Oxford - Wolvercote and Phil & Jim's

[Relph]

Does anyone have experience of either of these two schools? We've got a place for September at Wolvercote, which I'm pleases with as it seems a nice school, but our original first choice was Phil & Jim's, so I need to decide whether to go on the waiting list there. (If we got a place, we'd automatically lose the Wolvercote place with no consultation, so I need to decide now.)

So, my question is, does Phil and Jim's deserve it's great reputation? Are there negatives to it? Or should we just be glad we got Wolvercote and stick with it?

I thought the same teacherwith2kids my local bog standard comp has better results when comparing on dashboard

This article suggests that there have recently been some problems at Phil and Jim's:

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/archive/2015/03/25/11877084.Parents_want_action_as_report_criticises_school_management/

From what I've heard by word of mouth, however, both Wolvercote and Phil and Jim's are very good schools.

I admit I become annoyed by various Oxford parents I'm acquainted with who have decided that Phil and Jim's is the ONLY state primary in Oxford good enough for their little darlings, so they move heaven and earth in order to end up in that catchment area. My own view is that there are a number of other primary schools in Oxford where the teaching is just as good as at Phil and Jim's and where the academically able children will be just as 'stretched'. But P & J's results look better on paper because almost all of the children come from privileged families in North Oxford, so the results of all the pupils are quite consistent across the board. Schools in other parts of Oxford have a more diverse intake (more children on free school meals, more children from non-native-English-speaking families, etc) and the results reflect this diversity, but in actual fact, when you look more closely at the data and break down the performance of individual groups, the middle-class children in these schools are achieving as well as the kids from P & J's, or better.

Rant over.

Oh and Sunsetgirl, I suspect that Poppy's knowledge of the Spires is more informed than yours. I live locally to the Spires and it really is incredibly different to the kind of school it was a few years ago. It was a school in trouble and was therefore compelled to become an academy (early on before the Department of Education adopted its vision of all secondary schools becoming academies) and a dynamic, very able new headteacher arrived, and the school received a ton of money and has lots of sparkling new facilities. While I doubt that anyone would choose the Spires over Cherwell, lots of parents are now certainly choosing it over Cheney. This is because behaviour at the Spires is excellent and because the school is small enough to give pupils lots of individual attention. So the Spires's intake is changing and many more middle-class children are going there. However, these changes aren't showing up much in the exam results yet because the cohorts of pupils whose parents actually CHOSE the school (as opposed to the earlier cohorts who mostly just went there because they lived close by) haven't arrived at exam stage yet.

In other words, a few years ago, the East Oxford parents I know who valued academic achievement wouldn't have sent their kids to the Spires. Now they ARE sending them there.

OK, fine, I will stay out of the discussion about secondaries but my back was already up about how she said the school was trying to push lower achieving students out.

Yes, P&J is a very normal school, with children on a very normal scale of academic distribution. There are few children from areas of deprivation and therefore fewer of the problems that deprivation brings.

Interesting Oxford Mail article and interesting comments below it. There was a very low staff turnover when I was there.

Sorry, it is just what I have heard. I didn't want to upset anyone. if it isn't true then surely it hardly matters really.

A lot of schools have high staff turnover now and it can be for a variety of reasons: head, workload, No matter how will you do it not being good enough, browbeating, higher expectations/lower resources and staff.

A parent with kids at Phil and Jim once said to me that a lot of pupils have extra tuition and that is the reason for their high results.
Suggesting that less academic kids are asked to leave is ridiculous.

Do parents honestly believe their results are high? [surprised]

Just had a look - in 2014 SATs L4+ 88%, L5+ 51%.
Nat. average for that year 4+ 79%
LA average 78%.

So yes, reasonably high.

It is odd, because the 5+ figure is high - but the 4+ figure comparatively low. Local primary here usually has a lower 5+ figure, but ranges between 93 and 98% L4+ for the last few years - and that's just a normal run of the mill primary, not a 'honeypot' school.

I think they also get a lot of kids with English as a second language, kids who only stay for a year or two, etc.
No personal experience as a parent but have visited it and it seems friendly and relaxed.
Wolvercote, afaik is a nice school too, and no less academic. And it's non-denominational, which to me is a plus.
Btw it is only Wolvercote village, or Lower Wolvercote, that has priority for Cherwell, not all of it.

Same here teacherwith2kids

I'd also wonder why there has been such a drop in results from 2013-14, as shown in the dashboard, or whether 2013 was a freak 'high' year in a run of fairly mediocre results.

Totally unhelpful, but my mum went to Wolvercote (she started in 1952 ??) and she loved it!

(Apologies for data geekery from someone not resident in Ixford. I just find it interesting how some schools can become 'somewhat mythic' in their local reputation but this is not borne out by their actual results. I mean, I don't know the city well but have heard of the school, whereas I have not heard of any of the other Oxford schools. However its results stack up very poorly against my 3 most local primaries, which no-one out of the immediate radius of the schools will ever have heard of. Equally true of Cherwell as a comprehensive secondary.)

teacher it's not really about the results, it's for want of a better word, the ethos and the 'feel' of the schooL that parents like. (Cherwell)

I have said it before and I will say it again. Oxford is pretty deprived and has large amounts of Eal in parta. Other parts are massively wealthy and/or educated. Total splil down the middle. Cherwell is mythical in Oxford because for years it was the only state scjoola anyone wanted to send their kids too. You have to know Oxford to understand it.

Everyone has tutors these days. It is just ridiculous the pressure on anyone.

Yes, but someone upthread said:
"Cherwell School (rated as one of the best state secondary schools in the country)"

and while I am sure that parents do like it - and it may well be the best amongst a fairly low-performing group of secondaries - that doesn't make it excellent on a country-wide scale IYSWIM?

A level wise they send people to top Unis. Maybe that was what is meant? They get a large intake from private schools into their A levels. It is absolutely massive and when I did some work there (2 years back) one of the largest schools in thr country. It runs its oen academy federation and lkke I said sends a loy of people to top universities. Far amount of SEN and the like as well.

(It ranks between 151 and 200 amongst schools in the South East in terms of GCSE results - yes, some above it are independent, others are grammar, but plenty are comprehensive)

I don't know. I wasn't saying it was 'amazing.' Just really big and really good for A Level. If I was choosing I'd send my kid to Spires until GCSE and then Cherwell for A Levels. I wouldn't like it for GCSE. Saw too many behaviour there and you have to be very independent to survive. Its a factory... although key stage 3 are in smaller site.

I think it was Bubbles who made the statement I quoted.

Again, its A-level results aren't amazing - 20+ points in total score below my local comp, with average result per A-level expressed as C+ (as opposed to B- for my local comp). But I can see that 'in its context' it becomes a destination school.

If your kid is going to get into the top sets rhey do really well. You'd have to be sure they would, take the risk socially and emotionally that they would cope there. If they do get into top sets they do very well. And alot of people are tutored up too. Rupert Friend went there... many other actors and musicians whose names completely escape me. It's an outstanding school. Not everything are by that stupid a to c criteria. Behaviour management I didn't think qas good. They could learn a lot form Oxford Academy because despite being smack in thr middle of one of the most deprived estates on Europe and witb the worst results in thr country, or one of them, the head takes no nonsense. All schools are contextual. What they over their children is also conrextual. You don't always ad value to someones life by getting an A. Sometimes it can be discipline and learning to cooperate with an agenda.

I think if you look at a level results it comes very high in league tables.

As a parent I don't recognise the school Poppy describes, not that I think it's perfect, just never had any worries on behaviour, if anything I found them pretty strict e.g automatic detention for late homework.

There was also a Tatler article a few months ago about desirable schools and it was one of the few state schools to make it into that, obviously a nod to any poorer readers.

Obviously being the son of a mumsnetter my son was always in top sets

Lots of schools in Oxford have kids coming and going, maybe only staying for a year or two. That has its positives but probably affects results as well.