SATs levels question for year 9

[shootingstarz]

DDs report said she is working at level 8 in math?s. I assume they are referring to SATs levels yet her school does not do the SATs could it mean something else?

So where do all the other children go? The ones for whom A*-C is just not achievable?

I was so intrigued by this that I've just googled last year's school league tables and according to The Telegraph table there isn't a single comprehensive school that gets 90% A* - C passes - the highest is just over 88% (which is still pretty amazing - it is a Jewish school so selects by motivation of family) Some of the next highest eg St Clement Danes select a certain percentage of pupils on musical and academic aptitude tests and apply a sibling policy; I guess the sibling policy means that once one child in a family is in on an academic place, their younger siblings get in under sibling criteria rather than needing an academic place, which will free up another academic place....

I think the Telegraph table just contains data reported by the schools on GCSE results day so it isn't complete. Isn't Thomas Telford in Shropshire the highest performing comprehensive with 98% A*-C?

I depends how you define a "comprehensive" though doesn't it - there is a state boarding school in my town that calls itself comprehensive but somehow manages to have no "lower ability" children at all and so achieves 93% A*-C. I think the school has such an academic reputation that parents with lower ability DCs obviously just decide not to apply.

That may be right, and might explain it. I did look at Thomas Telford, but their admission criteria are very vague too - all ability bands are represented but the headmaster decides who to take. Presumably if they get 98% they can't take many children from Band I, or whatever the lowest is.

I've just looked at the DfE site with the data about school pupils and only 2 children in the 2011 cohort at Thomas Telford entered below level 4, with 67% classed as higher attainers - there were only 2 statemented pupils and only 1 child for whom English is an additional language.

So it's not really a very comprehensive comprehensive school.

School league tables cover up a multitude of things...

I've no idea why I'm googling all this stuff, actually - I should go and pay attention to my real live children to improve their life chances....

It is useful to know though - Gove probably uses these as examples of what he expects from his average comprehensive school! (Bearing in mind he doesn't seem to understand the word average, he probably doesn't understand comprehensive either!)

So true Kez100 - I think the concept of the lower attainer seems to have escaped him as well.

Thomas Telford is not a comprehensive school. It sets it's own admissions criteria. You have to live in particular post codes, then apply, enclosing your child's year 5 report. Then your child has to sit a NVR test. Places are then allocated.......!

So that's a high achieving comp that isn't a comp then.

I'm intrigued as to how two schools in my town have no selection criteria other than a few aptitude places and still manage to have no low attainers at all.

Singersgirl ds1's comp which doesn't have any kind of selective intake (unlike some mentioned here) claimed 99% 5 GCSE A-C last year and 91% A-C including English and Maths! Are they lying to us? Or is it possible that the Telegraph results are not complete? I know the school is astonishingly high-achieving given that they have a very mixed intake - lots of middle-class families who probably have the means to go private if necessary and lots of pushing and encouragement, but also lots of less fortunate families where the children face significant challenges.

It's good to hear that your local comp is doing so well! We are more than happy with ours too - last years results were 99% got 5 gcses and 85% incl Maths and English. Again, non selective as admissions are based on distance and siblings etc. Reasonable catchment although the local private schools are over subscribed and a lot of wealthier bright children sent privately.

Webwiz earlier on the thread explains that the Telegraph table I looked at isn't complete, as it's compiled of results on the day they come out, and the final tables presumably include GCSEs taken earlier and the results of appeals etc.

I haven't a clue about any of it, and think it's fascinating how different tables show different headline results. Ann, if your children's school is achieving 99% 5 A-C passes (is that meant to be A-C?), then surely it, and not Thomas Telford, woudl be claiming the distinction of the best performing comprehensive. Unless it is not A, which might make a difference....

What I do think is interesting, too, is what 'comperehensive' can cover.

Sorry, I can spell 'comprehensive'. But Webwiz's point is interesting. Where are the 'low achievers' going in her town? Presumably there must be some schools which are skewed significantly towards low achievers, unless, like Lake Wobegon, everyone is above average. And how do the schools manage their intakes?

She did say the local academy has 38% so, presumably, that is where they go. The set up doesn't sound like non selective comprehensives to me, but it does sound exceeding common (much like local Grammar and the rest go to the comprehensive, which is more like a secondary modern because of the intake it is effectively left with)

There are low attainers in three of the other schools (including the school my DC go to) but I'm intrigued as to why there are none at all in two schools that don't supposedly select their intake at all. Is a high A*- C score putting parents off from applying?

The telegraph table is incomplete because it relies on self report by schools. It is published when the GCSE results come out rather the following jan when the official tables come out. If your school doesn't let them know their results then they aren't included.

99% a to c isn't better that TT. TT is 5 inc english and Maths, a much more difficult measure.

The 5 A-C was the old measure from quite a few years ago now which could be created off the back of lots of vocational courses. They still quote it but it's much less transparent that the one inc E and M

That wasn't me Kez100 - the other schools are two with 85% A*- C and one with 53% (English and Maths is included in all my figures). The low attainers are all in these three schools and with none in the other two.

cross posted - the academy with 38% was another poster.

My misunderstanding re Thomas Telford. Yes, that is a much more difficult measure.

Regarding the 90% stats. This was the figure printed in our local newspaper when the results are out and also given to us at options evening with school (February just gone). The school is a Church of England school. Just a normal school with no special criteria needed. Actually, a few years back children had to be churchgoers to get in but that has all changed. Anyone can get in with spaces and there are some low attainers but i don't think that many. My dd's catchment is the local academy where most are low achievers (it was in special measures so had to be changed to an academy but it hasn't got any better really) but she didn't want to go there and i didn't want her to go there so put down one school (which she didn't get into as large catchment) as first choice and school she is in now as second choice. So locally there is dd's school, another school which has also now changed into an academy, the ACTUAL academy school, another school the other side of the city and then ones going out into the countryside. Plus a Grammar (no 11 plus here though) and two or three privates.

I also forgot the Catholic school.

So somehow all the high achievers end up together in "outstanding" schools and the low achievers end up together in the school in special measures? Does that not strike you as a little odd?

@singersgirl my old school - Coloma Convent, in Croydon - got 90% in 2011. It's a comprehensive.

It's a sort of comprehensive! It's Admissions criteria means that it has a heavy majority of committed involved parents.

I imagine behind every 98% or so 'comprehensive' there is some sort of story. One in our county is a well known 'de facto' grammar. They only invite level 5 at year 5 children to open evening and openly state 'if your child is not level 5 in year 5 they will not cope with the work here', together with the statement 'we don't do pastoral care here - if your child ever might need pastoral care, go somewhere else', together with throwing at least 4 hrs homework per night at them in the first year, just to put off any low achievers who slipped through the net - just to ensure the parents/children are 'self-selecting' as more desirable pupils. At least a grammar school is honest about its intake. . .