What to look for in a secondary school

[alltheworld]

Every school I have been to has boasted about their results but they all pick a different statistic e.g. Progress 8 or good percentage of a to c or being in the top 100 of schools etc. I know you should pick a school based on what is good for your child but how can you work that out? I don't know at this stage what results my dc might be capable of

How happy and enthusiastic the kids are - eg, at the open day/evening.

What the latest ofsted says about pastoral care

What the latest Ofsted says about how the school has responded to previous feedbck etc

Progress 8 isn't really results in the traditional sense. It is the progress pupils make but they can make a lot of progress and still get very average results - it depends on the starting point. It is a measure of good teaching, to some extent. If you can get a combination of stellar progress 8 and lots of A* and A or 8 and 9 grades, you cannot go wrong!

Just re read OP... apologies for not answering it remotely

Go and look in the student loos, behind the doors. Grade upon the graffiti - none = 10, witty =5 and vile = 0.

Look at the extracurricular provision -is it in line with your DC's interests? Quality of facilities, impressions of the head teacher etc.

I've got a yr 6 DS and we've just made our Secondary School application. Having taught in 2 of the local area's very 'successful' schools, in terms of results, we've decided to go for the 3rd school where kids seemed happiest and staff seemed genuinely caring. He's a 'high flier' and even though the results at this school (which is also the closest) don't compare particularly favourably with the other two, they say they aim to do the best for every single pupil, rather than just spouting on about how wonderful their results are whilst staff and pupils alike look miserable. I think- hope- we've made the right choice!

It's a smaller school and those with particular needs are supported whilst the gifted/talented are pushed and allowed to develop their skills too. I want him to be happy and he really likes it.

Percentage A*-C and top 100 of schools will tell you about the intake of the school population. If you're in an area where the school is genuinely comprehensive, these are not going to be as high as in an area with predominantly middle class children of educated children.

Progress 8 tells you about progress from starting points, so is more relevant in terms of seeing how the school did with a range of children. However, this is only available for 1 or 2 years depending on schools, and you probably want to drill down into the high/medium/low achievers statistics to get something more meaningful. High progress might also indicate a large number of DC that underperformed at primary school!

Personally I found comparing the breakdown of GCSE results most illuminating. It told me, for example, that one school's high A*-C was due to them not entering so many children in harder subjects (e.g. only 25% doing triple science as opposed to 50% at neighbouring school) and that another school seemingly did miracles for the DC on C/D borderline but the results for high achievers were much lower than expected.

However ... again ... bear in mind if you are only looking at one year of stats that this is only representative of that individual cohort, and it might have been a blip year, or things substantially changed since that cohort entered the school.

What I'm trying to say is ... statistics just add to the picture, and whilst it's worth looking at a range of information, this gives nowhere like the whole story.

Thanks this is helpful. I have already found out that a local school only allows pupils to take one language because languages are hard... right so nothing to do with manipulating stats then?

And I take your point about progress 8. The local school where it is highest is where they had a large proportion of children from difficult backgrounds.

I guess my child is bright and academic and I want to make sure she fulfills her potential. Neither of us liked the local grammar and I am more minded to go for a comprehensive that does its best for kids at all levels and that is what is hard to find out from the outside.

A high progress 8 is a great measure. Maybe see how that school is doing with high attainers but it would give me a warm feeling if it's doing well with DC from all backgrounds rather than just those with interested and pushy parents.