"feeder schools"

[nearlymumofone]

I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't seem to understand how the education system works. dcs are 3&1 I would like them to go to the local primary school but this is a non faith school and I've been told that it "feeds" into a "satisfactory" secondary school and so their education will be doomed! How does the system work? What are feeder schools and how are children selected for secondary schools? I feel like I'm the only person who just can't seem to understand this! - I'm sure it can't be that difficult

many thanks for that. It's all a lot clearer now!

Also, the fact that a Secondary school is "satisfactory" does not necessarily mean that their education will be doomed

For a start, schools can change huge amounts in less than three years, let alone 8
as can government policy about Ofsted gradings

and if its a comp school, you have to look at what it achieves with each cohort of pupils
DCs school looks dire compared to a selective, but there are about 70 kids who are going to go places in her year ... the detail is all ...

Also check if the education authority plans to make any changes. Feeder school status was removed here about 3 years ago and 5 years notice was given of the change.

If you live in a rural area the feeder school will school in villages that have a school bus service to the secondary. You can chose to go to a different secondary but you will have to sort out your own transport arrangements.

My DD1 is in Yr1 so I am just getting to grips with all this myself. Her primary is a 'feeder' for the secondary that was the second worse in the cities for results but after becoming an academy seems to be doing much better. The kids who go there seem nice enough though.

The info pack when DD started the school included a list of the schools the latest Yr6 had all gone on to. There was a wide variety including the local comp that the school was feeder for, grammers, a couple of independant and a variety of other states secondaries across the city. Could you ask whether the local primary has something similar to give you an idea of choices parents make for secondary?

Also check out whether it is an official feeder school (or the sort Tiggytape refers to) or an unofficial feeder school - i.e. not a feeder school at all.

People round here talk about DD's school as a 'feeder' for X secondary school. It isn't though. It's just that, because of the area where most of the pupils live, most of them live in the catchment area for X and so most of them go there (We have a weird situation where primaries are done on distance mostly, but the secondaries have catchment areas drawn on a map due to them being really oddly distributed geographically). There are still plenty who go elsewhere though.