why is it so difficult to find a good school

[poppytin]

Why are almost schools with good academic performance are either independent, grammar, or faith schools? What would you do if you have an academically bright child but lived in an area without independent nor grammar and would not like your child to attend faith schools? Since most schools have adopted academy status, shouldn't they remove catchment criteria and serve as many good pupils as possible?

this link shows that the vast majority of top comprehensive schools are faith schools
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/secondary-tables-2012/the-top-100-comprehensive-schools-at-alevel-6294992.html

Depends where you live , and what you think is a good school.

Plenty of good comprehensives where I live.

Me too.

anyone can explain the dominance of faith schools in the top comprehensive list above? Assuming these schools take in pupils of all abilities just like a normal non-faith comprehensive, does faith devotion lead to academic performance?

I had a choice of a number of perfectly OK comps, actually. Comps many MNers would come over all faint and peculiar at the prospect of, admittedly, but nevertheless OK.

I had a choice of several comps too , and yes a lot of MNetters would never send their kids to them in a million years.

But they were all good schools IMO.

Because you're confusing group averages with individual achievement, in your assessment of what constitutes "good academic performance."
One year local comp had a headline GCSE pass rate around 35%, maybe lower.
One of those kids, from the 35% cohort, got accepted to Cambridge Uni to study Vet science 2 yrs later.

LSE article on why faith schools do better, I think(?) it concludes that quality of intake is the main factor, with governing arrangements also having influence. Twas ever thus?

My ds will be going to a high school which would make most mumsnetters go all unnecessary.

It has something like 38% A-C because the top 23% go to grammar school.

But 38% get their A-C despite that, it has a good OFSTED and plenty of sport. It wouldn't be my first choice, to be honest, but I fully expect my ds to get his crop of As and Bs at GCSE. I expect them to teach him and look after him, andnif they don't I'll be in there like the wrath of God!

Am PMSL at our competition to find the Most Unappealing School. It's like a right-on version of the Four Yorkshiremen.

Well ,I like to balance out the MN school snobbery

Please take these tables with a pinch of salt! E.g. I live in the area of the top one. It's a 'comprehensive' in the most loosest of terms (selects boarders who make up 25% of students), it does the IB and you need all As to get into the 6th form (normal comps Bs - Cs) and chucks you out at the end of year 12 if you are going to bring the rankings down.

Also - I don't understand the 'average' scores that make this the top 100. If for instance all students get all As for 3 A-levels, which is the normal amount to take, then the average score should be 810 but all these schools the average is about 950. Unless I've got this wrong. Maybe a lot of the top schools do the IB which seems to be awarded a higher score than A-levels.

Definitely look into the GSCE grades required for entry to 6th forms before using this data as an indicator of a good school. Best to look at GSCE results themselves if you want to make a decision based on league tables.

The comps where I live are outstanding! I am lucky to live in an area where there are no grammar schools and only a scattering of independents.

Well actually, my ds isn't going to school at all. I'm sending him to be apprenticed to a playwright. He actually wants to be a coal miner, but that's not for the likes of us. I think it's important that he keeps to his station in life.

[so old she remembers Monty Python emoticon]

Actually, mother inferior- I'm whistling in the dark. Can't you tell?

No grammars in my area either , thank goodness.

Seeker, he'll be fine. Honestly.

Ho yes, I like to balance it out too. And then judiciously wave around my Oxford degree in showyoffy way too

I know.

Of course grammars (generally) achieve higher grades than non-selective schools. Ditto independents (of which the majority are at least a bit selective). Faith schools are also selective in a way; see ragged's link.

As an aside, the one CofE school in our town is well undersubscribed, whereas the one co-ed, non-denominational comprehensive is full to the gills.

I am mildly curious about the results and the faith schools thing, but ... actually ... then again ... not interested enough to read up on it!

Op if you send your child to one of these average comps you do realise that there will be a lot of just average children there? but this does not mean that your precious could not be a high flyer?

DS will shut in a box, abandoned in a boarded up precinct which is only frequented by gangs and drug users with a 1958 edition of the Ladybird Book of Aeroplanes as his only text book.

We (entirely accidentally) managed the trick of living in the catchment of a good non-faith comp in an area with no grammar schools, but within the residual places radius of the neighbouring area's GS. If DD hadn't got into the latter, she'd have probably done fine at the former.

serve as many good pupils as possible
um....what would your definition of a 'good pupil' be?

Incidentally, judging comprehensives by their 6th form results is liable to lead to very misleading results. In our area none of the comps could show up, however good, because they are all ks3/ks4 - there are separate 6th form colleges. Slippery things, statistics!

Good grief, I missed the "good pupils" bit. Please do elaborate, OP.

Bibbety's and my DDs will be sewing mailbags.

1. That link does not demonstrate that the 'vast majority' of top performing comps are faith schools - although they are over-represented.
2. In the top performing faith schools in oversubscribed areas of London, the faith schools do operate a form of selection. You have to not only attend services on a very regular basis to get in, but even gain points for 'extra curricular' support of the church, being an alter boy for e.g. This naturally precludes the very chaotic and dysfunctional families who could never get to church on time!
3. Of all the areas I recognise in that list, they are all in very 'well to do' areas - it's maybe a measure of intake, not of standard of education
4. people do not understand the statistics which show how much progress children make in the school, how well lower-ability and higher ability students respectively perform and how they preform against expectation. people confuse level of ability at intake with the standard of education on offer
5. Some people find it hard to find good schools because to them that also means a school with lots of people 'like them' and avoid schools with what they see as undesiarable factors e.g a high ratio of children on FSM or with ESOL. Even though the education in that school may be top notch.
6. There are areas where it is hard to find a good school - and sometimes this is excacerbated by parents clusteriing to one school and ignoring another thus creating an ever uncreasing polarisation.

I live in a notorious area of S London and have the choice of 2 very good comps that we can definitely get into, an opportunity to have my child try for a nearby selective, or to gain a place by lottery in another nearish popular comp.

There is also a difference between being able to find a good school and being able to get into a good school. In S London patterns of housing for families has changed rapidly, with house prices forcing many into areas where they would not formerly have considered, and creating huge pressure on schools. Many boroughs only just have enough places - some not enough.

That table will be DEEPLY misleading as it by nature excludes the HUNDREDS of schools that only go to 16
like the fab secular comps we have here in Hampshire that feed into the secular Peter Symonds, Barton Peverill, Brockenhurst College etc etc

Hampshire : Cambridge : Sussex : Norfolk : Leicestershire
all do 11-16 and 6th form

And also, schools may have 6th form entry ... if you're looking for a secondary school, its probably best to look closer at the GCSE results than A level.