Value added scores for independent schools

[papalazaru]

Is there a way to find these scores? I'm looking at different schools for my daughter who is currently in Year 5. When comparing the schools using GCSE results obviously you can rank them but if a school is highly selective with its intake then it follows that their results will reflect this. However, a school with a good value added will be making the most of their less able children.
Some schools I've looked at do publicise their value added but others don't. How can I find it out? Will I specifically have to ask?
Thanks.

And I guess I indulge in quite a lot of home education by ensuring my children are fully exposed to everything I value, regardless of what they are taught in school.

As a teacher at a (very successful )state secondary one thing I would say is that the iGCSE is much easier. We constantly hear criticisms of corruption and Controlled Assessment but the iGCSE's still have coursework! We enter our weakest pupils for IGCSE because it is easier for them to get a higher grades. Until every pupil in the country takes the same exams no real comparison can be made.

Lack of school homework and long summer holidays help.

(that was in reference to my comment about "home education" not about GCSEs versus iGCSEs...)

from a range of racial backgrounds, but their parents have all bought into the establishment in a big and expensive way.

Might I categorically state suggest that the vast majority of Plato-reading, gallery-visiting, theatre-attending, philosophy-debating families from - let's say - Iran, the West Indies, Argentina, Nigeria (especially now,) do not do those things to "buy into" the UK or European establishment . They do them and want their children to do them out of a belief in the inherent value of those activities. It would be gross (and unforgivably ignorant) to suggest otherwise.

Whatever their reasons for embracing those values, they are the values of the Establishment. Some people reject them purely for that reason (which is silly, but they do). Those who don't are buying into the values of the Establishment whether they mean to or not.

If you buy into something, you accept it as valid... you could always look it up in the dictionary...

It's not even the case that everyone has bought into the idea of 13 years of compulsory education, let alone being taught whatever a teacher fancies in div.

And sorry, but I really don't think someone would spend a colossal sum of money on school fees if they didn't really buy into the values of the school - why spend lots of money for your children to be taught things you disagree with? You do NOT get that sort of guaranteed commitment in a state school which contains some children whose parents don't even want them to be there.

Ok, it's for a different thread, but across the globe, across centuries, a deeply held faith in what one might call the liberal arts has been the mainstay of the anti establishment classes. It's what the establishment stamps out first; free informed thought and speech, "the uses of literacy" close interrogation of history...

Why d'you think those things are being costed out of not just present day UK education but the entire span of life? Why do UK Conservative politicians pop up occasionally to encourage the populace into an ever greater devotion to Saturday night TV?...

It is incredibly depressing to see so many people here stating that "real education" (the sort that enables people to recognise the erosion of freedom for example) is is not for the likes of "others".

You haven't yet described "real education," though, ZeroSomeGameThingy. Reading Shakespeare, finding out about Dali and listening to opera are the examples that happygardening gave, and they all sound very establishment to me. That is, for the establishment to enjoy, but not the hoi polloi. The establishment has always taken over what used to be anti-establishment, as a means of controlling it, and all those examples are safely enough in the past to be fully establishment and proud of it, now.

Or at least, that is the uncorrected interpretation of an awful lot of people...

Hmmm. Slow typing means I've crossed other posts and seem to be talking at cross purposes.

And how have I got myself to the position of arguing for Winchester and a coupla other places as bastions of the revolution? Since my history and reasoning are incontrovertibly correct I seem to have predicted an interesting future...

If the Labour government made many museums and art galleries free-entry, and didn't close half so many libraries as the Tories, were they being anti-establishment?

Agggy I can't comment on all IGCSE examination boards but my DS is currently doing all IGCSE's and only one subject has course work which is worth 10% of the overall mark all the others are exams only satat the end of two years. Certainly from reading comments on here the MFL is considered to be significantly more rigorous and a friend says that the Cambridge IGCSE Latin in definitely more rigorous.
If I wrote that all state school do is spend their time doing crowd control stopping kids throwing chairs the the likes of Martorana would quickly attack me for making sweeping generalisations and she would be rIght. Of I said "Div" could not be replicated or be suitable in the state sector I would be accused of being elitist.
Let schools do what suits them and their pupils but I still struggle to see why many children are having their time tables filled up with 12 (I)GCSE, why can't they do 2-3 less and have more time to do sport, music, drama, (all non examined of course) Div, or how about voluntary work. Admittedly unmeasurable in terms value added scores but still of value.

I agree with you, happygardening. Although sport, music and drama can, unfortunately, be examined, so that's your extra 2-3 subjects sorted...

You honestly, honestly believe that all theatre and all art have been safely homogenised into the establishment?

Why aren't you protesting?

Oh! By real education I meant being thought to think as well as to perform in the prescribed fashion. Education ought to be dangerous.

You can even "test" someone's voluntary work via the Duke of Edinburgh awards.

ZeroSomeGameThingy - at what point did I say ALL theatre and art have been safely homogenised? I said that Shakespeare, Dali and (most) opera had.

Maybe happygardening's ds has been asked to listen to Jerry Springer the opera? Or has attention mainly been on the historically great composers?

Div would be perfectly suited to any school - with tweaks for different levels of capacity. There would be a problem in that insufficient teachers have had an education that allows them an overview of subjects and to make links between them.

The other problem is that GCSEs are school leaving exams, intended to show employers that students have reached a certain level. The need for these won't go away. WIn Coll type students have no need of a certificate of competency at 16 because their equivalent will happen later and at a higher level.

I am not sure what will happen to high culture and the canon in future. I've always felt that if children weren't introduced to it then it would forever be alien to them and would be another barrier to moving into establishment type jobs. But it doesn't need to be either Introduced or tested in writing - it can be done orally, physically - that is the beauty of Div and is why it would suitable for all in an educational utopia.

rabbitstew I think quite a few "educated" people would assume that education means being able to relate Jerry Springer to Shakespeare - and from that synthesis make an intelligent argument about what people might want from (say) the monarchy or religion or entertainment in 50 years time.

Rabbit, a lot of literary theory pertaining to Shakespeare over the past 25 years has focused on historical context and the subversion inherent in them. Some, slightly less popular, has been overtly political. This has trickled down to A level. There is a lot subversion in the arts our children are likely to encounter at school.

The current inclusion of Russell Brand and Dizzee Rascal in OCR s English A Level will likely include this kind of analytical practice when studied. In the classroom I think ( haven't seen the syllabus but that's what I guess). It is too easy for the media to shout Russell Brand = dumbing down. Good practice is about making links.

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