Secondary school choice - am I wrong not to be making a more active decision?

[redskyatnight]

I am slightly musing aloud here really but welcome any words of wisdom.

DS is in Y5, so our thoughts are inevitably turning towards secondary school applications.
We live in a town where people tend to go to their catchment secondary - in fact admissions criteria mean it would be nigh on impossible for us to get into any other state secondary in our town (excluding the 2 "failing" schools, which are the wrong end of town for us anyway).

Our catchment secondary is best described as "bog standard" - it has a very mixed intake and I've heard both good and bad things about it from parents with children there. Most seem to think it is "perfectly fine" without raving about it (though tbh that is a description also levelled at the DC's current junior school which has been - "perfectly fine"!). It is a fairly modern school and does have (to my mind anyway) amazing facilities. Anyway, DH and I had also just assumed that DS (along with 95% of his current school) would go there.

However, I'm starting to worry (and I accept that this is largely due to influences from my extended family) that this is too passive a decision.

We live on the edge of a grammar area so there are some parents angling for grammar places (many of whom will have put their children into private junior or have been heavily tutoring) - I had discounted this as it would mean an hour on the bus, early starts and long days for DS (plus he obviously may not get in!). Or we could move but that feels like big step, mean longer commute for me and disruption for DC.

My extended family are very pro-private education and my brother's children go to a private school. I hear a lot about how wonderful the school is (and a lot of criticism - both unspoken and thinly hidden- about how state schools evidently aren't). However, again the private school would mean an hour on a bus (and he might not get in). We fall into the "we could just about afford it if we drove a battered old car and had no holidays" camp, but our jobs are both uncertain, plus we would definitely both have to work full time to afford it (and I was rather thinking that my going part time to be about more would be more beneficial).

DS is above average ability but not stellar (his predicted levels for the end of Year 5 are 5c in maths and reading and 4b in writing). He has a tendency to do the bare minimum and I do wonder if a more academic environment might push him more.

But basically, I am starting to dither under pressure that the results at the bog-standard comp (looking only at high achievers) are not a patch on those at the grammar or private school and would I be letting my DC down by simply taking the passive option?

I do think those value added scores suggest that the higher achievers are making good progress. Some schools round here have below 1000 value added for high achievers and they are not considered to be crap schools and have good ofsteds.

When you say the school is "bog standard" are you basing that on its reputation or results or something else?

The subject by subject results are on the school website - tbh I have no idea what I am looking for...

There's a school that dd3 and I looked at last autumn for her, which is improving, and boasting of its high percentage of 5a-c incl E&M ... which is the same as my dd2's school. And then when I looked at the actual results in each subject, the first school gets lots and lots of C's, not many A's and B's. Dd2's school has much more of a spread of grades, with quite a few kids getting several A's and A's.

Dd2's school have a higher proportion of high attainers, but a lower value added, and an average B+ rather than an average B at the first school. You can get very hung up on small differences if you're not careful!

Just go and see the local school, and unless you hate it, it'll probably be fine

redsky look ast the results and just do a little tallying.

In maths, how many took sat? How many got an A*? What percentage of the total is that?

Do the same calculation for each subject. It might have already been helpfully done for you, although unlike;y if it's not a particularly impressive number .

Post the percentages if you like and we can give you our views. Or check the national average percentage for an A* and an A online. Compare the data.

)))))) Segregated schooling (((((((

Grammar schools are not full of bright kids.
They are full of the children of the sharp elbowed and those rich enough to pay for tutoring.

Faith schools are full of those with time to pretend to pray.

Neither should be funded by the state

OP
send your child to the local school so that they have a social life
and then broaden their horizons

talkin don't you drive past your local school each morning to drop your DC off at a better one?

yup
both are comps
the one I drive past is an evangelical Christian sponsored academy that is failing
I'd home ed rather than send my kids there - others feel the same - hence it has 400 spaces

my drive is 17 minutes round trip : in the afternoon my kids get the bus home - with the 250 others who make the same trip mine do

Right, so you drive past your local school for a better school.

Wondering why then, you feel the need to tell other people to use theirs..

Shall we not do this? The OP is asking for thoughts on what she should do. There are plenty of threads to fight on!

OP- my instinctive reaction is the nearest school too- but I can see why you have concerns, as Word said- find it the % of As in each subject and work from there- with help from us education obsessives if you like. As I said, it doesn't take much to drag down a group's average- a few dire performances can do it. But if the results are uniformly mediocre, then you ned to be asking serious questions of the Head.

I think a very good rule of thumb in life is not to ask people to do things you don't do yourself.

It makes one look at best silly, at worst, hypocritical.

Diving onto a thread, where the OP has real concerns, offering no response to those concerns opther than to tell the OP to do something, one wouldn't do oneself has to be tackled IMVHO.

It's trying to minimise the OP's concerns and shut the conversation down; not on.

None of the schools in my area are selective.

OP was considering sending her child out of the local area to a selective school rather than to the local school where their friends will go.

I had a choice of schools and sent my children to the one where

• they would most fit in socially
• most of their friends from primary school are going
• could get to easily so that out of school friendships were solid
• had a short enough travel time that none of us would ever resent it

all valid points for the OP to consider
many people post that they regret the huge commutes their parents put them through ....

Yup. I regret the huge commute (two buses, hour long journey) I made to a 'top' academic school where I bumped along the bottom and had no social life as no one came from my neighbourhood. I would have been much happier, and I reckon done better, at the middling school down the road. We've sent our DS to the local comp mainly for the knowledge that it had a highly rated head teacher and that it set for all subjects, so he'd get the best support both in his weak and in his strong subjects. It had no rating when he started as it was a new school. He's done very well there academically in fact, but almost as importantly, has a fab circle of friends he can see at the drop of a hat, who actually have formed their own study group for GCSEs.

Just to say thank you to everyone for their opinions and input. I'm not sure that anything in the thread has convinced me to do other than what we were planning to do anyway (send DS to local school) but there are some things I will definitely look in to - thanks for the suggestions.

I was also someone who had a horrendous commute to school as a child and it was something I swore I'd never do - but of course as an adult you question whether your reasons for rejecting something are actually valid!

That's all any of us can ever do, Op. Re assess and ask questions.

Over the course of my DC's education, I've forced myself to do this very regularly. Sometimes it makes you change direction, at other times it simply confirms existing views.

Good luck .

I think suggesting that people choose a school where their DCs will 'fit in socially' is actually quite telling...especially when you are railing against faith schools which by and large, except in London, reflect very closely their faith and parish communities.

To be fair, my children wouldn't fit in socially at a very faith oriented school, however achingly middle class it was. It's not just a matter of fitting in by social class, you know!

I accept that some faith schools are achingly middle class. Two of the three faith schools I have known, though (the primary I attended and the primary my kids attend/attended) are far from being achingly middle class, serving as they do/did a largely WC catholic parish community and located in/near areas of social housing. My secondary school was more mixed, since it was fed by several different primary schools. But it wasn't achingly middle class even then.

But my point is, I'm not personally sure whether social cohesion is a desirable attribute for a school (since that often translates into keeping the poor people out or driving past the school that isn't posh enough for you) but if it IS, then why is the social construct of a faith community which people choose to belong to and which often means a great deal to them, less important than the social construct imposed by depth of pockets and postcode? If my kids went to our closest primary school, they would indeed be at an achingly MC school. As it is, they go/went to the catholic school further away and decidedly less MC (achingly or otherwise). And rather more ethnically and socially diverse.

The problem with pushing the idea of 'go to the school where you fit in socially' is that one of the unspoken messages that goes along with that is that people should know their place. My secondary school was in a leafy bit of the borough (literally. I had to walk through a wood to get there) and the leafy residents often moaned about the number of kids from the estate where I lived who were going to a school in 'their' community. When we should have known better and stuck to the dreadful (non faith) school on our doorstep.

Herc
I'm not sure what faith schools have to do with it : the only secondary faith schools round here are Catholic and they are full of Muslims wanting single sex education.
Most of the primary schools are CofE Controlled - no selection other than by catchment.

Hampshire comps are pretty secular places by and large

It sounds as if you would have to put your family under a lot of logistical and financial pressure were you to decide not to send your DS to your local secondary.

Can you boost your DS' education in other ways that are less of a commitment?

Hi redsky:

We've chatted on the primary feed in the past and I was absolutely in your shoes last year. Here in Birmingham grammar's are free (as is taking the test) and lots of parents pay for tutoring. I was unsure about the whole thing and my old socialist of a DH was anti it - but DD1 surprised us by saying she wanted to go for it (most of her friends were going to sit the 11+ so she wanted to as well). We went DIY - workbooks, more reading and lots of maths practise.

What decided it for me was outcomes. Say you fantasize or desire your child to have the option of going to one of the finest Universities (Cambridge/ Oxford/ UCL/ Durham/ LSE) - here at least if you go to a grammar some students go on to these - if you go to any ordinary comprehensive NO STUDENTS go to these. So that is the rather damning statistic which I think makes parents go a bit wild eyed about pushing their children to pass the 11+.

I also have a child who is queen of the just enough/ just in time delivery of work system - so I know that high pressure wouldn't really suit her (and therefore was worried about the much tougher standards/ work load at a grammar school).

In the end DD1 sat the 11+, she passed for a school way too far away and just missed out (by 8-10 pts) the two nearer schools she wanted to go to and sadly several of her friends are off to.

We have noticed one thing - the kids who had private tutors have all done better on the test than those without. Maybe it's a fluke - but that's the trend around here. Which leaves me rather in a predicament for DD2. Funds being what they are - even tighter because we moved into a better catchment for secondary options for DD1 during her Y5 (since we guessed she was borderline for passing the 11+) and therefore have a bigger mortgage - I suspect it will be DIY tutoring at home again for DD2.

I absolutely understand your predicament. It's all well and good for people to criticize you for considering a grammar - but given the stark differences in outcomes (here typical comprehensive struggles to get 40% to 5 A-C GCSEs whereas it's 100% at grammar schools. So yes, choosing a grammar is also about choosing an environment where children are pushed academically/ curriculum is ambitious/ teaching is of a high standard and where the whole 'it's not cool to study culture' isn't allowed to flourish. Being in a big city - we're also aware there are other problems with secondaries (gangs/ drugs/ drinking - which also leave old Mums and Dads like us worried - and I'm not so naive as to think some of these problems don't occur in grammars).

Long story short: DD1 is off to her local comprehensive. It is good. Brighter pupils go to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol - good solid uni's - and a few extremely hard working/ bright pupils transfer to the grammar for sixth form. It's not ideal - but given all the givens/ given DD1's personality - it's the best we could do for her as parents. Certainly our moving to this catchment has meant she doesn't have to go to the secondary which originally would have been our option had we stayed put in our old house - that secondary has just been placed into special measures and the HT has resigned. There are a number of friends with children off to that school next year that are terrified their children are facing an uphill battle to achieve academically. Two have opted to go private (independent schools) apparently.

Of course one could argue that local primaries failing to get children securely to L4 (as is the case for our primary which feeds vast majority of students into failing local secondary) is the underlying problem. Poor reading/ maths skills out of primary totally set up children for a fall come secondary - and mean the secondaries waste KS3 catching them up to where they should have been at the end of KS2/ early KS3 - but that's another discussion entirely...

HTH

School angst is catching and can reach frenzied levels.

If you have a perfectly fine school on yur doorstep, where your DS will thrive happily alongside his friends and have a good quality of life, if it ha good facilities, then why on earth would you deliberately place yourself in a stressful, competitive, angst-ridden debt-ridden, house-moving situation for no proven improved outcome?

Have a look at the Dept Ed detailed stats on the school and make sure that they do enable children of your DS's ability band to reach expected targets, keep on top of his homework and revision, give him as much enrichment as you can - visiting museums, the theatre, historical places, science events etc, and all should be well.

I went to a quasi private school (Direct grant LA scholarships) and I feel very confident with the education my DS is getting at our good local comp.

FWIW DD1 (now Y6) will also be going, with most of her friends, to our "perfectly fine" catchment school. The way I see it, is that unless there are any real problems - bullying, not enjoying school, major underachievement etc. then why would we not go with that. If any problems rear their head further down the line, we are lucky enough that we could probably stretch to funding a different solution. I always think that the local school should always be the first option, and feel grateful that we're in a situation where our local school is easy to get into and reasonably good.