Destination schools of state primaries

[louisacat]

Is there a way to find out the destination schools of last year's year 6 at a state primary? My ds goes to a school with no obvious feeder; several state secondaries, grammars and an independent and am curious where the students go. Anecdotally they say a lot go onto the grammars so would be interested to know and wondered if it was possible to find out this info.

It’s difficult if the school doesn’t publish it. State schools rarely do! They might give you rough numbers if you ask.

Where are you in the country? I’m in a grammar county with secondary and independent senior schools as well. Grammar entrance stats show location matters. Far bigger proportions from “leafy lane” areas and much less from areas with few graduate parents/professionals. Our primaries don’t prep for the 11 plus. It’s down to you to make arrangements/coach. The schools teach the national curriculum.

Our state published the Y6 leavers' destinations once a few year's ago and I found it fascinating! It hasn't happened since though!

Do you know anyone in last year's Y6 - only our primary did a leavers' yearbook and that had the leavers' destinations in so you could ask if you could have a quick look at someone's privately?

There a website called locrating. You have to pay approx £7 for the latest data but it shows primary school leavers destinations for the past 5 years I think. It also shows cut off distances and other useful stats.

www.locrating.com

The final newsletter of the summer term usually has a list of schools that children are going to. But it doesn’t give numbers, just a list of schools - so some will have 15 kids going, and some will be a one off child and won’t get a mention in any other recent year.

I don't see why this information is helpful? It probably varies quite a bit from year to year if there is no obvious secondary choice. Surely it's more productive to look up schools you can get to that would suit your child?

Your LA will have the information. Appeal Panel members are familiar with the parent who claims that their child is the only one from their primary allocated to a secondary, only to find out at the appeal that that is not the case.

The LA is unlikely to hand over the info. Having worked with schools and having been a governor, I don’t know a single stare school that’s published destinations. It’s a leafy lane vs challenging catchment thing! The league tables give you a decent steer! Near the top, children get to grammars. Near the bottom, they don’t!

Also, what choice of schools do you realistically have op? Many of us get one or two schools. It’s impossible to cherry pick if you are out of catchment.

Most of the primary schools publish their leavers destinations round here but we’re in leafy SW London so that may be why.

I think Bucks county council publish which schools have been successful to Grammar entry and how many each year or indicate less than 5 if below 5 in a particular school, but not the schools they go to.

@Ilovesunsetonthecoast

There a website called locrating. You have to pay approx £7 for the latest data but it shows primary school leavers destinations for the past 5 years I think. It also shows cut off distances and other useful stats.

How on earth can they legally obtain that information? Given that one certainly cannot obtain a list of individuals within a cohort

Locrating is great and gives a percentage breakdown of where eat 6 leavers go. Independent schools are listed as ‘other’ though, and not named. I don’t live in a grammar area but I assume grammar schools are named.
You can also see the percentages of which primary schools year 7s came from in state secondaries.
It’s £7 for a months access - but it’s very fascinating!

@CovidPassQuestion I have no idea. I did wonder that myself. But it’s there. I only paid for a month so can’t provide a sample of what it shows, but from memory, for each of the primary schools it shows which secondaries kids went to in rough %, and for the secondaries it shows which primaries the Y7 came from, again in rough %.
It’s pretty accurate actually after all the digging I did last year with different schools but where they actually get the data from is beyond me.

No idea where or how they get their data either.

Thanks everyone, honestly it's mainly curiosity on my part! Also when I was viewing primary schools some of them said they had a large proportion of year 6s apply to and be accepted into the grammars.

We actually have a surprisingly large number of secondaries nearby, 3 within a 15/20 minute walk of our house and all with the same sort of popularity/reputation, one CoE secondary nearby (we are churchgoers so may get in), a private within 5 mins walk and a few grammars a train ride away (we are in catchment but they are extremely hard to get into) We live in an affluent area and I think a lot of parents choose private for secondary, we definitely wouldn't so was just interested potentially how many of my ds's friends might go there. My friend's son's school is opposite one of the secondaries so they almost all go there but there isn't an obvious choice for our's.

Have a look online on what do they know and search for your local authority. It's a website that people can submit FOI requests through. The local authority legally has to respond to these sort of straightforward FOI requests.

I'm sure somebody will have asked a similar request before. This exact info is available for schools in my local authority area via the website.

There are a few primaries round my way that have a reputation for getting a fair number of children into grammar. What they don't advertise though is that round about Y3/Y4 the parents of the brightest students are strongly recommended to find an 11+ tutor

If a fair number do go on to grammars, that is almost nothing to do with the school and everything to do with private tutoring. So just being in a school with a heavy grammar destination won't mean your child will get in if you don't do or arrange any prep with them.

It’s all to do with the cohort and parental learning. I’ve seen research into my LA and believe me, leafy lane where parents are grads/professionals always do best at 11 plus. Always. Yes they tutor but they often get the best sats too.

LAs often publish how the admissions worked at each school. So they publish if they took all of catchment, distance beyond catchment etc. they don’t publish state vs private or which schools supplied most dc.

Actually my LA does supply the data for each primary. So look at the LAs statistics pages on admissions.

You should bear in mind that the school will only have a minimum input into how many children to go grammars. Parental involvement, tutoring etc are much more likely to influence this.
Knowing that school x sends more DC to grammar school than school y, is most likely to tell you most about the relative ability of the cohort, not the teaching. (and you can probably work this out anyway, based on the school's catchment area).

I asked this question while we were on primary school tours - obviously you only get a vague response that way but it’s an indication at least. As with a PP, our school has a Y6 yearbook that says where all the children are going, so if you know someone who would have one of those for the relevant school you could ask to take a look.

OP, maybe approach it slightly differently - as a PP suggests, Whatdotheyknow is a useful website but if its specifically grammar school entrants that you're interested in, rather than look at the primary school leavers, look at the grammar school entrants.

I know for example that someone has asked which schools this year's grammar school cohort had come from for my DCs school on a FOI request (published on Whatdotheyknow). Its been answered - it has the number of pupils, by primary school, in the year.

Obviously that doesn't give you the info about which other schools pupils from the primary went on to, other than the grammar.