secondary education - not privates school choices

[dementedma]

Ok, so where can I find threads about secondary education that isn't an angst ridden should ds/dd go to this private school or that private school?
Ds attends local state school. Does anyone else on MN do this or is it just me?

My DD goes to our local comprehensive. I don't think we actually have any private schools in this area, not that it would be an option for us anyway. We definitely do not have any boarding schools.

Shocking typing, should not use iPad when trying to deliver sensible opinions.

Can I join in? I have a child in a secondary modern!!!!!

I do have to carry a bell with me everywhere I go in case any other children touch mine and catch "oik" from him. And all the other mother's heads are just slightly to one side when they talk to me. But I struggle through.

And some of us happily send our DDs to a state comp that's been good, satisfactory, SM and good again in the last 5 years and are very very cynical about the whole thing.

I suspect that most state schools are good enough for most DCs and that Ofsted would be much better off concentrating on those with very poor GCSE results and major discipline issues, but that wouldn't keep the angst ridden, can't quite afford private MC happy.

But I do now realize after reading other threads that A*s are not good enough..........who knew?

I had a realistic choice of at least 12 state secondaries for DD, some with Outstanding ratings, all qualify as comps + one academy. I couldn't choose so I let DD decide.

I tend to agree with you, Nocomet. I do concede I am a more than slightly slack mum, though.

Oh, why aren't they good enough? Because they're un-enriched and all?

fourcornered
By law the LEA must find a place for every child in it's area.
Yup, and the Education head at the council to which shootingatpigeons refers is openly and fragrantly flouting the law, but the police have more important issues on their plates.

If it were other than a Tory council, Gove's cronies would have been in ages ago, but as Bliar was also 'pro' catholic schools
its a perfect storm in which the parents are swept along in a hideous maelstrom of politics

which is probably why Bohunt school has quite as many north east out of catchment kids as it does!

SCs school is slacking, it no longer offers Latin

I don't know. Somebody on another thread said that good universities (I think that means Oxford and Cambridge) want more than As, and children in comprehensive schools are being let down because they foolishly think that a string of As is somehow impressive.......

Four cornered You have not seen the latest admissions report? All the schools oversubscribed, RPA finally seeing the fruits of it's improvement, you can see lots of good word of mouth on these threads, lots of local state school parents investing or intending to invest in it. You could hardly blame parents for refusing to when there were knives in the playground but when it comes to "choice and diversity" (the name of the Council's education strategy ) then parents refusing to be pressganged into the Kunskapsskolan model wasn't exactly "asking for it". I would have no problem sending my girls to RPA now but they would be bored rigid sat in front of computer screens all day at TA.

In any case it is no matter, the pupil bulge has started to hit, there are 146 more pupils in this cohort and in fact applications have gone up by more than that. All the schools are oversubscribed. The Council say it will be all right because 32% of parents can be relied on to drop out, but that is an awful lot of parents deterred by their "choice and diversity" or finding themselves without any school place, and it is a hell of a gamble that they can rely on them to go away................

Oh, Martorana, you mean like music and sports and drama and all those other things you don't get in state schools? Critical thinking and the ability to work things out for themselves?

Oh and four cornered The Council have long relied on parents to buy out. Even a few years ago when there was spare capacity in the sponsored academies if the number of state school parents going private was just the average of the ten most affluent London boroughs (and it is not in the top 5) then the cohort would have not only filled the available spare capacity but would have required two new five form entry secondary schools.

In ither areas of the country where the mean income does not allow 32% of children to be opted out of state education the LEA wouldn't be able to be in this position. This situation is a vicious circle caused by the council underinvesting and the parents chucking their proverbial toys out of the pram. Perhaps if those parents who have the money, and the education, to fight this sensibly didn't vote with their feet and over stretched wallets more might be done.

I don't think so, MI- it was definitely academic work above and beyond A level that was required......something about how shocking it as that state school pupils were so badly let down because they thought As were enough......

fourcornered Do you really think so? Do you think Lord True and Hodgkins care? When I tried to discuss with Hodgkins the fact that the private schools were full of parents who would have preferred state schools and felt slighted that Catholic parents were now being privileged with a new school whilst they felt they had not been given a choice, he was more concerned that the private schools would go out of business if they were to target winning parents back to the state system by giving them more schools based on the Waldegrave and Teddington (outstanding traditional comprehensives, no Swedes attached)

model

Ah yes, another thread told us that if our children who went to average comps, and managed to get into Oxbridge/Russell group universities then we did not live in the real world. The children I know are real people but apparently they have disappeared into a parallel universe.

Nor are comps allowed to teach Further Maths at A level or triple science GCSE, or 3 MFL unless of course they are 'leafy.'

But this thread is making me laugh out loud so keep it up!

Also if our kids are in top set classes we are getting a totally unrepresentative picture in any case. Though those top sets are also not as top as proper top sets.

and do not forget how smug we are to have access to decent state schools

Nor are comps allowed to teach Further Maths at A level or triple science GCSE, or 3 MFL unless of course they are 'leafy.'

No-one told mine. It's not leafy - our town has some small leafy bits with properly expensive houses, a sizeable chunk of ordinary squeezed middleness and a similarly-sized chunk of pretty damn deprived. The school nevertheless manages triple science, has recently added a third MFL and definitely does Further Maths at A-level. As well as a lot of competitive sport, art and drama, music and other extracurricular stuff. I know full well how lucky we are and a lot of it is down to the head who originally turned it round - she is still there pushing onwards and upwards. She still does some teaching hours too.

oh yeah and beating the selective and fee paying schools into the national music for youth finals

that was all a dream

Just to be serious for a moment - there have been reports on the news this week (and even a version on Newsround) about South Sudan. The phrase that stuck in my mind is that a young woman there is more likely to die in childbirth than to finish school.

We may or may not be smug, but we are fortunate.

And we have all been fighting tooth and nail to buy the £1 million, 1 bed flat because it's right next door to the said leafy comp.

But we would go private if we could.......

And fourcornered bearing in mind Lord True's sons went to Eton, one of them is in this picture with Prince William www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096243/Prince-William-Birdsongs-Eddie-Redmayne-pictured-Eton-wearing-wacky-waistcoats.html, and his daughter to the leading Catholic Boarding School St Mary's.