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?

Name, address and church attendance alone give schools a wealth of evidence on which to select pupils!

State finded schools cannot vary their admissions processes from what is published.

By law the processes have to be transparent, parents are entitled to receive information for their appeal etc.

It isn't that they select by scrutinising and address and coming to a judgement about an individual students, it is that they select by setting admissions criteria that set a certain bar which exclude the children of families which cannot reach that bar. Even comprehensives which use a 'fair banding test' to ensure they take equal numbers of children across a full range of ability are operating a degree of selection: it 'weeds out' the children of parents who cannot get it together to attend the test at 9am on a Saturday morning.

And believe me that applies to some of the children who are seriously underperforming (socially and educationally) in DS's class.

Bothering to apply for a school that is harder to get to (let alone into ) is evidence of selection, surely?

I guess this isn't so much the case in London (where children travel on public transport for free I believe), but where I live several families had no choice but to apply for the school nearest them, because they knew they'd struggle to find the bus fare.

Funnily enough the nearest school is CofE but has been undersubscribed for decades. The "better" schools are geographically difficult to travel to for us; you need to be able to drive your children to school or to be able to afford a season ticket on our absurdly expensive buses. They are, therefore, selective.

cecily - I know the data are in the tables (for each school) but I can't find the plot you describe (or an obvious way to generate it)

You have to look under each individual school. It you click on a school, it takes you to a second page which gives you comprehensive details about results. I have looked at a few for places where I used to live, or areas that have been in the media recently and, so far, there have been few surprises about results reflecting intake.

Diary - that's the thing - you have chosen to put in the focus and committment to get your child into a good school (and good for you, too, congrats on getting your place!). Therefore your child starts with the advantagde of parental support - one of the biggest factors in success. That, in turn, affects the statistical outcomes of the school's achievements, because the children of parents who have not made the choice you have made will not be there, dragging down the stats.

It is open to all to make those choices, but the fact that the 'wha'ever' parents do not, or in some cases cannot, is in effect a selective process.

cecily - oh right, I knew about that - I thought you meant someone had mined the data and graphed 'input versus output', as it were. I too have looked at details of the schools I know about locally and found no suprises - a graph might reveal interesting outliers.

@CecilyP - Hi there, the selection, after siblings, is by random allocation. As a comprehensive, the school by law, on the basis of the banding test, has to allocate 25% of the places to the top performing group, 50% to the middle and 25% to the lower performing group, which is how I believe, many academies are run. I have also read somewhere, that these schools simply 'attract' high performing pupils.

I thought that selection was of 'practicing catholics' - then random allocation within that. It is what you have to do to show that you are 'practicing', that provides the hoop that you have to jump through, though I believe it is currently far simpler than it was 5 years ago. Less over-subscribed Catholic schools only ask for a baptism certificate! If the school is the one I am thinking of, the ability levels of the 2011 GCSE candidates on entry to the school were NC level 3, 3%, level 4, 18 % and level 5, 79% (I assume the average range is roughly 25% 50% 25%, respectively). These pupils would have entered the school in 2006 which may be before the current banding system was introduced. Obviously, if a school is already high-performing it attracts children from more aspirational families from far afield - children who are often likely to be high performing.

CecilyP - re the BBC link

Any idea how each of the attainment groups defined?
I wonder if they are all being measured in the same way for all schools?

DD's comp uis showing > 30% higher attainers, but their average GCSE grade for that group is B. Grammar shcools typically have over 80% higher attainers, but their average GCSE grade is A.

If the starting post is equal here, this looks to mean the same bunch of kids could have done better at the grammar, had a place been possible.

The attainment levels are based on the children's KS2 results, so should be the same for all schools. Obviously, there will be a range of ability within each of the groups, especially the middle one.

The other statistic to look at in those individual school pages are the percentage of pupils making expected progress in English and maths. If I do that on my little selection of schools, the faith and the comp do OK, the GS is 99/100%. Could be relevant to what you're seeing, circular?

I know a school that has a "house" system, is very religious and is failing dismally !!!

This is really interesting website. On the whole schools in leafy mc areas cost a lot less per pupil than those in tough inner cities: www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=109278

NC level 3, 3%, level 4, 18 % and level 5, 79%
@ceilyP, how are you? Apologies for taking fifty to years to get back to this post. I've tried desperately to find your source of information regarding a top school, in that nearly 80% of their intake are level 5 kids. Where can I find that?