Secondary School Dilemma

[yvette1971]

So its that time of year and we're attending lots of secondary school open days. We're mainly interested in the independent sector for dd and have hit upon a surprising dilemma...

There are two 'frontrunners' - a busy independent school (400 pupils) which prides itself on 98% GCSE pass rate (A-C incl. English and Maths); and a much smaller school (175 pupils) that has moderately lower results (91%, though some of these are IGCSE so the official league table shows much lower (like 60%). Both are selective entry.

On paper, the busier school would seem better, but I must admit that I felt the smaller school (with much smaller class sizes) just 'felt' better when I looked around.

I couldn't work out why the smaller school gets worse results with smaller classes etc. I spoke with some of the parents and pupils and it seems the smaller school does have some children with additional needs - dyslexia etc, which I don't think the bigger school has. Also, I got the distinct impression at the bigger school (from talking to pupils) that they may be 'selective' about who gets to sit which GCSE exams...

Everyone I speak to tells me to follow the best academic results. Am I wrong to just go with my heart and send DD to the school that 'feels' right? She doesn't seem to mind which of them she goes to !

Be careful with the very small school,whilst it may seem desirable at 11, will it provide enough scope at GCSE and A level, will the friendship 'pool' be too small in reality for a 16 yr old? Also, take a good look at its finances. A lot of smaller cosy schools are family owned and are struggling in the current economic climate, you don't want to be looking for another school suddenly.

Hello. Firstly it depends on your child who you know better than I, so think about what you have learnt from primary prep in relation to what suits your child.

But apart from that I would echo what inthename said. our children went to a small independent school. Ds was at secondary age there, and it was often claustrophobic and the mix of additional needs was not that well catered for. And as they got old it really was too small for most of them. You could never steer clear of teachers or pupils that you didn't get on so well with. And yes, it shut very suddenly and with no warning at all due to the finances.

Both much too small in my opinion. Once they reach secondary school, most children need to spread their wings a bit- hard to do with so few in a year group.

I agree that both schools are much too small. We too are choosing between a small independent, a larger independent and a small state school. The schools have numbers of 900, 1400 and 900.
175 is the sort of numbers I would expect in a primary school. With numbers that small I would be very concerned that the GCSE options will be limited as too many options means not enough students in each subject.

A small school can look ideal to an 11 year old, but you have to be able to imagine them there at 15/16!

I chose a big school, shy DS in y7 settled in well. Much more opportunities/facilities/gcse options.

As to results, pah, value-add is more important.

As to a-c passrate, how many are a? Would you really be happy with c's?!

Finances will be really stretched, they may not be able to attract top notch teachers, teachers may be second-hatting all the time (Geography teachers taking maths classes etc). May not be able to feed kids into good uni's, may have to rely on Mickey mouse subjects, may not be able to participate in the indie sports friendlies as unable to field full teams, may not have facilities to deal with SN or extremes of ability and/or behaviour, and may unoffiically weed out on these grounds.

All of above applies to both schools. Have you investigated any of the above?

If you mean 98% A*-C inc English and Maths (rather than 98% just passing) then there are 2 ways a school can get a cohort to that level, very good teaching and 'encouraging' children who won't pass to leave - it's worth knowing how much of each they do before your child starts.

175 sounds very low for a secondary school.

School local to us with less than 200 pupils nearly went under last year. Even 400 is not large by secondary standards. If it is coed you are talking about a very small pool from which to select sports teams etc so if your dc is that way inclined they may not get competitive matches and coaching ,good music opportunities et al. Agree about potential difficulties with staff turnover and maintaining facilities.

Thanks all for your excellent points - lots of good food for thought.

We have been looking at smaller schools in particular (max class sizes around 15). The schools I'm looking at cover years 7 to 11 only (no sixth forms) so that corresponds to two forms for each year in the small school and four forms for each year in the larger. Only one independent near us (out of nine private schools) has more than 500 pupils. The state schools of course run into the thousands of pupils.

My elder DD (now at uni) attended the local state school and had a horrid time - in oversubscribed class of 32 for some subjects and she barely scraped half her GCSEs. So that has left me somewhat biased towards small schools.

I researched the finances of the small school and it looks good: no debts; surplus budget; consistent pupil numbers. Range of GCSEs and specialist teachers is also good.

That said, so far I haven't heard anyone thinking it would be a good idea. It's so tough isn't it? :-(

You really need to supplement (and better still, replace) the metrics used to assess the academic performance of the two schools with the statistics on A star and As! Also look at Bs and Cs separately, if you wish. Try the Telegraph online (for A+) or the school websites.

When you focus on %A-C, you imply that what really matters to you is that few people get Ds or worse. At good independents this number will be miniscule and therefore near meaningless. (Eg try 99.9 vs 100 A-C - you really have no idea which school is achieving better overall results, only that Ds are very rare)

Of course if the schools are non-selective and you want to compare them to your best available state alternative, %A-C is worth a look.

You should also treat igcses and gcses the same.

If a school is (very) selective, its results should be better - and this will sometimes make it difficult to compare schools, and might need to be factored into your assessment.

Agree with theead consensus that these schools are worryingly small. 6th form?

175 pupils is smaller than a bog standard 1 form entry primary and may impact on the availability of clubs, team games and choir/orchestra etc.
My school was around 300 pupils and many of the 'opportunities' that they boasted about in the prospectus simply didn't exist in reality because they couldn't scrape the necessary numbers together.
It was an academically selective school with excellent results but every year girls would have the rug pulled out from under them and told that they wouldn't be sitting GCSE that they had been studying for. If you weren't going to get A*-B then you didn't sit the exam (unless it was maths or English).
Small schools can also be tricky if you are introverted or in any way quirky or 'odd'. I found it hugely claustrophobic but my sister who is more socially conventional than I am had a fab time at an even smaller school.

"My elder DD (now at uni) attended the local state school and had a horrid time - in oversubscribed class of 32 for some subjects and she barely scraped half her GCSEs. So that has left me somewhat biased towards small schools."

That sounds like either a bad school or a bad fit rather than a size related issue.

35 in a year group is really, really too small.

And I think 15's too small for a class as well!

Another thing to look at is availability of subjects at GCSE - what range of say MFL and DT options do they have? You won't know yet what your DC will most want to do, but avoiding a very limited range is probably worth it.

BTW, I'd consider the schools you are considering 'small' and 'very small'

Hakluyt "And I think 15's too small for a class as well!"

What is the disadvantage of a small class? Max'ing out at 15 children is put forward as the 'holy grail' by all the independent schools I've visited (save one which has classes of 30). These are the per-subject class sizes - so the constitution of each class changes with each subject (i.e. you're not stuck with the same 14 kids for every lesson, so to speak).

I very much appreciate all the responses on here - it has certainly made me think - but I am intrigued now by this prejudice against small schools. I went to a theatrical performance by the very small school the other night and considering how few pupils there are in the entire school I was amazed at the quality of the performance, the engagement of the pupils across all year groups and the passion they all showed. It was without doubt the best school performance I've ever seen. I'm not sure a judgement purely on the basis of the number of pupils is entirely fair. Luckily my DD will have regular contact with friends from all her previous schools (they live all around us - six of them on our street) so I'm not even sure I'm concerned about friendship issues etc.

Its true that the classes are small in some GCSE subjects. I looked-in on a physics class with only 10 kids in it, but I have to say the kids were all engaged and interested and the teacher was a physics graduate. The A*-A grades are over 50% too.

Anyhow, I'm going to have another really long hard look at how these schools function during the school day; the breadth of GCSE provision etc. I have a lot of experience of massive state schools (I went to the largest school in Wales!) so I think I have some insights at both end of the scale.

Thanks again all for your insights - very very valuable. x

But there is a difference in teaching and learning for 15 in a set in a selective school and 15 mixed ability in a non selective environment.

And when I visited the school which came close to closure there were 4 in the a level maths set, surely too few to have positive exchange of ideas and I'd hate to be the one who didn't quite grasp it while the rest did.

The NUT themselves (who should be the experts) are lobbying for maximum GCSE class size of 18:

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9966551/NUT-demands-cut-in-class-sizes-and-working-week.html

"I'm not sure a judgement purely on the basis of the number of pupils is entirely fair"

I was only focussing on size because you were!

OP: Good to hear that both have A*-A above 50%. If you also have subject-specific breakdown and several kids get A stars in each subject, then this gives some confidence regarding the teaching.

I think the quality of the teaching is the most important thing (even more so than class sizes) at secondary, and my underlying concern re the smaller of the two schools is whether they have the critical mass to attract and retain (including paying well) highly qualified, enthusiastic, inspiring, brilliant teachers in each of the subjects, in full time positions, without making a loss. The 4-form school might have that more easily than the 2-form one. (I would also look at fees and financials in this context)

Schools can definitely be too small. 175 pupils is way too small for a school to cater to the academic.

And I think 15's too small for a class as well!

I think it is a good number. I looked at Manchester Grammar school which is an excellent school and their form sizes are only 12 even though they have around 200 pupils in each year group. I think as long as there are plenty of opportunities to take sports lessons and clubs etc with larger number of pupils then 15 is a good number for academic lesson teaching.