St Olave's excluding pupils

[jeanne16]

For any school to exclude pupils after Year 12 as their exam results are not good enough is absolutely scandalous. I am pleased to see this is now going to court. I believe this is far more prevalent than people realise and does explain some of the fantastic results these schools achieve. The Guardian Article also refers to a pupil forced to sit exams as an external candidate. That is a very devious way to protect their results.

I think the mian point witht eh BTec is it was forcing those children to leave

Sorry for dreadful typing!

I do agree that students achieving C and even D grades in Y12 can go on and pass A level. So the school is playing the results table and elitism, as do many selective schools.
Selective education does not, in the end, benefit anyone. Of course selective schools turn out higher proportions of vety successful students, of course they have better uni entry rates and to more prestigious unis- they only have the best students from the most advantaged backgrounds so of course their rates are higher.
Many comprehensives in poor areas with high numbers of disadvantaged students and very small numbers of high ability students do just as well for those high ability students- there are just fewer of them. Of course, those higher baility students are much less likely to get into Oxford or Cambridge because of their lack of confidence- DH taught one who applied last year, got 4 x A* at AS and at A level, including Further Maths, had a year out and applied to Oxford/Cambridge (can't remember which or which college) and they turned her down because she got a 2 in their internal Maths test rather than a 1. The other candidates she sat it with had been having private tuition on the test for a year in advance.
She lives in a council house on a notorious estate, has a very very poor family background and the Maths advisor (who helped her for 6 weeks to prepare for the test) thinks she is the most gifted Mathmatician she has ever taught. Not good enough for Oxford/Cambridge. I would bet our savings there are students from public school doung Maths at Oxford/Cambridge with poorer results than hers.
We read that Eton has been cheating again.
Selective and Independent education is just wrong- morally wrong. The fastest way to improve state schools is for every child to attend the local comp. Then we would see standards in all state schools rise as all parents shared the same concerns, including cabinet ministers and the rich and powerful.

Bubbles, your advice seems bonkers. Grammar schools in and around London are stupendously competitive. Both my children failed to gain 11+ places, albeit at Tiffin not St Olaves, but were offered places at "top" academic private schools. We are not talking about kids who should be considering vocational BTECs but kids who should be aiming for good RG.

What I have seen happen, and I do know of pupils who have been squeezed out like this, is that somewhere between 11 and 17 the hot house culture has not suited some bright pupils and they have started to under perform. (Though equally we have known boys who have done very well at St Olaves - it is a specific culture and some fit and some don't.) Losing a place at the end of Yr 12, because of disengagement, is a disaster. It is very very hard to find a place elsewhere, teaching a compatible syllabus, and it really does scupper chances of a successful UCAS application, limiting the life chances of otherwise bright boys.

St Olaves are very selective at 16+. I accept that in any school there will be some who don't take advantage of opportunities, but given the consequences for the pupil, I think having offered a sixth form place, the school should be very hesitant about taking away places mid way through.

Oddly I think it is different for private schools, who can turn to parents mid way through and say that a child would be wasting their parents money by staying on. The parents then have the option of spending the same amount of money on a year at a crammer. An option not available to many at state schools.

Its a selective school and should be able to choose the brightest children. However once they have allowed them onto a 2 year exam course they should not be allowed to eject them.

They have of their own free will accepted these pupils onto courses. They could set harder entrance exams, required all 9's at GCSE but once on the course they should be allowed to finish the course.

I was reading a post about this on the 11 plus forum last night, one Mum was horrified at the welcome presentation for Newstead Grammar (sort of the sister school of Olaves).

She said that the girls entering there were described as pedigree horses as opposed to those who did not get in being 'Cobs'.
Utterly disgusting if true.

I had a dd at TGS (I moved her) and a ds at a SS in Tonbridge, thankfully never heard that kind of arrogant statement from there.

Way to play to the braying* elitism of some parents....horrendous if true

• note : deliberate pun.

Agree with Needmoresleep

So, I've just heard on the radio, that the school are breaking the law. Unless the students are being asked to leave for disciplinary reasons rather than lack of stellar grades, St Olave's are not allowed to ask them to leave mid-way through their A Levels. Interesting to see how this develops. And, FWIW, I think the school's behaviour is appalling.

The exams the kids took were internal exams
why did the story break now rather than at the end of last term?

Presumably because the parents have taken a while to organise themselves to fight it. This is certainly not the first year where the school have booted kids out. Presuambly in previous years parents were too busy with a mad scramble post AS results to find alternatives to fight the school decision.

They might have done better to follow the example of a selective London private school who, oddly, used to have pupils take both AS and A2 at the end of Yr 13, and internal exams at the end of Yr 12. Here they took a University type approach, which had them requiring pupils who did not do sufficiently well in internal exams at the end of Yr 12, to resit the relevant papers at the end of the summer holidays. Very few did not manage to focus sufficiently to pass second time round. Good for all. Pupils were then on track to do well at the end of Yr 13, the school could put this in the UCAS reference and had not let them down. (And as for those who still did not manage to pull their socks up, the school could justifiably say that they were preventing parents from wasting their money.)

They are not allowed to ask them to leave but nor do they have to allow any student to continue on a course and there lies the difficulty for parents. If they have offered them a BTEC for example as the way ahead and the parents don't like it anfd remove the student, that is not an exclusion. Exclusion is actually a process and formla paperwork has to be completed. I don't think we are talking about exclusion, we are talking about 'advice' not to continue on a set course and an offer to pick up a course many parents find unpalatable for their child.

However, if the school are doing state A levels rather than the pretend courses the independent school sometimes do - which is where Eton have been caught manipulating the system- they may not have realised that with the new A levels, if a student leaves a course at the end of Y12 and does not continue to the full A level, those AS results are included in the school's value added data. If, however, the student leaves at the end of Y12 and has not sat an AS they will not have to include any data- so if the grades are the result of internal tests rather than an official AS. So asking a student to leave after an AS does not get rid of their data now and, infact, if the student went on and did the full A level and did do better, that would replace the AS is the data - all schools have not grasped this as yet.

Does St Olaves do BTECs ?
As for a school to suggest a course they do not offer is definitely a no no

So technically the school can't force the pupils to leave but they can force them to do a course they don't want to do?

It would be horrible to be forced off the course you chose, onto one you dont want to do and stay in a school that doesn't want you and is trying to get you to leave.

I get they want to stay but are they actually making their chances worse by staying? What a situation to be in.

My understanding is the school itself doesn't offer BTecs(hence his sneering confusion over GNVQ) and his suggestion was they do BTecs in Health and Social Care somewhere else 'commensurate with their ability'

One of the boys has a place in another school (a local selective school offered him a place) . But he will have to redo year 12.

I think the boys' results were a mix of AS exams and internal ones, hence the wait.

St Olaves don't do Btec courses as far as I know.

Lulu. What pretend courses do Independent Schools sometimes do? I am intrigued.

This.
www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/31/ofqual-to-review-rules-in-wake-of-exam-leak-allegations

It is another example of the wriggle room and lack of scrutiny independent schools face in comparison with state schools. Not only Post-16 but also at GCSE. For example IGCSE English is still acceptable as a GCSE in independent schools. It counts for students, still has a substantial corsework component and integral Speaking and Listening component which all count towards the final grade awarded. In state schools, it is not included in government performance tables as it is not considered by the government to be rigorous enough. It is rigorous enough to get students from independent schools into university but not students from the local comp. The government believe teachers 'cheat' with coursework so have banned it from GCSEs. If a state school chose it their penalty would be a zero for English in their Progress 8 data (which counts for 20%) of their Progress 8 data, but independent schools are still allowed to choose courses that include it with no penalty imposed on them. Of course, independent schools can ignore Progress 8 entirely because the government does not impose a measure on them.
So a much more humane GCSE (iGCSE) is open to the most advantaged students in the country. The hardest, most inhumane courses are imposed on the most disadvantaged students.

Speaking and Listening was ruled out of English GCSE four years ago - DDs year took the exam, it showed on their certificates but it counted for nothing

Maths IGCSE was used by state schools to massage the D/C boundary as it was so much easier than GCSE

but CIE have bigger worries than that on their plate at the moment

newbie So technically the school can't force the pupils to leave but they can force them to do a course they don't want to do?
No, they say 'You can stay in Sixth Form but these are the courses we are prepared to let you take'. Effectively, the parent and student then make the choice to leave because the offer is unacceptable to them. The school has not got rid of them but has given them a choice that they find unacceptable and they feel they have no option but to leave. It has gone on for years, decades.

Takin But independant schools can stil use those exams.

Lulu
I know - but CIE have a few issues brewing so I wonder how long it will continue.

But surely CIE is predominately overseas students, setting a test for each time zone. Quite specialised, but someone has to set papers that students overseas can take.