Newstead Wood School: a warning

[AnonymousBeing]

I'm writing this largely because I don't know how else to protect girls from this school. In my seven years there I and my friends never encountered anything remotely resembling competent pastoral care, and I've been left with the impression that this school cares about its grades, and not about its students.

Due, I believe, to the high pressure environment and lack of support, this school is a breeding ground for anorexia, depression, anxiety and self harm. No support is given for students who suffer from these, and whilst I cannot say for certain there were rumours that such students were asked to leave the school if teachers felt their grades were affected.

Students are made to feel that anything below an A grade is a fail, and below an A is inadequate. Reward ceremonies after big exams are used to enforce this, for example at GCSE only students who get 7 A grades or more are recognised as having made a notable achievement.

Bullying is also badly tackled at this school. The school will do next to nothing to combat bullying, and students often give up and suffer in silence when their complaints are not listened to. Attempts to stop bullying largely consist of team building activities in the classroom, which are deeply ineffective. The school is unwilling to allow students to move class no matter how bad the bullying gets.

They are also generally unobservant; because they only notice students when concerned about their grades, if a student is high performing then learning difficulties such as dyslexia can go unnoticed until university if they weren't diagnosed in primary school. This can be an issue because a lack of diagnosis can mean a lack of support and a lot of confusion for both the child and their parents when there are things the child inexplicably seems to struggle with or cannot manage. As someone diagnosed with dyspraxia and dyslexia at university, this is something I have first hand experience of. Instead of help, my struggles were met with perplexed teachers and the suggestion that I change subjects so as to get better grades.

And certainly don't send your child here if they might want to consider anything other than university afterwards; Newstead will force them to apply to university in hopes that they will change their mind and will be entirely unsupportive of their plans.

I'm sure there are some people who have enjoyed their time at Newstead, unfortunately there are far more who have been left damaged by it. So this is just a warning; I have experienced Newstead and would 100% NOT recommend it.

Yes I know airedailleurs about the sad suicide at NW which I why I referred to the fact others had happened at other schools but were not publicised. The poor girl had had MH issues since the age of six, but certainly not helped by the horrid HT at the time at NW.

MumTryingHerBest. I don't know about the persistent absence, I asked the school and their answer doesn't make sense, their communication isn't the best. I do know for example that a friends' DS at Sid n Chis got a detention in week 2 of Y7 for being late which he didn't cope with well and the school didn't support his anxiety about it after that, but at NW they are far more relaxed, for example during the Lewisham de-railment last year when loads of the girls had major issues getting to school they didn't penalise the girls but they encouraged them if late to catch-up and manage their workload. At least three of DD's friends for most of one week were regularly getting to school around 10am despite their best efforts otherwise so they would all have been marked as absent for the morning session. They don't exactly just let the girls turn up whenever but they don't also treat them unfairly.

20.3% is absolutely immense.

Hamptonborough. You have hit upon the issue the OP was trying to raise - the push for academic excellence. Unfortunately super selectives in Bromley borough have put this before looking after the whole child. This could be evidenced by the recent very public issues with St Olave's, with the head recently leaving.

For MNetters in other areas - Bromley borough has two super selectives but no other grammars. They are not part of Kent county which is very large and has many grammars, most taking candidates after one combined Kent test, with a few individual schools having their own entrance test.

Many many schools push for academic excellence. Across all abilities.

The tipping point is where schools push for high exam statistics (a nuanced difference from academic excellence ) at the expense of pastoral welfare.

The OP here seems to be saying that NW has, like St Olave’s, crossed this line.

I can see this school is super selective and not in the Kent system. Apologies for my earlier ignorance.

However, my point still stands as to why do parents keep a child in a school that does not meet the pastoral standards their child needs? Why are they so blinkered? My DD went to a less intense 6th form and why didn’t the OP do this? I knew my DD would be happier with a change.

I also know some schools are very arrogant about their results and the type of pupil they want. If you don’t fit in, they are not going to make much effort to help. You help yourself by leaving. Clearly these schools think more about league tables than pupil welfare but it seems very odd to me that young people don’t leave! If the absence stats are correct, and I don’t believe the reported one is correct overall, maybe children are voting with their feet?

The whole issue could be resolved, in part, by parents being proactive but the majority will be happy and most won’t rock the boat! They didn’t at St Olaves for years! Only a legal action threat brought them to their senses. However, the majority didn’t care, did they?

why do parents keep a child in a school that does not meet the pastoral standards their child needs?

You appear to think that is quite easy to move a child from one school to another. In some areas it is not that easy. In many cases the options available for an in-year transfer are schools which, on paper, appear to be no better and quite possibly worse than the school the DC is currently in. Add to this the issues presented by some schools offering a 2 year GCSE course and some offering a 3 year GCSE course, a number of examining boards, different language and science offerings and no set order for various topics to be covered.

Changing to a new school will, for some, present a new set of problems to over come, which can add more stress to an already unsettled child.

why didn’t the OP do this?

Perhaps there were entry and subject choice restrictions at the other schools?

If the absence stats are correct, and I don’t believe the reported one is correct overall

The stats were taken from the DfE performance tables. If you think the DfE have made a mistake, feel free to report it.

That absence stat is incredible (by which I mean incredibly poor).

The national average on that stat is 13.something % - which means that 1.5x as many children are persistently absent at this school as the national average.

Just compared to other superselective / highly selective girls' schools: between 5 and 8% seems 'normal' [local secondary was around the 4-5% mark, so I did just wonder whether it was a feature of the type of school].

Just for context, the only school locally with that type of persistent absence is the special measures failing academy that is losing pupils and teachers in droves - for a 'highly sought after' school it seems at best an anomaly, at worst something to look into very carefully.

We have also had a very positive experience at NW and my daughter’s learning difficulties were raised by the school for which I’m very grateful (completely ignored in primary). They have been incredibly supportive and have also been quick to distinguish themselves from Olaves and say that they will not kick pupils out in the 6th form (and I haven’t heard of them doing that). Our experience has also been that bullying has been dealt with very swiftly and effectively. I do think all schools have problems and know that NW will have things going on I’m not aware of. I also know that NW can be very disappointing to parents and pupils. Some girls are tutored heavily to get into the school and then find that they’re expected to maintain a high academic performance which they can then struggle with but this goes for any selective school I should imagine.

Lady, can you shed any light on the absence stats? They indicate that 1 in 5 pupils were absent 10% of the time or more - ie missed the equivalent of 1 day per fortnight. That type of absence level is really quite hard to overlook - can your DD shed any light?

This is the first I’ve heard of this - I’ve not known it to be an issue before (we’ve been there some time now) but could it be to do with overseas travel? A number of her friends regularly travel abroad to see family and I’m not sure this would be always authorised.

I was very unimpressed by nw when I went to the open day and have heard negative things about it. The high turnover of h t is worrying. Unfortunately choices for secondary are not great in the area. The op is entitled to express her opinion.

Ah, OK - it could also be that 1 in 5 spend the equivalent of 1 in 10 school weeks abroad over the year (so could be in short chunks of a few days at a time, or in 1 block of 3+ weeks), or some combination of the two scenarios.

It does include all absence - authorised and unauthorised - so lengthy sickness (which could be e.g. anorexia, mental health issues etc as well as physical illness) will also be included in those. However, as i udnerstand it it is a stat about '% of children with less than 90% attendance', so isn't affected by e.g. an outlier child who is absent for half the year, as that child will have no mopre effect than the 1 child who is abroad for 3 weeks.

St Olave's figure is 3.3%, just for comparison - so 17% difference between the two schools?

I wasn’t questioning the OP’s opinion and believe their experience of NW. I’m also aware that it’s easy to pile in and have a go at a school publicly like this and was stating simply that this wasn’t our experience of it (my younger daughter also attends and loves it as do her friends). We may have just been lucky in our experience of the school.

I actually can’t find the absence stats at all. Where can I find them?

Just done an area comparison. Priory School - seems to be a new converter academy - is the only school with similar persistent absence.

Bishop Justus is next, at about the national average - 12.8 %.

Others are less than 10%.

Those are quite big differences but I have heard from a parent who had a son at Olaves that they were incredibly difficult about absences for sickness (even just the odd day for legitimate illness). Maybe a tougher culture is needed at NW? Although I do like that decisions to keep girls at home if sick aren’t challenged by the school.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136551

Click on 'Absence and school population' tab.

To compare schools in the area, use www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/

Select schools to add to your comparison list (I just clicked on all mainstream schools within 3 miles) and then sort by persistent absence.

Thanks cantkeepawayforever

Lady, honestly, that type of difference isn't explained by the odd child kept at home if ill.

The very few schools local to me with similar stats are in very, very challenging circumstances - either high levels of disengagement from education, gang culture, drug and alcohol misuse, chaotic families, refugees, or very, very poor management over many years.

No - I do think the regular overseas travel would contribute though. My daughters best friend travels abroad to see family every year and would easily miss a week of school to do that and others also regularly travel (another friend at Christmas just now missed just over a week). I’ll try and ask her about absences (when she’s in a better mood though)!

Higher persistent absence can also be one indication of a school where many pupils do not want to be there very much, if there are no other particular factors of deprivation, lack of involvement of education etc in play.

Bubbles There is HUGE parental competition and kudos around super-selective schools in London and the SE. This translates (in some cases) into huge parental pressure on tne child to stay at the school.

If you know your parents paid for tutors from Yr 4 (at the latest, for many), spent hours on the 11+ Forum, analysing your test papers, fretting over your possible scores for each exam you took (it happens here on MN, too, in a lesser way), hear your parents talk about your school pronouncing it’s name in a not-quite-convincingly casual way (‘that’ tone of voice), you may turn to self harm or an eating disorder before you tell your parents how you feel.

You may, yourself, feel like a ‘failure ‘ and be afraid to say it or act.

There may be practical issues finding an alternative place, as other PPs have said, and you may have heard your parents disparage alternative schools: comps.

Look at it from the pov of a teenage girl.

Of course the parents have responsibility here. Competive mc parents are colluding with the whole pressure / results / ‘Top school’ thing.

I am glad that lots of students and their families are having a good experience and a successful education at NW.

LadyAndTheTea could be on to something if it is the girls who were heavily tutored. Which comes back to the pushy, competitive parenting.

There seems to be a high number of girls who have family abroad.

Lady, it is difficult to see from the publicly available stats what the ethnic mix of the school is, to see whether the incidence of travel to see family would be higher than normal.

Certainly its percentage of pupils with English as an additional language is quite low (10.6% against St Olave's 23.7%) but that would not necessarily pick up the full picture of children with families abroad.

It is the difference between the two schools - which seem from an outsider's perspective to be 'similar', in that they are superselectives for different genders, serving the same geographical area, though I may be wrong in that - that I find interesting.

Do you think Newstead has a 6-7x higher percentage of pupils likely to have family abroad?