Apologies to Cambridge matmos.

[grovel]

I just loved being number 1000. Such power!

Seeker - no GCSE scores are not predicted at 5+ in a grammar system because there is no cohort that can be traced all the way through the system.

Pugs - are you SURE? Who have you discussed this with??? Where on earth did you get the information from???

(I mean, I suppose it might happen, as an abberation, in one school somewhere. But is so far from being 'what normally happens' as to come across as totally bizarre to anyone who has a wider knowledge of how the state school system works.....)

I am going to continue to say that you are wrong until you actually give me some evidence.

creamtea - I don't want to out myself but trust me when I say that I don't need to attend your no doubt insightful lectures to learn about the Asian Experience in the UK. But don't let that stop you from telling me how I am being patronising etc etc

Pugs- your child isn't there anymore, and if I remember correctly, you have moved away. Why don"t you tell us what school you are talking about?

"Total given that many Asians are second or third generation and for the middle classes English can be a first language in India, your notion that Asian=EFL is extremely patronising."

Hmm, the stats are published you know.

For example:

Woodford County High School 69% EFL www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=102852

86% EBACC, 74% A*,A.

Evidence? Right.
DD didn't achieve what I expected at EYFS assessment & put on table 2.
DD was bored stupid in year 1&2.
DD had no tutoring at age 7 & took her sats & private school entrance tests within weeks of each other.
Private school head expressed his pleasure about her entrance test result & put her in top set for everything. Accepted into school.I have meeting with old head, express my surprise at the stark difference between the entrance test results which he had seen & the sats.
He told me that it was out of the question that dd would be given a go on the higher papers based on her EYFS assessment & that based on that she could never be more than a B/C borderline GCSE candidate & it was beyond his control to give her any better opportunities.
He then went on about how the upper school would be sad to lose her as it would muck up the stats & were we sure it was worth all that money on private school fees just to be given the chance of a grade or 2 better in her final results.
You will never get a head to admit it on paper, but his word is the best I have.

Seeker - we moved away from the grammar area before DD started school. So I am talking about my local school now so could not mention name unfortunately!

Millais - you obviously understand the system, yes. & in 3 tied, the progression has to be very carefully guided so the funding still comes in. If a child progresses too quickly at lower, middle school gets criticized etc.

Well Pugs the old head is the talking the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard.

Webwiz - you understand how he swayed our decision to leave then

I just can't that an initial assessment taken when a September born is a whole 5th older than an August should be able to set the fate of them both for their whole education. Completely unfair in my opinion & my biggest gripe with the state system! No opportunities.

That should read 'the whole state system in our area' before I am flamed!!!!

Agree with Millais - only schools where children's progress EXCEEDS the expected rate can become good or outstanding under the new framework. Any school that attempts to 'manage' results to keep them in line will become 'Requires improvement' or below, because achieving in-line results is considered not to be goiod enough by Ofsted.

I have worked in 2 different 'multiple tier' systems (first / middle / high and infant / junior). In both, I have never experienced anything other than a striving for every child to achieve the maximum progress possible within each individual school ... and I agree that this presents an ENORMOUS challenge for middle / junior schools, especially as there is such political motivation to ensure results e.g. at the end of infants are as far above the 'expected line' as possible ... but achieving above-expected progress is the name of the game wherever I have worked, not just 'for Ofsted' but 'for the children'.

IF a child's porogress was limited by EYFS assessments, I would consider it to be a bad thing. Since it isn't, except in a single example relating to a single child in a single school reported on MN, I will not bother too much about it and will get on with maximising the progress of every child in my class....

(And what is all this about fixed table groups??? Who is sitting at what table changes every lesson in my classes, depending on what we are doing and on the progress made by each individual child in the previous lesson... which again is absolutely normal practice)

Filly if your post was aimed at me, I have absolutely no idea what it is supposed to be saying as there is no data on ethnicity on the DofE site.

Are you assuming that the majority of EFL children are Asian? Where I live the majority are Polish

Well if my DCs had gone to a school with such a ridiculous headteacher I would have moved them too but its nothing to do with it being a state school or funding.

Teacher - it is great to know that this cannot happen anymore under current rules, but given the school in question managed to keep it's Ofsted outstanding (received under the previous head more than 5 years ago) without a more recent inspection, I have no idea if it still goes on.
Even if it doesn't, that doesn't stop my disappointment that dd was failed by this system!

Pugs,

DS was failed by his first state primary - and excelled at his second. I am sure that, had I moved DS to private after the first school, I, like you, might have ascribed some of the differences between the schoiols as state vs private.

However as I visited pretty much all the state and private options before moving him, it became very, very clear that it was an 'individual school' issue rather than a 'sector' issue - and as I said he has thrived in the state sector ever since....

Pugs - what instrument do you teach? Do you realise that for a dyspraxia person, fine motor skills when performed in the course of playing their instrument are a completely different kettle of fish to fine motor skills performed in most other contexts?

"I just can't that an initial assessment taken when a September born is a whole 5th older than an August should be able to set the fate of them both for their whole education. Completely unfair in my opinion & my biggest gripe with the state system! No opportunities."

It can't. As I said, you have misunderstood. What you state could not possibly have happened the way you say in a "outstanding" school, either under the old or the new framework.

Absolutely agree with seeker (and as I understand that your DD left the school after a couple of years, it seems very likely that your misunderstanding would have been cleared up had she stayed in the system longer)

I realise that your statements are no longer important to you, as you have moved your daughter, but I am bothering to refute them because if left to stand as 'statements about state education' then they present a wholly false picture to another MN reader, who might be worried by them.

Russians - of course I use instruments in my initial audition assessments! & motor skills tests are appropriate to the instrument not just picked out of thin air!

As I have said before, even if we had moved dd to a different lower school she still had 0% chance of getting into anything other than our consigned middle & upper. Nobody in our village has ever managed to get in anywhere else, so it was private or stay there.

Seeker - how could dd have possibly jumped from table 2 & average sats straight to top set everything at a top 30 private school & then on to an academic scholarship? It shouldn't be possible & wouldn't have happened if she had been allowed to take the higher level papers! I wish I had your faith in the system I really do!!!