Colyton or Torquay Girls?

[Trambuctious]

If all goes very very well on the exam day this will be the choice we need to make. Has anyone had to decide between these 2 schools, and how did you do so? We've been to the 2 open days, and they came across very differently, but were both tempting!

But I really don't have "so many gripes" about the school.
I only came on to mumsnet to look for some info about dropping subjects after AS and to see if others had had problems, at any school, not just at Colyton.

I responded to the OP's question simply because they asked and I think it IS very hard to see beyond the lovely open day presentations and carefully selected data presented by ANY school, not just Colyton.

I am just a parent but am equally entitled to a point of view and to share my experience and continued to post to respond to the parent whose DC, and apparently EVERYONE they know, think it's amazing" .

There is another side.

I have to say this thread has opened my eyes to what might be going on around the problems with recruiting a head.

I did look on the school website but there are only the names of the governors there, not when they were first elected or appointed. Perhaps the school could add this?

In a week there will no longer be a Head to write to, but perhaps I will think about contacting the Chair. I would be concerned about being seen as a "difficult parent" though, or it affecting my DC. We'll see.

However, my main aim in first responding was to give prospective parents another point of view to think about and prompt them to consider whether Colyton's unusual system will work with reformed GCSEs and A levels.

Milliy- Colyton is the ONLY school in the UK to have a system where all its students take all their GCSEs in Year 10 then A levels in Year 13.

I'm sure Molio will have the last word but I don't think I've anything else to add.

Chocolate - if you are refering to me not once in this thread have I used the word amazing. I have mentioned that your experience with dropping AS is in direct contrast to everyone my DC knows but I also pointed out that nobody can know everyone. I was perfectly happy to accept that your DC was not allowed to drop an AS (I even pointed out that it is well known you have to have a sensible defendable reason for dropping one) however you then made the frankly outrageous claim that AS can only be dropped if a DC has mental health problems! You rowed back from that subsequently to say you meant that it was an example of a good reason - and I imagine that it is (but it is only one of many) - but the tenor of your first post on that issue was quite clear. When I mentioned it to my DC they were actually somewhat pissed off with you for saying that (and indeed it was an outrageous thing to say) because my DC is not wild at the thought that there might be some embittered parents or fellow students going round claiming that all the DCs who have been allowed to drop AS subjects - as mine and some of their friends have - therefore have mental health problems.

My suggestion to you would be that if your DC has a genuine reason and rationale for dropping a subject for next year you should approach either the outgoing head or the incoming temporary head and sort it out.

I have agreed with you that taking GCSEs early might not be ideal for some, I have agreed with you that a 3 year 6th form might not be ideal especially as AS levels are going the way of all flesh.

I suspect I may be seen as a difficult parent due to my robust opposition to the school becoming an academy and some other (niche) concerns (some of which include the curriculum) but my DC have never been disadvantaged by this.

I do not have any issue with you pointing out the issues with the curriculum to prospective parents who have asked - I have pointed out some issues myself in this thread - but I think painting the school as completely inflexible when in fact while it has been inflexible with you there is plenty of evidence it has been extremely flexible with other pupils over the years - is somewhat misleading. You can only tell your story - but at times in this thread you seem to have sought to present your story as THE story. There are aspects of the curriculum I could do a big old rant about (and have done in the past) but I accept that my concerns are not everyones', and they may not even be correct but rather biased by my own views. They aren't really relevant to the OP's original question.

I don't expect Milly is any better informed than a great many other people who comment on this site crusader, myself included. Being a parent doesn't preclude someone having knowledge or expertise about things other than parenting!

However, as a parent, I'm certainly not going to be fazed by what someone with no connection to a school puts out as potential reasons for the delay in making an appointment. Certainly my experience of the school would suggest strongly that it doesn't seek clones and isn't set in its ways. Both are very curious suggestions in the absence of evidence in support.

Of course there will be a head. It's a legal requirement that a school should have a head. So there will be both a head and a chair for you to write to although the letter would be shared in any event. I'm no sycophant and have a distinct tendency to speak my mind (unless there's a very good reason for not doing so), but my own DC have never been in any way affected by my expressing my views. You really do seem so disaffected about the three year sixth form and the A Level results and what you understand to be an unchanging and unimaginative governing body it might help you to write - and it certainly won't do any harm!

”I don't have a problem with someone saying London is better than cambridge. . . but if you think that then why apply to cambridge at all given the hoop jumping it entails?”

Why not, Broadchurch?

You have four choices (Medicine) in your UCAS form and you certainly are not leaving any of them blank. You have to play to your strengths and grades, BMAT and UKCAT included, and at the same time cover all possibilities. In any case, Cambridge is a better BMAT school than Oxford.

The admissions tutors at Trinity, Cambridge are just doing their job in establishing during the interview that Trinity (arguably the most academic of all Oxbridge colleges) is just not the right school for DS given his love and passion for sports and the outdoor life. A House Captain of Sports at Eton, champion swimmer, top scorer and ‘pillar of the football team’, ‘crack rugby player’ amongst other accolades, and recently working out for hours on end 3 or 4 times a week at the local gym (his biceps are thicker than your neck - great for lifting up patients though ), getting involved in extreme sports like skydiving, etc. you are not going to convince Trinity tutors that you can survive 18 hours a day cooped up in a research room or library for 6 years, are you?

No, DS couldn’t be happier at his London school, thank you very much, where he also works during the summer holidays and still find time to travel the world (just spent 2 weeks in East Asia this Easter). All this didn’t stop him from announcing only last night that he’s achieved a (equivalent) Grade 1 Honours in his exams taken last month. In two years time hopefully, he’d be a fully qualified doctor out there saving lives and limbs and Oxbridge will be a strange word to his ears.

Grade 1 Honours?

I mean First Class (Honours), of course.

Molio. I bow to your superiority. I was merely suggesting reasons why the school might have struggled to appoint a Head and that was in response to a poster suggesting that the school being in Devon was the problem. Of course I do not have evidence (who does?) but I am aware that schools can be ultra choosy. This may well be a good thing but sometimes it is not. If you know the school, good for you! Your posts are more worthy than mine.

The value added is the easy to access measure of progress and Colyton has a good figure so it is not always more difficult to achieve this where a school has 100% high achievers. Plenty of schools with low and middle achievers would bite your hand off to get Colyton's figure! Often lower achievers take a long time to achieve! High achievers get it quickly. Many of the grammar schools near me have better value added than the secondary moderns. Most people would think it would be the other way round but it is not due to problems of 'closing the gap" which exists solely in the secondary schools.

I was just entering into the debate with some knowledge of another grammar school area. I had believed this was permissible and direct knowledge of this school was not required. Even with 3 years the average A level grade at Colyton is lower than the average A level grade of a Grammar school near me that has 10% middle achievers - and they do 2 year A levels. They have regular Ofsted inspections though.

Milly I do inevitably have better knowledge of the school since you've said where you live and that you aren't familiar with it. Comparison with another grammar school area is interesting and can be useful but when it comes to second guessing why an appointment panel didn't appoint then it's probably straying too far into hypotheticals.

It seems that almost anything is 'permissable' on MN these days, so I wouldn't worry about that....

For any poster whose DC is thinking of applying to Oxbridge for medicine, please don't be put off by concerns over lack of time and opportunities for extra curricular stuff. My own DS (just finished his third year) has managed to balance the course with a wide range of other activities including sport and an excellent social life and is healthy and happy, now exploring the Far East and looking forward to the clinical years. It's an excellent course; don't believe all you read.

Interesting then that second guessing that the problems in appointing are due to the school being in Devon but not that the organisation of the school might cause a problem and that this comment is made by someone who lives outside Devon. How prescriptive!

But Milly it's well known here that it's less easy to recruit than in many other areas. It's not a guess. Perhaps you weren't aware of this because Bucks is easy. In the old days where there was more likely to be a single breadwinner the problem wasn't acute, but many partners these days aren't able or willing to up sticks to the sticks. Any school in London or in the commuter belt will be far easier - though that said, some of the top grammars in London and other urban areas have been far from spoilt for choice recently in terms of numbers of applicants coming forward for headship posts so clearly there's more to the general problem than geography. Geography merely compounds the existing dearth of good potential heads. Your point on the other hand was pure guesswork and I can't think how you could have any evidence to back it up. No new head at any school would be bound by its current organisation so I can't see how it could be a problem. A challenge perhaps, if they chose to change it, but not a disincentive to headship in itself.

I wasn't second guessing that there are problems with recruitment because the school is in Devon. I have been told (by a person whose job it is to know) that there are problems with recruitment of teachers generally in Devon (even the slightly less awfully connected bit of Devon either) and I suggested that that is the case for the position of head of our school too, possibly. I didn't say it was definitely the case I said it was a plausible reason. It's my job to know why recruitment in a slightly better connected bit of Devon, into a different but connected industry, is challenging and again, 'being in Devon', with all that that entails, is a key factor.

As someone who relocated down here myself, because of my DH's job, I can completely understand that since it's a decision I have never ceased to regret but one which, absent a lottery win, is irreversible financially.

In fact, to be clear, I would be fine with it if the next head changed back to a 2 year 6th form. It's not my top choice of change (it might sneak into the top 5). But I wouldn't be sorry.

I could quote examples of where Colyton has been inflexible and examples of where it has been flexible, rather more of its inflexibility. The 3 year sixth form has caused a lot of problems and, as pointed out elsewhere, the A level results are not as good as you would expect from a school where GCSE results are good. Quite a few pupils do not stay on for the sixth form.

Parents are often very cautious about expressing any concerns for fear of what may happen to their children as a result. If you proclaim that the school is "amazing" you are unlikely to hear the stores about when it has been inflexible, unhelpful or bordering on incompetent. The school culture prevents learning from mistakes.

There were problems recruiting a head when Barry Sindall left. An ambitious person will take on and build up an improving school but not be so happy to take on one presented as perfect. Some potential heads might not want a 3 year sixth form but unpicking that would not be easy. The school's location is an issue but commuting from, say Honiton to Exeter would be a shorter and more pleasant journey than many in London.

The long term future is quite uncertain. Possibly the best thing now for the school would be an Ofsted that recommended abolishing the 3 year sixth form.

I have no insider information about this school but it does have some excellent leavers. Personally I think it is good when heads are given a free rein for innovative ideas and a three year sixth form is one of them but from what others say it would seem several years to engender problems which have become riskier. As a general observation a closed defensive stance by organisations and their adherents is not a good sign. I'm not sure why Molio seems at particular pains to quell speculation from posters such as Milly who may have interesting perspectives from a different knowledge base to the local one of Colyton.

That explains a lot then, nameshifter. Thank you.

I can totally understand the recruitment difficulties in Devon and I can assure anyone reading this that there are recruitment difficulties in Bucks too. Molio is keen on evidence so I would love to know from where she gets the evidence that recruitment in Bucks is "easy"? That is pure and utter tosh and is "pure guesswork" to repeat your phrsse Molio! In South Bucks housing is expensive and also very many possible applicants from North of Watford Gap will not like the housing costs and many applicants do not like to uproot children who are settled at schools. It is also trying to defend the position of Colyton in not being able to recruit by rubbishing my views which I think is unfair.

No-one can recruit easily to very many schools these days! Not just grammar schools. Grammar schools, do of course, provide a particular problem because senior leadership teams in grammar schools, and therefore the possible pool of applicants, are few and far between. Maintaining a high level of attainment is, of course, hard, but not so hard as shifting attainment upwards for the vast majority, as is often the case in schools with few higher achievers. Colyton could do better at A level given that it has 100% high achievers, and perhaps a new Head would put greater emphasis on this. Governors set the strategic aims of the school and, given that this school has ploughed a lone furrow in the 3 year 6th form, a new Head may well want to review this but they will need to persuade the governors that this is the right course of action.

Milly it can be worked out from the details they have put in the public domain, otherwise I would not have mentioned it. I would rather not have mentioned it now but feel it only fair to other posters. I do have some doubt about whether they are who they claim to be.

Colyton under Barry Sindall took a much wider ability range than most grammars and did well by them. You'll find comments about that in its last Ofsted. I suspect it's still a wider ability range.

nameshifter you could ask for your post to be deleted.

I said recruitment would be easy from a geographical perspective Milly. I know where Bucks is on the map so it's not a guess. It's easily commutable into London for partners, which is the point. House prices are relevant of course but not if the family is already in the London or Outer London area or in the South East.

Also Milly, if you read my posts you'll see that absolutely all I'm saying is that your suggestion that a school you know nothing about is doggedly determined not to change and that that is the issue is too hypothetical to be of much use. Having been a parent under the last two heads I'm bound to have acquired some sense of how the school operates and it's not like that. That's hardly being defensive; it's merely being informed. I haven't sought to defend anything about the school actually - not the three year sixth form, not the results, not the flexibility or otherwise. Nothing! I've merely stated that its character appears different to me to the one you suggest and that (on this at least) I probably know better.

Why would a grammar need to recruit from the grammar sector though Milly? That's very limiting.

summerends I'm reading backwards again! I may have answered this already in my post to Milly but one very notable feature of my DCs' school over the fifteen years that I've been a parent is that it has never exhibited any tendency to a closed defensive stance, quite the reverse.

Op, we had to make a similar decision last year. If you are in Devon, then the chances are that logistics will play a part- which is easier to get to for you, so if much nearer TGGS I would go there, if much nearer to Colyton I would go there, if in the middle, then it's a long way to either and then it comes down to which school you and your child liked best. I don't think comparisons of results are really that relevant, as a very academic child who could get into either, would do well at either (it's not like a borderline situation where the child just scrapes in to TGGS).

I would let the chips fall where they may and not worry too much about the decision as it may be made for you, either by the test results, or if you do well in both, talk with your child about which one, including the journey, appeals to them. Colyton is probably the 'better' school on paper, although I really liked TGGS and know good teachers who work there, but whether it is worth traveling a long way for on public transport is a judgement call. I know people whose children who do it and are happy with their choice.

I also know people whose children go to more local state schools (ISCA, St Peter's) and are happy in their choices too.

Molio, I disagree.
The school does display a closed defensive stance in the way it is run.

For reasons some posters will know about but have now been deleted, you aren't really in a position to give an objective parent-only view and should really come clean yourself or stop posting in the guise of only a parent. Otherwise your behaviour could be seen as closed and defensive rather than open and honest!

Molio I would be in no position to judge whether the school has a closed, defensive stance apart from the rather cagey defensive timbre of your posts. As I said I am not sure why you felt the need to respond to Milly's speculations in the way you did. It might have been just to score points in a discussion but another interpretation would be that it reflects an attitude of the school to curtail discussion that might be perceived as criticism.
Obviously a lot of these threads turn into more open debates of the advantages and disadvantages of particular systems. Some posters are more knowledgeable than others and both you and Milly fall into the former category, hence the advantage to a comparison of your views from different localities (even it does include some unfounded speculation about Colyton's inability to recruit ).

crusader I post exclusively as a parent for the very good reason that the views I express are always those of a parent and as objective as any other parent. I have long experience as a parent of secondary aged kids. Of course most parents' views are coloured by the individual experience of their DC and it's fair to say that my kids have had a good experience at school, with only occasional blips - but there have been blips and that's added to my experience of the school. I think we had DC in the same school year but even if I thought you were one of the many parents whose views reflected their own DC's time at a school, I'm far too grown up and far too professional to demand that you out yourself and come clean, in 'fairness to other posters'. That's a very poor show. I think nameshifting is fairly weasly too :)

Molio, I am a parent and only a parent and post as such.

You do not need to out yourself but only admit that you have a conflicting interest, beyond that of parent, which must consciously or subconsciously colour your views and motivations but which you have not divulged here.

I think you'll find that is why the powers that be require a register of interests to be posted for those in public office.

Not very practical for an internet forum, but it is nice to think that posters do act with integrity whilst maintaining their anonymity.