supporting your local secondary

[southeastastra]

i know it's hard, but i wish more parents would consider this option!

DS wouldn't have lasted two weeks at our local secondary. It's a perfectly nice school for other peoples children, but I know it wouldn't have worked for DS.

There is also a very nice CofE secondary near me, which lots of people opt for instead. It's over subscribed, and although I'm pretty sure DS would have been offered a place, I would still rather he spent two hours a day on a bus so he can spend the day in a school where they actually care about him and look after him, as well as achieving great academic results and having a 6th form, which means he won't have to experience another move.

I have to do what's best for my child. I won't sacrifice his opportunities for the greater good of others. Sorry.

Sorry custard I don't buy this english is not their fist language thing

My sons school has one of the poorest intake of students in the la 69% have english as their second language buy year 9 they have not only caught up but surpassed their peers

They have a 85% a to pass rate and 90% of sixth formers go to uni

The school is high achieving the head said to all the students when they started

Your race nor your income will not be a reason for you to fail but every reason why you will succeed

We moved to a poorer area to get our child into. Better school go figure

Its just another thing a bad head can uses to justify the failure

I think parents are tired of hearing about no English speakers,or poverty
Blah blah blah

Discipline, rigour , zero tolerance and high standards cost nothing

Watched a programs about this very subject last year. Head sacked half his teaching baldy because they were not up to the job the students were failing the teachers were

The other day a academy I believe in hackney has now become one of the best schools in London

The head takes no prisoners hold parents to account ECt they still have the same intake thay did when it was a failing school poor and black

I would happily support our local comp - in fact ds1 goes there - I have some reservations about it though - but they don't support the local area for admissions as they operate a lottery system via an extended catchment and no siblling policy!!

I've just submitted ds2s common application form and Ive chosen the schools that I feel are best for him however they are all oversubscribed so I may end up with nothing.

Like others say am not willing to sacrifice my child's education or safety by sending him to a school in an area of high crime or that I don't feel comfortable with.

I did .but then I live in a comprehensive area and had a choice of about 3 schools all within half an hours walking distance

No grammars here ,thank goodness

They are all fed by large council estates as well as posher areas so I expect they would be described as sink schools by many on MN

Big fat No! I'll support my child's education and that includes whichever school they are at, not the other way round.

My dc has only got that one chance as a young person with no responsibilities and no other priorities, children dont have multiple chances despite what some might think.

Its snobbery a lot of the time ,parents are afraid of their children catching poor ,or mixing with the rough kids

maypole - would you accept 51% SEN intake as a valid 'excuse'?

No my dd who is 6 is disabled goes to s special needs school and pound for pound its actually doing academically better that the nearest primary it's just been rated outstanding buy ofsted the local primary to it is in special measures

The majority of children in my dd school are on dinner tickets parents not working due to their Childs disability so has a very poor intake of children add on their disability
And you still have a fab school

Any way I am always a bit at schools with such a high number of sn students unless it has a unit or something with in the school

It's in their interests to get a poorly disciplined child labeled

I looked after many children whom have been placed by their parents in sink schools for them been promptly encouraged by the school to get them classed has having ADHD or development delay

Only to discover whilst with the foster family the child no longer had this issue once moved to a better academic school given boundaries by their carers and rules who new

Their are some true cases of course but some issues are clearly due to parenting and poor teaching but it suits the school to say otherwise with a label come £££££

usualsuspect why is it snobbery to not what your child in a illdisaplined school with falling standards and high staff turnover

To not want your child to attend school were drugs are openly sold

Or were the staff fear the students

Sorry what you call snobbery I call being a good parent the notion that a parent would purposely put their child in a school were the staff had lost control and the academic standard was low is beyond me

People don't always find out the facts though ,People often dismiss schools because of where they are imo

I hate the term sink school

No way. 32% GCSE A to C passes.

Agree with you there usual.

There is huge inertia in school reputations. A school will hang on to a bad rep long after it is no longer deserved - especially when it's in a bad area. Opposite with good schools when in reality they have got a bit 'tired'.

I was a TA in a bad school and in some lessons I feared for my own safety. That is not an exaggeration. Why would you put a quiet, nice kid in an environment like that, day in, day out?

Custardcake, the big problem of course is that if a school does not offer triple or even three separate sciences and Latin and a couple of MFLs it is not actually a comprehensive at all because it is failing to meet the needs of all the children within it and assuming that none of its intake will go on to read medicine, or law, or classics. That is the tragedy of the system. One size doesn't fit all but all have to adapt, usually down, to the size that's offered.

On the religious front, where church schools are oversubscribed then yes entry is on the basis of baptism, church attendance for many years and written confirmation from the priest or reverend. Church schools should be exactly that, principally for those who practice the religion of the school.

Not too much of an issue for me as I live close to the best schools in my area having bought a wreck of a house in a very nice place. I am a teacher though and I know that despite being the best schools in the LA the CofE school has a terrible bullying problem and lazy teachers and the 2nd place school is coasting and lots of the kids have tutors to make up for the teaching. The CofE school especially really annoys me as it takes from such a wide area and basically selects on parental support as it monitors absolutely everything for the parents to earn 'church points'. Urban areas are incredibly difficult with regards to catchment areas, my town suffers from 'white flight' which means we have predominantly asian schools and predominantly white schools, kids bussed across town for an hour to get to faith schools........ It's all just a mess really!

THAT is where I went wrong - decent house, wonderful garden, dire catchment !!!
luckily good schools are only a 15 minute bus route away

kritur same here we moved to a shit hole area to get our child in the best school in the la and even then we need a tutor

I will never forgive labour for what they done my boy would of been able to get in to a grammar but we don't have one because they closed them all down

The only choice it to up sticks and try and live with in the stones throw of the school if you can afford it or ring god and even then

marriedinwhite, I'm with you re the sciences, but these days it is perfectly possible to go on to read Classics or the ML of your choice at university as a beginner: I work part of my hours at one of the best ML departments in the country and we take students at any level (and offer beginners' Latin)- we offer accelerated courses for students who want to move up quickly

dd's school does not offer German, which I think is a pain, as I would like her to have that experience now- but the one thing I know it won't do is to hold her back if she ever wants a career as a German linguist

anyway, we are not supporting our local school because dd quite physically couldn't get into it: no disabled access

it would be horrendously expensive if everybody had to go to their local school- they'd have to rebuild every school in the country at once, and employ a whole load of new specialists

might do the economy a bit of good, but the tax payers would grumble

I'm very happy that we don't have grammars though as dd (who is g& t) was quite ill in Yr 6 and probably wouldn't have done herself justice in the 11+; so would have been stuck with all the non-academic pupils- now she gets a good mix and has made friends who are as keen as she is; it doesn't matter that the school contains other pupils too

I would love to support my local secondary school and send my child there but about 18 months ago they rearranged admission areas and now we are no longer in the admission area - out by 200 yrds .

We are now in the admission are of a school which is about 1/2 a mile further away .

Although both schools are OFSTED rated outstanding ( we are very lucky to have that) we would prefer the local school as the majority of his peers would go there and it has a better reputation and is more established school.

We may get in on waiting list but no guarantee - so yes I would love to support my local secondary school but at the moment their admissions policy doesn't allow it .

Cory - I'm interested about reading Classics without studying Latin. DS is presently in 6th form and amongst other things is doing Latin, English and Philosophy - he did Greek at GCSE. Our initial research into Classics is that it is that those who have Latin or Greek A'Level and who have also studied at least one at GCSE to complement the higher language are best placed for Oxbridge, UCL, etc., which are at the top of the league tables for Classics. Personally, I wouldn't want DS to read classics without having studied a classical language at A'Level first.

Doesn't what you suggest simply dilute what can be studied at university and make a £9,000 a year university education a little dubious. Isn't it time the schools started to do what they were there for again: ensuring all pupils have good foundation skills and stretching the most able whilst ensuring the vulnerable are nurtured. There is no point in my opinion of having a masters degree, or even two, if the recipient cannot string together a grammatically correct sentence both orally in and writing.

Married notes grammatical inaccuracy of first sentence [embarassed].