Undersubscribed schools

[GeBree]

Thoughts please...does this mean they are not very good?

My kids went to one... it was fucking superb. It was up against an academy, who were part of a MAT who were incredibly pushy chasing pupil numbers, had expanded dramatically and had a big social media crew of parents going on slagging our school off and scaring prospective parents away.

We moved back to an area 4 years after we left.
We got the school that has historically always been unpopular and undersubscribed - 6 primaries in town, one outstanding, 5 good. 5 oversubscribed...
I cant really fault it. Ok, they were less than stella during lockdown, but the rest is fab - probably better than the preferred school we were in before we left the UK.
I dont know why it has the poor reputation it does. I feel like it must date back to some historical event, and the stigma has never disappeared. Look into it, it may not he as bad as the local gossip states.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk

You can check the performance here. Often there’s something wrong with undersubscribed schools but sometimes they are v good.

People do say it is a good school...it is just undersubscribed.

It depends. Is it a rural school with small numbers anyway or a town/city school with others close by?

Absolutely not! It's often just local demographics, reducing birthrate, low property turnover etc. For example I know a fantastic school in a village close to a big town which has plenty of schools. Houses in the village are ££££ so not many families moving in so the village school has low numbers.

Something to watch though is whether numbers have dropped rapidly or if it's been the case for years. If a rapid drop the staffing structure will be financially unviable and you might end up with staffing disruption, mixed classes and so on.

My children's school is undersubscribed as a whole due to being a village school in a rural area with variable intake year on year. DS2's year is oversubscribed. It's a great school, just small.

The schools with best results in league tables and “outstanding” status are oversubscribed and schools with average/above National average but good status tend to be undersubscribed.

schools with average/above National average but good status tend to be undersubscribed

If it’s rates ‘good’ and is academically above the national average, then definitely worth a look.

It's a bit like that in my area. I think here it's largely because several new primaries were built during the 'bulge' years, and now the pressure has dropped and there are just too many spaces overall.

Depends why. One school near to a local university has places because so much of the nearby housing is student rentals!

Do your research.

Also, I've had experience of lots of primaries now, and some of the popular ones were crap and complacent.

Our DCs go to a small primary (about 15 per year) and it's fabulous. It's just undersubscribed because people don't really know it's there. There's a closer school which is rated highly and is always oversubscribed (with about 60 kids per year group), but I haven't seen any evidence that it's better than the small one.

DS in particular has thrived in a small school where every teacher knows him. He has opportunities to be on things like the football team, which he wouldn't in a big school (he's not that good, but basically everyone who wants to be on the team is on!). They never win anything, but he just loves being involved and playing matches etc.

The few undersubscribed schools close by don’t have the best results in the area but the results are not bad at all. Oversubscribed schools tend to be outstanding and high on league tables. Some people rent to get into those!!

We're new to ours (reception starter) but it seems that it's a combo of being in a rough area and having very newly turned around under a new leadership team.

Any particular demographics?

My DC's excellent school with small class sizes (13-16 pupils), large grounds, fantastic HT, personalised learning, care and attention was mainly BAME pupils ... sadly that explained why most white families refused a place for their child and the school remains undersubscribed.

13-16 class sizes are not sustainable. No state school can afford one teacher for this number of children for any sustained period.

Plenty of good schools are very good. However newly turned around schools often have difficulty sustaining their status when the SLT moves on. If a school has a yo yo history I’d be wary. I wouldn’t specifically seek out an outstanding school. They are often not much better than a very good one that’s working hard to improve.

Yep, you are right, without a significant change of mind in the local white community ( BAME makes up a small proportion of the community) the school will close.

Closure has already happened in another school for the same reason, parents choosing to cram their children into large classes in schools with a much worse OFSTED grading but that are majority white.

That is awful Adelaideplace!

I taught at an amazing one. It unfortunately suffered from state til 8. At least 50% of each year 3 group left before year 4 to start at private school.
Due to low numbers at the top end of the school it put people off (the ones who didn't want to send their children to private school).

I would recommend looking around and judging for yourself.

May I just say that parents can apply to over subscribed schools but in my area they wouldn’t get in unless an appeal allows them in. Most heads I know stick to 30 and don’t lose the appeals. Many people find that moving to a leafy area results in not getting a place at the schools they want. What parents want isn’t what they get.

It’s long been the case that “white flight” changes the character of schools. Not just white either by the way. Upwardly mobile BAME too.

I know of a secondary that's under subscribed. It's a C of E one and it seems a lot of people think you have to be practicing Christian to go so they don't even put it as one of their choices. On paper they say they give 60% of places to practicing Christians but they always seem to have spare places so they will take anyone of any or no faith.

It could be parents don’t want the CofE ethos there. Like some parents don’t want the Roman Catholic ethos and avoid these schools. “Light touch” religion tends not to put people off and, coupled with high quality educational provision, usually makes parents keen on these schools.

@Guymere: Disagree - schools can run class sizes of less than 20 sustainably depending on how they work their budget. Having enough less experienced (cheaper) teachers and almost no TAs makes a big difference. Putting small classes together for PPA and certain foundation subjects also helps. My last school I taught a class of 18-20 for several years, I currently teach a class of 16. In both cases children were in classes of this size for at least 70% of their week, including all English and maths. In both schools this has been the pattern for several years and it is forecast to continue for several more where I am currently. I'm an upper pay scale teacher.

I have never seen this except in very small village schools who get help with their budgets. In effect they get money from larger schools. In my LA class sizes that small are rare because the system to distribute the budget simply doesn’t work on this small number in a class. TAs are a lot cheaper than 2 teachers for a cohort of 30 children and 3 teachers for a cohort of 88 with 3 classes is a lot cheaper than running 4 classes with 4 teachers teaching 22. Most small village schools combine cohorts or there simply wouldn’t be any money for anything other than teachers. Most teachers welcome TAs in the classroom, especially for the lower achieving children.

However it appears some LAs have very generous budgets if schools can sustain class sizes under 20.

One of the schools in question was in a MAT with schools all 2+ form entry (but split 3 ways instead) across at least 3 LAs. All classes under 20. The other school does include mixed year classes - each year group is only 7-10 children. Yes I welcome TAs but to be honest I'd rather have a tiny class.