Good vs Outstanding school (again)

[ric1982]

Hi,

My daughter currently goes to Good (Widney Junior inspected in 2018) school (as shown in the comparison list below). She has just been offered a place in outstanding school (Shirley Heath inspected in 2012).

The school she currently goes is little further from our house while the outstanding school she has been offered is nearer.

Now looking at the overall performance at end of key stage 2 it looks like her current school is better. Also her current school has less pupils (about 100 less) than the offered outstanding school. We don't want to just move because its nearby.

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

Choosing a school isn't an exact science, please dont prioritise meaningless Ofsted reports over whether the school is best fit for your children and other practical issues.

Thanks everyone for their responses.

We have visited the outstanding school and tbh it made us more confused! The outstanding school not as good as her current school but it not horrible so that we can cross it off. and it would be too early to judge by just 15 mins visit anyway.

We are now thinking (with spreadsheet) what boxes both can tick. Now really down to following things. .

Widney Junior (Her current school) : Distance 20 mins walk, 251 pupils (2 classes for year 3), Not lot of free extra activities but good with Music etc.

Shirley Heath Junior School : Distance 7 mins walk, 359 pupils 4 classes for year 3 and 3 classes for year 4,5, 6), More free extra activities. Good with football, cricket etc.

For our little one we have enquired and they said there is another feeder school that gets priority in Widney Junior but there are usually 5-6 extra places on which my son would be able to get in as sibling. (Not guaranteed but most likely to get in).

If any one has any experience of these two schools here we would really appreciate it. (Its confusing as hell atm.)

Thanks

I do not know the schools but if you are looking at lunch or after school activities as a major deciding factor, are you sure the DC actually get to do what they want? Sometimes schools list activities but in reality are ludicrously over subscribed so DC get disappointed.

I wonder why the larger school is running 4 classes in y3? That’s quite a luxury on a 90 PAN. I assume it’s 360 (4 years x 90). Of is it a bulge year?

You don’t seem to have evaluated the government stats and that would interest me. However friendships will be made at the nearer school and they will walk themselves at some point with friends. That’s a bonus too.

I do not know the schools but if you are looking at lunch or after school activities as a major deciding factor, are you sure the DC actually get to do what they want? Sometimes schools list activities but in reality are ludicrously over subscribed so DC get disappointed.

I wonder why the larger school is running 4 classes in y3? That’s quite a luxury on a 90 PAN. I assume it’s 360 (4 years x 90). Of is it a bulge year?

You don’t seem to have evaluated the government stats and that would interest me. However friendships will be made at the nearer school and they will walk themselves at some point with friends. That’s a bonus too.

Just looked at the government stats. Children at Shirley Heath make pretty poor progress - definitely not very outstanding. I'd just keep your daughter where she is as it's a bit better.

Looking in your area, the best schools appear to be Sharmans Cross and Oak Cottage.

It's a junior school though - and they generally make less good stats reported progress than all through primary schools.
My DC used to go to a junior school which used to assess every child on entry in Year 3 and then throw up their hands in horror at the gap between what they were achieving and what the infants school claimed their level was.

(I would of course not like to suggest that this is due to infants school inflating their KS1 numbers to make them look better; while primary schools deflate their KS1 numbers as their progress at KS2 is scrutinised and not their KS1 stats).

Children forget a lot over the summer. Any child tested in September won’t perform as well as they’d done in May.

I'm just saying it is a well known fact that primary schools tend to have better progress rates than junior schools. The DofE website even used to put this information on it's website at one point - not sure if it still does.

A number of "outstanding" schools who were rated as such several years may not necessarily maintain that level if Ofsted pay a visit soon. Ofsted keeps moving their goalposts, it's maddening. It has bugger all to do with the quality of a school, and many times, they lose points for situations out of their control.

Not sure how I posted twice!

However, using the Govt Data, Widney comes out top on everything. New Head splinted Sept 2018 and had an Ofsted in her first term. Shirley Heath would not now be considered Outstsnding on any objective data so it’s really down to what you like. Shirley Heath doesn’t do well with boys! I’m sure they are addressing that but it’s noticeable and they are below average on progress for everything. I would say worrying about clubs isn’t what should be your priority. If you choose Shirley Heath, you need to know if they are responding to their challenges. Do they recognise them and what are they doing about them. I think Widney has more higher achievers and you might need to look at that data too in order to evaluate where your DC would make more progress. Neither is great for disadvantaged DC for example.

New Head started.,

The school was Outstanding 7 years ago. That has no relevance to how it is doing now!