Has anyone succeeded in getting their local secondary to improve?

[Natfan]

My DD is in year 5 and we are turning our thoughts to secondary school. We love where we live but unfortunately are in catchment for a rubbish school. It seems to be consistently a bit crap (poor GCSE results, poor Ofsted, bad behaviour). We are looking into other options and there is another school that I am pinning my hopes on. However, I think it is really unfair that we (and anyone else for that matter) are expected to send our kids to this school when others in our area have much better secondary provision! I am trying to be proactive, and so far I have contacted my MP and am planning to follow this up soon. Has anyone else succeeded in getting improvements made to their local school? What did you do in order to get someone to take notice? Many thanks for any suggestions.

That is not very hopeful then! The school does have positive points. Good sixth form, facilities such as swimming pool and theatre, but last two ofsteds have been requires improvement and main problem seems to be behaviour of students. Catchment

Woops. Catchment not terrible but most parents try to get their kids in somewhere else if they can. I just think they need a bit of external help.

Thanks for your reply Electolux. Yes it is unfair isn't it, which was why I decided to try and kick up a bit of a fuss. Regardless of where my children end up going it isn't right that anyone should be expected to put up with low standards of education. There are schools in the local area with a more deprived intake that are doing better than our catchment school, so there are no excuses! I will continue with prodding my MP (who seemed sympathetic and did promise to take some action) but I am also going down the route of prepping my dd for aptitude tests and bracing myself for appeals etc! It is possible we could get into our preferred school on distance but by no means a given. I wish your dd all the best with the 11+ and hope she gets into a great school!

My local area has 3 schools, one outstanding with catchment so small only millionaires can live within it and two so bad no one wanted to send their children there. Sadly the only real choice was to go private or move house. Over the years parents have tried en mass to force the two schools to improve but it never made a difference and the kids were always pulled out. Bad head's just aren't interested in parent's demands...

A few years ago a group of parents were so fed up they started their own school. On paper it didn't look like it was needed as their was spaces at 2 close schools. One of the bad schools started a media campaign to stop the free school eg wasn't needed, waste of money, unqualified teachers, experimental, parents knew nothing about teaching etc. The other bad school said anything you can do we can do better, started listening to what parents in the area wanted, made changes, enforcing uniform policy, banning mobiles, setting proper homeworks, etc etc.

A few years on families have stopped moving out of area, less go private and we have 3 good full schools close by. You no longer have to be a millionaire to get a good school. Horray! Sadly the bad school hasn't changed a jot it is still avoided like the plague by any parent who cares and the head blames everyone for its problems but herself.

So my experience is that a few dozen parents have no chance of changing a bad school. Free schools are much more interested in parent's concerns and much more open to change. The only way to force improvements in a bad school is to literally threaten it with closure by getting hundreds of parents promising to go build their own. Even then it could go either way. ..

Behaviour is an easy thing to turn around if you have a strong leadership team. I worked in a school where behaviour under a head who suddenly left was dreadful and we turned it around in half a term with a zero tolerance approach and new head. But despite the fact that Ofsted reported behaviour had improved, and everyone who came round were amazed at the pupils' behaviour the school kept its poor reputation for behaviour. But it takes a determined experienced head and leadership team and a team of staff who are behind them. Round here, it is very difficult to attract teachers tend to go to the better schools leaving endless supply or vacancies. There are one or two good examples of federated schools who share an executive head who can move staff around to minimise this problem and staff can learn from each other. I have no idea why this isn't done more often.

Electrolux - in your shoes I would be going down the 11+ route also if that offered the best school for my child, no question.
Oreo - that is interesting about the free school. I have thought about the free schools option but don't know much about how they get started up so I will look into it. It is great to hear that an area with poor school provision(like where I live) can change for the better.
Ionacat - that sounds positive! I am just hoping that something similar might happen with 'our' school. The head has actually just retired after only being in post for a couple of years and there are two interim heads in place for now (not sure of long term plans). They have issued a behaviour policy with sanctions etc clearly set out but it 100% depends on whether the staff follow it through. At least I know it can be done though!

And the idea of sharing a head is a good one as well. I have also thought that they should use the expertise of the heads from the 'good' schools round here to turn the 'bad' school around. But I guess that would be a risk to the 'good' schools reputation by association, which is why it doesn't happen?

Why don't you look into becoming a school governor?

Can I do that even though my kids don't yet attend? If so that sounds like an excellent idea. I will look into it! I will also report back with any other progress I make.

If you look on the school website it should say who the Chair of Governors is or if you Google 'becoming a school governor' or something similar, you can register online.