrees, a post-doc and became a lecturer! Doing something completely different now I have kids. I'm not sure I'd want to send my DCs to the worst performing school (like I went to) as you don't learn much when half the teachers spend all their time trying and failing to control the class. But I'd definitely consider most Edinburgh schools.

We've seen some nice flats in the Drummond catchment that we could probably afford (if any are available once we've sold down south) - which feeder school do your dcs attend?

They're not yet school aged but the eldest will attend broughton primary next year - we are considering a house move hence my interest in schools and catchment areas. We love it around here and happy enough with school options (dm is a teacher and I have friends with dcs at the primary so have awareness of schools in that respect) so likely to stay in area, but we were also considering elsewhere. I know what you mean re unruly classmates - I think Drummond will be interesting due to area and also high level of EASL students but haven't heard bad things re behavioural aspect.

Broughton high is another which I think loses a good portion to private schools. I'd imagine trinity and royal high might as well. Balerno used to get a lot of out of catchment requests from West Lothian. I'd guess a fair number of the missing Forrester kids are at Craigmount, the WHEC kids are at Currie or Forrester...

Stay on rates will have a big impact too. I grew up near WHEC and Forrester and the staying on to higher rates were pretty low then. I think they've improved a bit but they'll look quite different to somewhere like Boroughmuir or Gillespies.

Yes, if fewer pupils stay on to highers, they will drop down this list, whereas if some pupils stay on to do advanced highers, that will move the schools up the list. I'm sure you're right about movements of kids, equally I suspect that Trinity and Royal High lose some but pick up others. But we'd need anonymised data about every single pupil in Edinburgh over many years to draw precise conclusions about who goes where, and quite sensibly that's not readily available to the idly curious :)

Oh I wasn't criticising - just explaining from a local's perspective why some of the numbers might be what they are IYSWIM as it's not a straight "good" school=higher percentages thing.

Some of the schools would be screwed if all of the catchment pupils wanted places I think - I'm pretty sure that Boroughmuir, Gillespies, Royal High are over their current capacity already. Broughton isn't at capacity but according to the council website has no places available so I think might be full in the younger years.

God help us in the next few years...the birth rate increase hasn't hit the high schools yet.

Didn't mean to imply you were criticising, never even thought it :) I'm keenly aware how, in my attempts to come up with alternative ways of ranking and rating schools, I'm just as guilty of incredibly oversimplifying things by condensing entire, nuanced inspection reports and quality grades into a single rating.

Certainly percentage of retention doesn't easily correlate with either inspection ratings or the value-added highers score. Lower retention does match lower scores, but each school has its own complex range of factors informing retention. As an outsider I can guess at some of them.

Given the birth rate increase, and people like us looking to move into Edinburgh with kids, I can't see a solution that doesn't involve some realignment of catchment areas, so it probably doesn't do to get too attached to a particular school unless you [will] live next door to it. Plus there will have to be some new build of primaries and a secondary around Shawfair.

Apparently 1 in 4 children in Edinburgh go private; that will skew any statistics. Many will attend state primary until p5 & there seems to be a mass exodus at that point (as it's the latest point in some schools where a secondary private place is guaranteed).

My dd who is in a small high school in S3 was complaining about stats. She pointed out they had 33 in S6 in the past year while another local high had 140. But when it came to absence, one off in her school would have a a high absence rate, while the other local school could have more off but it would still make it look like their absence rate was lower.

She's off the opinion they need to adjust stats according to the number of pupils per year.

Realistically I think another school is needed (both primary and secondary) in the city centre somewhere, but god knows where they would put them. Some areas catchment realignment is a good solution and one which is going to have to happen whether parents like it or not. Our catchment primary is full (and has already been extended, is using the library, composite classes etc), the school to the west of that is full, as is the one to the west of that. To the east there is a little space in the next school I think but not much. Schools to the south are also full I think, and north is another school where they're having to build in the playground. Bit of a mess! I know there are lots of other areas which are just as bad too.

this link triggers download which shows what the council were thinking about doing for South East and West Edinburgh. Has a useful table which shows where the pupils from Forrester, Craigmount and Royal High actually went too (of the 870 catchment pupils for Forrester, 217 were at Craigmount based on 2012/13 numbers)

lotsofcheese - I was actually expecting a higher difference between primary and secondary than 19% for that very reason, as that's largely explained by increases in birth rates, and suggests that only a few per cent actually do state schooling then private. That may be concentrated in a few primary schools though, making it seem more significant than it is.

GrooveeCar - great that your dd is engaging with stats. Unfortunately if you just gave the number of absences, you would then need to know how big the school was to work out if, say, five absences was a lot or not. Percentages become less useful as the numbers decrease but do mean that a single figure can directly be compared from one school to another without having to do further adjustments.

StatisticallyChallenged fascinating link. There are of course various old school sites around - might have to evict the flat-dwellers and unconvert them! Tollcross might have more capacity now the Gaelic school has moved out? There is also scope for intelligent redistribution of services. For example, St Crispin's special school apparently has a large, city-wide catchment but the buildings look sub-standard. Given the importance to many of its students of a familiar and consistent environment, if its area in Newington would be desirable for a new school (I'm assuming Sciennes is over-full), rather than piecemeal rebuilding perhaps St Crispins could gain a new site and building somewhere with less local pressure on places (the site of one of the closed primaries from 2010?), carefully manage a one-stage move there, then have a new primary rebuilt on the old site. And so on - I'm not actually suggesting St Crispins should move, but just giving it as an example of the type of solution. The council may need to buy some more sites but there is always plenty of development so the sites exist and solutions like the one I mention mean that the new purchase might not always have to be in the most expensive areas of the city.

I think you're right re Tollcross actually, I'd forgotten about them moving so many out. I'm surprised they haven't redrawn that boundary already

I found this which show she rolls from 2011 along with capacities and projections. I've got a feeling that some of the projections wound up being on the low side - our nearest is off by about 5% by 2013. The capacities hide a lot of problems though as it includes a fair few portacabins and dodgy annexes, and spaces will be unevenly distributed with the older classes having space and the younger ones crammed in like sardines. It looks like the birth rate kept climbing until at least 2012.

I think part of the problem is that there is huge resistance to catchment and high school alignment changes. Some of them just don't make much sense anymore but changing them is always so contentious! Roseburn Primary for example - it feeds to Craigmount. But you could stand on the roof of Roseburn and throw stones at Tynecastle (ok maybe with a small catapult.) Tynecastle is half empty according to the figures I found. So rather than extending Forrester as per that document why don't they just realign the Tynecastle catchment to take Roseburn in, which would create capacity at Craigmount. Cos they'd have a war on I suspect .

Moving the Gaelic medium unit out of Gillespie's was also discussed at one point...funnily enough to Tynecastle. Apparently parent opposition was high

I've heard it said that many parents now regard Gaelic Medium Education as an alternative to the private sector that ensures your children are only schooled with others who come from similarly engaged parents, but perhaps those who can't afford private schooling. It also "guarantees" a place at Gillespie's from all over the city. I understand that Broughton Primary has lost a number of children to the Gaelic school now it has moved nearby. While I'd rather like DCs to learn Gaelic at some point (maybe I will too!), as DD will be moving from a market town to a big city hundreds of miles away, I don't think starting school in an entirely unfamiliar language about a year later would be helpful in the whole settling process.

I have to take issue with your post above "corno".

It would be rare that those who have knowledge of the Gaelic, would agree with anything you have stated.

Also equating Gaelic to Private Schools?!

Hi Athens, all except my last sentence was virtually quoted verbatim from conversations in person a couple of months ago with a group of mums whose DC either will go or do go to the Gaelic school, and would otherwise have gone to Broughton/Drummond, but they opted for GME because it would get them into Gillespies and they preferred the environment/other kids. Some did appreciate the learning of a second language, for others it seemed to be a pleasant side-effect, which surprised me. They were encouraging me to send my DCs there too. The "private schooling for those who can't afford it" was the attitude they warned me to expect from local friends and relatives who didn't send their DCs there, particularly if said DCs did go private. Sorry if I didn't make it clear that it wasn't my own opinion or views I was quoting. Do please share your experiences of GME, I have no direct experience of it.

And as for my opinion "I don't think starting school in an entirely unfamiliar language about a year later would be helpful in the whole settling process." I would very much welcome any informed comment on whether I'm right there too.

Thank you for daring to disagree Athens, I'd genuinely love your own take on what I've been told, and I'm sorry if my post riled you.