Secondary school league tables are out

[LondonMother]

This is an interesting one for people in SE London.

[Mellisa]

Does any one know how good old palace whitgift school is if I don't want to live in croydon which areas around Croydon shall we consider for good girls primary state schools and decent living standards.

[Yellowtip]

prosopon I can only assume that you're a parent with issues, so I think you need to be asking the questions since I'm pretty content. I can't see anywhere that I've said anything either way about the school, I've merely taken issue with your dodgy take on the med school stuff, a subject I know about first hand.

[GrimmaTheNome]

I'm surprised they don't count igcses I thought they had now being approved for state schools.

There are these accredited igces which are counted nowadays.

[prosopon]

I thought this was a discussion about the deficienices of league tables, yellowtip, and Colyton is a good example of why they aren't reliable. I thought the website said they all have to take 4 A levels, hence forced.

If I was in the market for a secondary school I'd be asking some hard questions about the 20 students who seem to have left the school after GSCE and before A level, how the school deals with students changing their mind on options and at least one other thing the data suggest are problems. One parent claiming a school is great does not make it so, 20 students leaving is a red flag. But we don't all share your obsession with the school.......so just talk to yourself.

[Yellowtip]

I also spoke to DS for ages this afternoon. He rows twice a week and goes out drinking/ clubbing on average four nights a week so the school seems to have instilled a decent capacity for work/ life balance as well. All good :)

[Yellowtip]

prosopon I'm not sure what your agenda is but DS1 is reading Medicine at his first choice college in Oxford as is one of his closest girlfriends from school. She got all four med school choices and he got three out of four (the other two were Imperial and Birmingham, so not quite bottom feeders either).
He's just been ranked in the top ten in his year there. Honestly, it's fine.

Your use of the word 'forcing' is very odd.

[prosopon]

Mordionagenos has become russiansonthesquare or were two parents confused? Confusing. Still lets say there was a misunderstanding - I'm mildly interested in the reason any school gives for making students take A level General Studies.

Yellowtip I imagine a few students do know exactly what they want to do at 15 and enjoy having 3 years to complete their studies. However I notice the sixth form at your school is quite a lot smaller than the numbers taking GSCE. Presumably quite a few decided it wasn't for them as they left. I know some medical schools will still take students after 3 years, pity their choice is restricted.

If you force students to make GSCE choices at an early age then perhaps you need to make them take more than the normal number of subjects, it isn't necessary for any other reason. Allowing a wide range of GSCE options and forcing students to take 4 A levels doesn't make up for limiting career choices at 15. It's a very strange thing to have done.

[Yellowtip]

Sorry, caps lock .

[Yellowtip]

I AM NOT ADVOCATING THAT FOR YOUR DD I HASTEN TO ADD.

[Yellowtip]

I took a slightly off the wall approach to entropy which was to read the Problem Page of my Teen Magazine ('Diana') under the desk.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Well, she didn't have to do Hist or Geog, did she - she chose them. So she made her own bed and of course adores them so it worked out well (touching wood now obviously). I think its a good sign when a kid wants (and is encouraged) to take all of their 3 free choice options on to A level - it means they chose right. So, I don't really think that making all their choices early does disadvantage the kids at all. Dying of the slow boredom of entropy might, though.

[Yellowtip]

I suppose that's the only good thing about having starved mine of music. They've each got to do Art or Drama alongside the rest (except for maverick DS2 who rebelled).

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Yellow - she'll prob end up teaching either all or a lot of the time. So perhaps not such a dreamy career as one might hope. But it is what she wants to do even if she does end up mainly teaching. So, that's ok I suppose!

I would actually definitely argue that forcing triple science at GCSE is not good. But we knew we were signing up for that from the start so, you know - it is what it is. DD1 would definitely have preferred Drama to Chemistry though. Or art.

[Yellowtip]

ROTS but what a dreamy career . Perhaps she could do a reverse Einstein. You know, dabble in theoretical sciency stuff as a break from the day job. Especially having that triple science background at GCSE :).

Oops sorry prosopon, I see now that I read your name wrong. It's arguable that carrying on 12 subjects for GCSE cuts off less subjects as choices for A Level in Y11 than slashing subjects to 8 in Y9. I've seen both systems in action and for bright kids the condensing of KS3 to enable a three year sixth form trumps pretty much all of the downsides.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Mind you, the scope offered by the extended project might turn out to be a bit of a boon.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Poor old DD1 seems to have picked possibly the only career path where her academic credentials will do her no favours whatsoever! C'est la vie.

[Yellowtip]

In fact proposon, to my certain knowledge, some students at these really excellent schools get relatively low offers (even for Medicine) because the unis want to snap them up and they've already pretty much proved their academic credentials.

[Yellowtip]

Besides which proposon med schools mind only that exams are taken in the conventional period not that GCSEs are taken a year early thus leaving three years to study more broadly in the sixth form. I understand the school to have an exceptional record in getting students into med school in recent years, so what you say just doesn't stack up.

And why on earth would any school wilfully mislead parents on something like this? That's absurd.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

@prosopon The school is not being economical with the truth about the AQA Bacc, I obviously misread the bumf they sent home (not for the first time or, I'm sure, the last). However it is certainly the case that the kids do General Studies to A2 not to AS which was the inaccurate information I was originally correcting.

AIUI universities expect high grades because the school is a high performing one. The school also doesn't seem to have any problem getting kids into medical school but since not everyone wants to go to medical school (shock horror) this is somewhat irrelevant.

[prosopon]

The GSCE results at Colyton are impressive but when students take 12 exams each that certainly helps the point count. The school are also clearly being economical with the truth about what the AQA Bacc requires and apparently misleading parents in the process. The students have to make their A level choices a year early, with the impact that has on possible career choices later. Taking 4 A levels might help with that but it's still a major drawback.

Of course universities don't often place extra value on having 12 GSCEs, regard General Studies as a waste of time and may expect higher grades from students who've had three years to study for their A levels. Medical schools dislike students taking 3 years to get A levels. That might explain the limited number of schools forcing students to take exams so early.

[gelo]

And the extended project too, which I think is a great thing to do, but it is time consuming so it wouldn't be right to mandate it with only 2 years for sixth form I don't think (optional is fine in 2 years though).

[Theas18]

Glad to see my 2 schools are maintaining their position nip and tuck with the local independents depending on which measure you take

However I'm also very aware that this just shows that stats that they want you to see about academic stuff. It does reinforce my feelings that we have secondary modern schools here even though they are allegedly comps.

re AQA bacc. DD1 did it with just AS crit thinking and extended study project. Just reminded yesterday as for some unexplained reason the certificate arrived in the post from school. She's in her 2nd year at uni LOLOLOL

[gelo]

Ahh I see, that point was actually meant as a defense that doing so many A levels was reasonably sensible in the circumstances because the children have time to do them. If they were trying to squeeze GS & CT into 2 years, then I'd say it looked more as if they were chasing league table points. (I'm sure the school doesn't mind that they gain so many points either, but they need to keep the children occupied for 3 years so it makes more sense to do those extras)

[Yellowtip]

It was only your point about three years = easier to notch up A level points gelo, hence my yes but as against that GCSEs are taken a year early and they do very well in the tables on that.

I guess it would be very popular with almost all sixth formers bread. Far more scope for depth and for other non curriculum stuff too.

[gelo]

From everything I've heard about Clyton yellow (which is I think entirely from this site) it sounds like a superb school. I don't need to concede anything as I'm not trying to score points. I wasn't having a go about Colyton or trying to make any statement about it (I live miles away and know next to nothing about it), my contribution to this thread was just correcting some misinformation about AQA bacc. and from that somehow it was imagined I was attacking the school I think.