state comprehensive secondary schools stretching able pupils - opinions?

[PastSellByDate]

Hi all

DD1 is happily selted into her secondary comprehensive which is rated 'GOOD' by OFSTED.

In Year 7 all classes are mixed ability. Gradually from Year 8 they start to stream - most classes in Year 9 are by ability.

So far I've had some niggles (little or no maths homework coming home - everyone giving the same worksheet and the homework is for pupils to finish the worksheet, but DD1 finishes in class 95% of the time. DD1 scored Nc L6 at KS2 SATs). We have raised this with the teacher and our solution has been to do more at home.

Last week there were a slew of reports in the press about secondary schools failing to stretch their most able: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22873257 - based on the second OFSTED repoert into progress of pupils achieving NC L5+ at KS2 SATs in English or Maths in secondary (www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-not-doing-enough-to-support-most-able-students).

It's quite clear that if you are in a miniority of bright pupils at a state comprehensive your chances of going on to achieve an A/A* at GCSE are much lower (ca. 28% in Math if

cauchy
By that post I have to assume you are Clavinova as you do not have the courtesy to leave schools un-named

Level 6 SATs are an option : DCs school did not offer it
and the school up the road is, in admissions, a comp : 50% high achievers is statistically unusual
Maths olympiads are neither here nor there

However
I have to agree with you that early entry is not a good move and the sooner it gets abolished again the better

No, she is bl....y well not me! For a start I haven't worked out how to put any of my text in bold type yet - you may have noticed that!

Maths olympiads are neither here nor there.

Why? These are one of the best routes to extend those of high mathematical ability. I find it surprising that more comprehensive schools in affluent areas with significant numbers of high achievers don't engage with maths olympiads, linguistic olympiads, salter challenges etc.

This whole thread is about whether comprehensives are stretching the most able pupils or not. The school you are referring to definitely has a significant fraction of able and very able pupils. They do get As and As at GCSEs, (perhaps less As than one might expect) but it is very hard to work out whether high ability pupils are being stretched and challenged. One indication that they aren't doing everything they might is the lack of engagement with things like olympiads. Another indication is that they don't seem to offer subjects such as latin, greek, computer science, but maybe this is not feasible within their budget. Perhaps they do a terrific job with maths extension in house and they don't feel the need to do anything else (although this is rather at odds with putting kids in for the easier stats gcse as an extension instead of further maths gcse).

BTW the school in question does not, according to Ofsted data dashboard, perform in the highest quintiles when compared with similar schools although it performs in the top quintiles when compared with all schools. But again I'm not sure how much one should read into this, because it presumably depends on how Ofsted decides on what are "similar" schools. (The Ofsted data dashboard for TP's DS school says that it performs mostly in the 3rd/4th quintile compared to similar schools yet TP is happy with the school.)

cauchy
(The Ofsted data dashboard for TP's DS school says that it performs mostly in the 3rd/4th quintile compared to similar schools yet TP is happy with the school.)
NASTY STALKING COMMENT
I do not name my son's school : get a life and name your kids school before stalking mine

PS olympiads are unregulated, unrecognised and cost money

PPS schools are dropping Latin and Greek because the teachers are retiring - simple

DD1 was stretched by her 'seemingly' (results) poor Modern school despite being as Hakulyt puts it an 'outlier'. The very fact that she did not want to leave the school at either 13 or 16 because she was thriving , speaks volumes. The school was able to stretch DD1 and help her achieve ABB at A level (A Chemistry) The best results for 4 years at the school shows that even 'ordinary' schools can stretch pupils.

DD2 (yr11 Grammar) does not receive the same encouragement, for good work, it is just expected. I think that is not necessary a good thing, every pupil needs praise whether they are at a grammar, comprehensive or modern school.

My two pennorth is that schools do 'stretch', IME at least, and in subjects like maths there seems to be a particular strength in many schools in igcses for top sets, or GCSE early.

What I do think though is that gcses and indeed A2s are pretty crap. Certainly in the subjects I know of and about, the exams and the syllabus leading to them is just weak. I don't think that schools don't want to, or don't, stretch: I think exams don't.

My kid is currently studying French, Spanish, Latin and Mandarin. She's a level 8 for maths and studying gCSE poetry. She's 13. Not sure if want her stretched much more. She also plays lots of sport & watches too much Netflix. Comprehensive school.

At that level, the additional languages are not 'stretching'. ( I am languages teacher). It looks good for the school to offer them so that parents can brag, however.
Real, worthwhile stretching is deepening understanding, not just widening out to get a bigger haul of GCSEs.

Notinaminutenow Fri 13-Mar-15 17:59:24

I wonder, does the child actually get any say in this plan? Is there any room for children to grow during ks3? Maybe find a new passion? Perhaps, shock horror, follow a non-academic path. To actually enjoy their learning and not just buy into the current doctrine that, without a place at a RG Uni, their education has been in vain.

Sorry don't know how people are quoting other messages - but responding to Notinaminutenow who I think also goes by RaisinBoys:

This is very much coming from a place of child wants to be an engineer/ mathematician/ scientist and has wanted to since Y4 in primary. Poor kid is in a family of ARTs graduates and artists - none of whom 'get' science/ maths or are particularly good at it but do appreciate a good documentary on tv. As I said earlier, I enjoy Brian Cox astronomy programmes on tv - but I'm the one sitting there discussing the lovely photography/ filming and the interesting way the producer has chosen to present the information.

DD2 (Y5) who's geography/ climate obsessed forced me to watch a programme on the BBC - Climate by Numbers. She tried to absorb the information from this tv programme whilst I was fascinated by the light sticks and wondering how they caught the image - stop motion/ overlay of live image over still?

I fear my worry notinaminute is not really about the secondary school (state comprehensive), I know reputationally it is a good school; I think the teachers care and work hard; it does get pupils to A & A* at GCSE Maths (but maybe 8 out of 150 pupils - sometimes less - over last 5 years) and it has reputedly got one pupil to Oxford/ handful into RG Unis in last 5 years. By Birmingham standards I can assure you that's an amazing state comprehensive. To be fair to the school many high flying GCSE students opt for the King Edward VI grammar schools for sixth form and leave the school at this juncture.

I totally accept in 5 minutes DD1 may have a different idea about what she wants to do when she grows up - but my problem right now is:

I'm starting to doubt whether the school can support DD1, the KS3 maths curriculum is not by year, as in KS1-2. I can't work out what should be taught by when, but can see there's a lot left to do.

The school is big on saying that they stretch able students 'laterally' with engagement in more complcated problems using the same skills taught to main class, but when I ask DD1 about this she says it's often NRICH puzzles she has already done or the teacher has her start further down the worksheet. She enjoys the work - but says a lot of the time it isn't difficult/ tricky or new (often she's done the NRICH puzzles before - as she does them at home in lieu of maths homework on teacher's advice).

I worry that with the dropping of AS Levels, University UCAS entrance scheme offers will be based on existing GCSEs - so now doing as well as you can is even more crucial (i.e. Bs or As may just not cut it)

My own maths abilities are limited and although I was confident to provide help in primary maths and felt confident I could appraise Maths Factor/ games on Woodlands Junior Maths Zone/ Multiplication.com/ etc... - I'm rapidly running out of that confidence and certainly suspect sometime in the next few years I will only be able to rely on the school to support DD1.

My own backstory is that my brother - who is a primary maths Lead at his US school started an engineering course at Uni thinking he was exceptional at maths based on our small town schooling only to find out he wasn't and started to struggle. He changed his major. He still enjoys maths but feels that had he been stretched in US High school = KS4 + Sixth form, he would have been more prepared. So that backstory is really haunting me. (I hasten to add he loves his job and is very content, it all did turn out alright - but at the time it was really upsetting for him and very hard to break the news to our parents - who were very much 'our son the engineer').

DH and I worry that if we just rely on the school - we'll end up with DD1 having to settle for something else, because she didn't quite make the cut for what she wanted to do (By the way DD1 currently is researching maths, engineering & physics programmes as part of a high achievers mentoring programme at the school - which by the way didn't even point out Cambridge/ Oxford offer engineering degrees or know about Cambridge Tripos system - Cambridge educated DH (a Uni lecturer) had to point that out to the school - and we only learned about STEP entrance exams through MN because of this discussion). The upshot of mentoring is the school are encouraging her to consider Loughborough. Nothing against Luga-baruga as we affectionately call it (hasten to add named learned from colleagues there) - but is it really the 'best' engineering course on offer? Not a lot of discussion of the full range of options - seems teacher knew about Luga-baruga - not Aston or UoB, not elsewhere (and it's really the 'elsewhere' side of things I'm interested in her finding about).

That's our delimma notinaminute/ Raisinboys - is she getting information on all possible destinations/ opportunities with guidance on what she needs to do to get there - is she being stretched to reach full potential?

I don't think there is an answer to these 'niggles' - I think it's always a case of a parent worrying and really having to hope the school will do its best by your child....

I hope DD1 will go on to be one of those 8 or so a year who achieve A/A* at GCSE - and I suppose just like primary (long sigh for here we go again) the solution is starting once again to look like I will have to help her achieve that.

cauchy:

like STEP - I haven't heard of maths olympiads, linguistic olympiads, salter challenges

I'll look into this and maybe raise it with the school.

I know that our school does do some sort of local maths and science (physics) competitions amongst other secondary schools (including grammars) - DD1 was allowed to be part of a team of Y7 pupils for a recent science day event, which included building something from range of wacky materials provided by school to protect an egg dropped from the 3rd floor window of the school hosting the competition. Her team won!

I did not name the school TP, nor was I specific enough about the data to make it uniquely identifiable. You repeatedly encourage people to move to your area because of its great comprehensive schools. Ofsted benchmark data says something different (although, as above, I allow that such data could well not tell the whole story). My point was that it is very hard for parents to work out how good a school is, when the results mostly reflect the intake and Ofsted data/reports are often believed to not tell the whole story.

Indeed one of the reasons why schools don't do olympiads and challenges is that these don't appear in league tables. Since the school above happily runs trips costing close to a thousand pounds (and asks for parents to fund extra materials for DT etc), I think they wouldn't have a problem getting most parents to contribute a little bit for such things if the budgets don't cover it. They really don't cost a great deal.

Does your school do the UKMT Maths challenge? It gets progressively harder and harder and ends up as the Olympiad.
Have you also heard of the Smallpeice Trust?

DD1 did achieve NC L6 at KS2 SATs

*According to the school's own data

Actually, to clarify, T set for Maths from Year 7 - after the first half term. They take Statistics in year 10, then Maths in Year 11, but I'm not sure if they are going to continue with this. Dd (who got a L6 SATS maths, fwiw) finds the Maths class enjoyable and it goes at a good pace. In ds's Maths set they went at a cracking pace as there were some extremely able boys and girls in his year.

I would rather the other subjects were set, too (they set for Science and MFL from year 8), as it does depend on the general spread of ability in a year and a duff class can affect the more able children if the teacher aims lessons at the middle or even lowest common denominator.

(That last sentence of mine was a bit weird - I meant use UKMT material at home/for homework, rather than NRICH.)

The maths challenge things seem a great idea and mine have enjoyed them (mostly - although one answered D to all the first questions once and got a silver). The ones who do olympiad and kangaroo really enjoy the challenge.

Can I just say that my DD won't be doing GCSEs in all the things she does now (she's year 8), but she has been given the chance to try lots of different things so she can find what she loves. So I appreciate her school giving her the chance. To me that's what education should be about - learning stuff cos it's interesting. And doing advanced calculus is all well and good, but being able to make a skirt or do a bit of DIY is just as useful (& stretching for some). My eldest is doing maths at Cambridge but is always grateful he did Food so he can cook a bit and DT so he can change a plug.

Thanks for all these links. I'm a teacher and had no idea about some of these things. I've already emailed colleagues about lots of them!

It might be worth checking out whether a university close to you offers masterclasses.

www.rigb.org/education/masterclasses/our-networks

Very interesting ideas - both UKMT senue & Attii and RI master classes Noblegiraffe.

Notably noblegiraffe Birmingham (which boasts several universities) doesn't appear to be offering these for their pupils. Shame really.

But thank you for them and I'll do some exploring of these and some ideas sent to me off post.

senua:

smallpiece looks right up DD1's ally and she has expressed interest in this - so thank you so much.

Being able to make a skirt is definitely stretching!

It is for me Atia !! I struggle to sew in a button. But I'm very good with algebra.

If we are talking about really stretching the able, in terms of grades, we need to be talking about A not A/A.
Achieving an A is not a sign of great achievement these days. Many schools will require an A grade in any subject just to continue to A Level, and in order to gain the top grades at A Level, an A* is usually the background GCSE result.

Top universities and highly competitive courses will be looking for candidates to have a good number of A in reality and As alone will not cut it. In reality, for competitive courses such as History at Durham, the typical candidate profile who receives an offer will be far in excess the lowest offer and if you looked at their GCSE profile most would have in excess of 6 A. So this is what schools need to achieve for their brightest students, not just a handful of As achieved by taking maths early. Taking maths early is only worth it if the candidate gets an a. If they get an A at the end of year 10 and then stick with it, they may have got an a a year later, so have been done a disservice.

So when looking at schools and how they serve the able, I would focus pretty heavily on A at GCSE. When schools only publish a cumulative result of a/a I would be asking for a more detailed break down! too see if most of those are a or a*.

I'm very happy with my dd getting a gcse early - tick - then she can focus on things that are more tricky for her such as drama and languages - both of which will help her share her brains w the world ;)

The Sutton trust run summer schools aimed mostly at students in year 12 who would be the first in their family to go to uni. Applications closed for this year but check for next year. summerschools.suttontrust.com/