Loch Ness monster, accessible good state schools and other myths?

[goingforbroke]

We have a one-off opportunity to relocate from London to pretty much anywhere we like in the UK in the coming year. The only real limitation is schooling for our two children (5 and 2). Ideally we would like them to go to a state school and ultimately to go to a (non-selective) secondary school that would give them a realistic chance of getting into Russell Group Uni (or better if they are up to it). Is there anywhere in the UK that offers such schooling opportunities without requiring fits of contortion the likes of which Houdini would have been proud? I concede that many families are able to achieve this goal but I suspect its not without (legitimately) "gaming" the system. What I mean by gaming is (1) moving, perhaps several times, to get into a particular catchment area; (2) "finding" religion to qualify for faith schools;(3) tutoring to help with entrance exams for selective state schools. I'm sure there are others which I haven't thought of too.

Is there anywhere still left on this island where you can arrive mid-year, get a place in a good primary school after which one can have a reasonable expectation of getting into a good secondary school, which will in turn is experienced at successfully getting pupils into good universities...or should I get back to brothers Grimm?

Incidently, I have no ideological axe to grind...purely driven by practicalities of my personal situation.

Yes you could rock up today and get places at our local infant school (described as "just a smidge away from Outstanding" by Ofsted. Fairly rural area so the secondary catchment area is very broad. Sec

A genuine question OP, why are you not keen on sixth form colleges? I went (albeit about a thousand years ago) to a pretty rough comprehensive that didn't have sixth form provision so went to a fab sixth form that offered a broad subject range.

Parts of non Grammar school Herefordshire probably have places too. They fought very hard to stop schools closing.

Thanks for all the tips. A bit swamped now, but I did ask for it! It'll take me while to catch up with replies so please bear with me.

tumbl Herts looks the strongest so, with lots of choice, but I guess one needs to take the population density (and house prices) into account when comparing with some more rural areas. Also, not sure how many of the high performers are genuinely/completely non-selective. That said, definitely worth a closer look, so thanks.

Auntie thanks. I’ll check out Easingwold and Ripon.

Star, 7to25 - Scotland is featuring a fair bit on this thread...with the added benefit of low/no cost for Uni adding a big plus further down the line. Thanks for the tips!

Lonecat Thanks, especially the links! W.Berks looks pretty good with a fair few options which are above national average & with some not afraid to have a go at Oxbridge.

Lemon & Bee Hants is intriguing…there seems to be fewer of the more academically leaning options. Based purely on cursory review of results Peter Symonds and Ringwood are the only two that stand out….and the former is definitely selective, from what I understand.

bluewisteria thanks. I’ve looked at SW before but through the prism of independent schools, not through state non-selectives (had a bit of a damascene conversion, which is a long story). Always loved the idea of living by/near the coast! The Purbeck looks good but probably too far for you?

Until my next installment…

Rural areas are more likely to have genuinely non-selective secondary schools that don't have a catchment with a 300 metre radius, which shrinks every year.

I'd look at living in Chipping Campden School/Cotswold School catchment area. And I'm sure that there are other equally good rural comprehensives.

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I'm in Thornbury (10 miles ish north of Bristol) and there is a choice of good primary schools with places and a good secondary. There are other sreas in South Gloucestershire where you'd find similar too.

goingforbroke:

Just ruling out Birmingham.

State funded grammar system creams off top 5% pupils - entry based on selective exam. Many parents go all out hiring tutors, insisting on lots of practice papers, etc....

As far as I can work out since 2000 - no comprehensive has sent a pupil to Cambridge/ Oxford from Birmingham - only the grammar schools/ private schools.

Primary schools are a mixed bag - some are exceptionally good and others (like our dear St. Mediocre) really don't mind if children leave having barely scraped NC L4c after 9 months of hot housing to do so.

I suspect the further north you go the happier you will be with the school system and my general impression from English settlers in Scotland is the system there is fabulous!

Bromley borough? Good primaries and secondaries in parts of the borough.

You might get a place - people move to independents at 7 a lot to cram for the grammar exams.

OP, Peter Symonds College is most definitely not selective - beyond a reasonable threshold of 5 GCSE Passes for anybody embarking on an A level course. You'd have to walk a very long way to find any school or college that allowed a student to do A levels without at least a few GCSE passes. It's a basic benchmark of their capacity to cope with the demands.

Plenty of students are resitting GCSE Maths or English, which wouldn't be the case in a selective college. Are you confusing it with Hills Road in Cambridge?

Its main feeder schools are equally comprehensive, and it takes from as far away as Salisbury, Portsmouth and Basingstoke. 40-50 go to Oxbridge each year, if that's a measure that floats your boat. High percentage to Russell Group, too. A lot of students leave their private schools to go to PSC.

The factor that means that Winchester is sometimes seen as "selective" is the generally high levels of affluence in the city. This said, it's not without its pockets of absolute and relative deprivation, and its secondary schools are true comprehensives, with pupils from right across the ability, income and social spectra. Primaries can be less mixed, due to their being smaller, but the city nonetheless has primaries with the sort of mix that you seem to want. Stanmore, Weeke, Harestock, Winnall or All Saints, would all spring to mind here.

That doesn't sound particularly hard to find, with the possible exception of the in year admission. Find a good comprehensive school anywhere (my two closest comprehensives are Ofsted outstanding, and the others nearby regularly send pupils to Oxbridge, Russell Group, medicine courses etc. The sixth form college is also excellent, with many students going to very prestigious courses. I'm sure they're are many areas with similar schools) and then ask around top find which schools have vacancies and are good. University towns generally have good schools and places free as academics tend to move fairly frequently.

Another recommendation for Scotland: East Renfrewshire (Williamwood, Mearns Castle high schools) & East Dunbarton (Bearsden/Milngavie).

I'd be wary about Jordanhill. It's admission list is very long (a friend of our's son just got in after 8 years on the waiting list!!).

Dunblane has a good reputation too.

Scottish state schools are done by catchment ie if you live in the area you'll get in.

However, primary one places have already been allocated for this year; if you're in catchment by November you can register at your local school for primary one. It can be harder getting in at P2 onwards, if the school/class is already full - you'd need to contact schools individually yourself.

Back again...

clary encouraging to know that some folks benefit from the education budget :) - my guess is Derby(shire)…?

TinklyLittle sounds like you’re in a good spot! Rural Lancashire hits the spot! I suspect you and gaymonk are right about the London (and MN) distortions. All the more important to be disavowed of such Mad Hatter perceptions…I continue to stand by for pearls of wisdom from beyond the M25!

Elephants thanks – the trouble is the opacity of the information. It’s becoming clear to me that lots of schools are getting kids into RG and Oxbridge, albeit that the aggregate data of a comp looks weak relative to selectives. Such comps by definition have a broad spectrum of ability, with streaming for more able (and therefore RG and Oxbridge-bound). Who knows if my rug rats will ever achieve at that level. All one can wish for is that if they were, the opportunity is there for them to fulfill their potential. Some schools seem intent on burying this most critical of information. Glad to hear that kids in your area are getting fair shot. I’ll take a closer look at Herefordshire too.

Shoe going rural is an emerging theme. Where do you hail from?

AWomb I’m not opposed to Sixth Form Colleges, per se…only many of them are selective, as I understand. My godson was accepted to one but needed 4 or 5A* at GCSE. He also needs to deliver again at AS (ink drying as we speak) in order to continue to A2.

jeee & BS35D been looking at Gloucestershire: Balcarras, Farmor’s & Cotswold Academy stand out – am I on the right track?

PastSell thanks Birmingham sounds like London from a schools perspective! Yes, Scotland seems to be getting fair few endorsements here too.

Derbyshire - the Peak District is lovely and schools around Bakewell, Dronfield etc etc have places and are excellent

It's not unreasonable to ask students to do ok at AS before allowing them to do A2. Non-selective does not mean that a college or school will always allow students to follow a path of study that is clearly not in their best interests.

Tbh, if you're worried about getting into (highly selective) universities, I'm not sure why you'd be worried about sixth forms being selective (based on GCSE results).

Wotton Bassett. (wiltshire)

Nice town, and has a really good secondary school, which is easy to get into if you live in the town.
Local primaries also good.
Not overly expensive

Also Cirencester, has good primaries and secondaries and sixth form college.
Easy to get into secondaries if you live locally, primaries a bit harder, but nothing like London.

Your statistics are a bit out. In many areas around here, there are no school sixth forms, so ordinary state comps feed into sixth form colleges, so you stats should pool comp and sixth form colleges together, rather than put them on one side.

Farmors is a good school, primaries are mostly village CofE schools, many of them quite small. (wouldn't be my first choice)

from what i understand of Balcarras the catchment is quite tight (due to numbers applying) and the house prices are therefore higher within that area (ready to be corrected by any who know better)

whereas Cirencester (Deerpark) Farmors and Wotton Bassett have a much wider catchment

I have just read your last post - sixth form colleges are selective
well, school sixth forms are also selective. You have to re-apply to most school sixth forms, and although there is often priority given to those who were in the lower school, they still have to make the grade.

Not the sixth form at my DCs school. Students do go to Oxbridge/medicine/RG every year but they also provide courses for all students who want to stay on.

Obviously they are selective about which courses you can do depending on your GCSEs.

Rural secondary with huge catchment.

Spaces in every year group OP. You would however have to select where to live carefully for Primary places mid-year but not jumping through hoops difficult.

It also really, really doesn't matter if the sixth form (whether in school or college) is selective (and yes, I agree that they all are in the sense that you won't get on an A-level maths course with a D in your GCSE wherever you study). If the whole aim is to get a child into a RG university (or 'better') then they're going to have to be able to get through that selection procedure. That may well involve looking at the GCSE results, so those would have to be good enough to get in to the sixth form anyway. And you'd need to do well in your AS levels if you were too go on to do well in your A-Levels. You'd be unlikely to turn DEE at AS level into AAB (or above) at A-Level.

It's also ludicrously premature to be planning out the path to university for 5 and 2 year olds. Who knows what they'll be good at when they're 18 or what they'll even want to do. And you have no idea what might happen with university admissions in the next 12-15 years (a lot has changed in the last 15 years).

There are decent schools all over the country whose students routinely get themselves in to RG universities. It's not some fairy tale scenario that a child (especially one with middle class parents with educational aspirations for their children) can go to their local school anywhere and do well enough to get themselves in to any university they like. It happens all the time!

Lemonsole perhaps I am mistaken about Peter Symonds. If a “C” or above ranks as a pass then it’s not an unreasonable threshold. Thanks for the Oxbridge/RG stat – it’s important to me in that it shows that the institution is sufficiently well versed in the process (and let’s be honest, the relationships with the admissions tutors) to enable a candidate to make a viable application. Thanks for the list of primaries. BTW, I’m not looking for any particular social mix, rather I’m looking a system which will allow my kids to follow their interests without being unduly restricted by a school’s focus its’ position in the league tables. It has been a long time since I was in the system, but today’s system seems to a taut as piano-wire with no room for a wobble here and there. For instance, I played a lot of sports in the run up to ‘O’ levels. I did OK, but not as well as I might have because I probably spent too much time on the sports fields. Later, I did better and ultimately went to professional qualifications and post-grad. In the selective systems of today, would I have been given the second chance because I got a B in Chemistry at O-levels rather than an A? I had a go at A level Chemistry all the same.

MollyB thanks for the tip on uni towns.

lotsof thanks for the recs and Jordanhill warning! Can you clarify an element of the system in Scotland? From what I’ve gathered, there is a legal requirement for a school to accept all applicants from its catchment area at point of entry (Reception equivalent). Thereafter, new arrivals are offered a place based on availability and go on a waiting list if that is not consistent with the family’s choice?

BadgerB thanks for recs.

Calamitously I’m not worried about selectiveness at Uni level – at some point it’s unavoidable. I just think it’s important for there to be sufficient slack in the system for my kids to wobble without life-changing consequences (nor be on an unrelenting treadmill of external exams) when they are relatively young in the grand scheme of things. The AS wasn’t always integrated into the A. In the earlier system year 12 exams were purely internal exams. I should imagine that finding oneself without a school to complete the A levels in August post year 12 can’t be great for a kid’ self-esteem and confidence.
BTW, I’m glad to hear that many people have access to such facilities but I am not one of them. My local borough isn’t so blessed. There are only 6 schools that do “A” levels (one only just opened) in one of the most densely populated patches of this island. Of the 6, only 2 have pupils that have been awarded AAB in facilitating subjects and, between them, they send only a handful to RGs (BTW, no comprehensive data published do disguise the hard facts, just the top few trundled out for the local press). Despite this, they are substantially oversubscribed. I haven’t even got to post code wars, gang violence, drive-by shootings and fatalities.

Families to successfully navigate this quagmire, but as I said before, with fits of contortions and much hang-wringing on national offer day. Faith schools, selective schools and indies are the pressure release-valves for those that can/are willing. Others (who can) move.

steppemum thanks for feedback especially on stats – will bear that in mind – shows what a minefield it is to get coherent data. I wasn’t aware that comps filter out candidates after GCSEs!? Somewhat crestfallen – I have yet another detail for which to filter.

Raspberry mild selectivity (e.g. “C” or better) would be understandable, or is the cut-off higher?

Going. Our local sixth form colleges are Runshaw and Winstanley. A quick google will give you some sort of idea of the, often excellent, provision available in the state system.

By the time a now-2-year-old is sixth-form age, your target secondary could have changed beyond recognition. So could the whole exam system.

Are you guessing at your children being quite academic?

Slightly off topic but at the comp where I teach you need to have a B at GCSE to do an A-level in that subject.

This is because we have tried to teach students who got a C and they just can't cope with the leap required. You can get a C at GCSE with a really basic knowledge of the subject (well, you can in my subject anyway)

I think requiring a B is pretty common. DS1 is predicted Cs and Ds and his school (not where I teach) has admitted frankly they have no 6th form provision for him.

Clary' post forms the basis of the Peter Symonds admissions policy. Evidence shows that anything lower than a GCSE B is unlikely to produce an AS pass.