What are STATE schools in London like?

[TeenTimesTwo]

I've been reading with mild interest the issue of exploding offers for CLGS.

But it made me wonder. From what I see in media (TV news, and papers), I have the impression that state schools in London have made great steps forward over the past 10-15 years and are now considered very good.

Is that true? Not just for schools with convoluted admissions criteria (like Grey Coats?) but on average for your ordinary run of the mill local secondary?

If so, why so much angst over applying to so many private schools? And the willingness to set up your 11 year olds for such long commutes? Is the education really so much better? Or is it 'snob value' or fear of the unknown, or 'because that's what my social circle does' or old reputations?

raindrops
Obviously all the science teachers being supply or dire French teaching are unacceptable but I never see a head complaining their teachers can't teach having qualified only that they are overworked.
Are heads in the habit of moaning publicly that they cannot get the staff to produce the grades ?

Another
In the state school sector, St Olaves is a rather clear cut case of "forcing out"
and if you look at the threads when that came out, there were VERY CLEARLY not alone.
Both state and very extensively private sector.

Naming and shaming schools : google searches picked up most of the ones DH was unimpressed by : comments on local newspaper stories are a wonderful thing.

If you believe the dodgy schools do not exist, that is fine by me.
DH will carry on charging them extra.

I don't think you can say a school isn't a comp because it doesn't offer Latin (or triple science). A comp is a comp if it takes all abilities and the top ability aren't being creamed off elsewhere. It seems to me from this discussion that a number of 'comps' in London aren't really due to the creaming off that is going on either to grammars, private or aptitude.

(Personally I did Latin O level and I think it was a waste of time.)

I would hope a comp would offer triple science and a second MFL. But you can do science A levels without triple and you can do some languages ab initio at A level. I think however the reason that some comps can't offer that is because of insufficient take up due to most academic going elsewhere.

I do notice sometimes people here with DCs at grammar school complaining they have few option choices for GCSE after triple science and an MFL have been mandated. That to me is one of the benefits of a comp, the DC can choose more widely.

I have found this discussion very interesting. If I were Mayor of London I think I'd be tempted to do the following:

• keep true super selectives
• abolish all grammars
• abolish all 'aptitude' places
• insist that any faith schools can only take 50% on faith (&& these are allocated by fair banding??)
• make sure all uniforms are sensibly priced
• redraw all catchments so that existing better schools have to take their fair share from less affluent areas. (maybe under a 5 year rule discussed above)
• if fair banding is being kept then a singles test across the whole of London, administered automatically via primaries. (Actually that could perhaps be used for identifying entry to super selectives too)
• abolish WLFS

Would that be a sensible plan?

Teen - v funny you say Latin was a waste of time and then in literally the next paragraph you use it

Taffeta But I only learned about 'ab initio' when going round language departments with my DD before she applied to 6th form colleges, so 3 years ago.

I did Latin at (private selective London ) school.
It was no use to me.
DD did Latin at (leafy semi rural comp) school
She uses it lots in her degree
DS was not able to do Latin (at the same) school (teacher retired)
No big hassle
DH never did latin at school (70's London Comp)
but now (self taught) uses it on a daily basis

Latin is NOT an essential school subject

When I first started in a job enormously dominated by public school men, and began what has turned into a very long slog to improve diversity, I made myself very unpopular by asking senior staff not to use Latin tags in feedback and communications. Not just common ones like ab initio but ones that required you to know more than rudimentary Latin to make sense of them. Ironically of course, as a crusading product of the state system, I understood them perfectly well.

Teen why does London need super selectives? What’s the difference between that and grammar schools?
Aptitude places - I was flippant about these earlier but can see they might serve a purpose for a school trying to establish a flagship music department, for example.
I did Latin O level too (1970s old fashioned grammar school). Can’t remember a word of it (ab inicio . . Excuse me?? !) but know it taught me the rudiments of sentence structure, useful for learning German later. I wasn’t taught that anywhere else.

The impression I have about super selectives is they don't really do any 'harm' to the other schools. I view them a bit like the schools for kids with learning difficulties but at the other end. As I understand it they aim to only take the top 1-2%, not the top 20-30%.

So if they are only taking say max 5 children from any other secondary school they aren't effecting all the other schools' abilities to do triple science 2 MFL etc. But these brightest of the bright can be pushed hard and fast according to their higher ability.

Thinking about it though, maybe super selectives should only go from y9 and schools should only be allowed to nominate 10 from each year group, with the selective seeing examples from the school before selecting from them? (To counter tutoring).

Also with travelling, London is dense enough that these schools could be within easy enough reach of sufficient high quality children.

This could be a ridiculous idea though since I have no experience in these type of schools!

Interesting thread. We are not quite at secondary application stage but starting to consider it. In our zone 2/3 area which is generally considered banker belt there is also a large local authority estate, with the secondary the middle.

So what do I see? Rich people will send their children private, some will get a selective place in the area. My worry is that my children will end up in the local sink school.

Am I worried about race / nationality of the students? No, but I would be concerned about a majority group speaking a language other than English due to the isolating nature of that behaviour. I don't think this is an issue at the school.

I am most worried about the potential to get mixed up in gang trouble. There is a bit of a problem in the area with scooter stuff, thefts, noise, helmetless and number plateless bikes, some drugs visible on the street. Also groups hanging out intimidating and swearing.

I'd like to think that my children would know right from wrong. But if you are at school and live in an area with this sort then you are known to them, and may be on the receiving end of trouble if not part of dishing out out.

I would see myself as middle class, although my childhood was probably working class (rural though). I did ok through my rather poor comp. But London is a whole other level.

Am I a snob? Maybe, but it isn't about money or race. It is about behaviour. I am a behaviour snob. Tarquin doesn't throw acid in your face. He steals your pension politely.

Tarquin doesn't throw acid in your face. He steals your pension politely.

notmy the catchment of CSG was tiny prior to camden tightening their grip on fraud. The first year after that "surprise" one must assume parents playing the game that many had played begire were caught out- the catchment grew, up to a mile for one band.

If you look now the catchment is settling back down again. From what I can tell from local knowledge people are being more "honest" in playing the game. They are selling the family home and renting near by, the school or renting for more than a year. Cheaper than a whole family of girls going private.
A girl would still have to live very close to be certain of a place. Most of the social housing ( admittedly not all) is out of the "certain" admission radius.

Rollercoaster: my Dc are in a school where some kids are involved in gangs, crime, take drugs, are involved in unsavoury sex. It’s fine: the schools are big enough for them to stay out of it. They mix with kids with the same values, largely.

And the truth is the the kids most vulnerable to getting caught up in gang related activity are those who live in the estate and are vulnerable to ‘if you can’t beat them, join them” to keep safe.

There are quite a few London super-selectives (there are 7 in two boroughs of SW London alone) in existence already TeenTimesTwo. They already find sufficient really fiercely bright cohorts (albeit not all pupils are that local to the areas in which they're located). DS's one has pupils who regularly win and are finalists in all sorts of national schools' competitions.

Not sure that other schools would be at all keen on having their 'top pupils' creamed off at Year 9 stage though. And why would it be necessary if the children are already at really good comprehensives? It's just extra disruption. And by that time equally bright but less advantaged children (maybe at less good schools) could potentially already be 'behind' and not able to catch up and 'make the grade'. It would just postpone he 11+ arms race, albeit in a different format.

TeenTimesTwo: No need to be ‘moving kids out’. schools in London are big. The top sets are already learning at a fast pace: my Dc’s science Set did triple science in the same curriculum time as double and the vast majority got A and A*. In Maths they did both Maths and Further Maths GCSE in the same timetable slot as Maths: same result. Some went in to the King’s Maths School.

Kids are at the peak of friendship groups then, too.

Families who aren’t happy go on waiting lists to move schools. London has a mobile population, so it is possible to find in-year vacancies.

You seem keen to find and solve problems that don’t exist.

TeenTimesTwo And I think you'll find some children actually do better in a comprehensive setting than they would in a grammar school. There is much to be said (in terms of confidence alone) to being a 'top setter' in a comp rather than a bottom setter in a super-selective!

I did not read the whole thread. In our borough, the state secondary schools varies from outstanding to inadequate on special measures with the majority good. We need to do our homework well in advance and have a plan B. But the outstanding states are as good if not better than the privates (in our borough).

Oaty your child going to a state school gives that school money (because you'll donate to appeals even if you don't donate the cost of educating your child - is it £4000/year I think I read?), a child who has support at home and therefore contributes in class and introduces ideas that the other children may not have come across (my DS has SEN but middle class parents who teach him long words and he's the one saying those words in class), and parents who are involved in their child's schooling so help out in practical ways - one of the Y5 parents at my DS school got permission to use the 3D printer at their work for the class to make up their designs, for example.
Or, they could have sent their child to private school. Well, except the only private option locally is a hippy school that doesn't believe in teaching reading, and only does primary.
But hey, you go ahead and deprive the rest of us scroungers of that.
And schools have NEVER been part of the welfare state. They have been universal since Victorian times.

Fine, I'll accept an amendment to my Mayor of London application to turn the super selectives into comps too.
Will you vote for me now?

How have I managed to get through 40 odd years with only a year of Latin in a highly academic private school where we messed about because it was so boring? I can safely say that in no part of my professional career, in my friendship group or in any other aspect of mine or my children's lives has there been a need for latin in any way shape or form.

Think the comment about needing to learn Latin was specifically related to becoming a lawyer. However, I cannot believe that it's the case nowadays given how few state schools still provide it.

I think it's a good grounding to have as broad an education as possible but if you're looking for Classics to be taught, I would expect parents to be looking to the private sector.

Actually, Latin is an expanding subject in the state sector, believe it or not. It's more widely taught now than it was 30 years ago when I was learning it. I'd be rather astonished if it was a deciding factor for any parent though!

The only person I've known who actively needed Latin for his work and had to learn it as an adult was an academic in medieval English. None of the lawyers.

I do believe that dodgy schools exist. I fact I know they do.

I do not believe they are found amongst the private secondaries in London, which are a quite different set of beasts to those found elsewhere. So when comparing London state secondaries with London private secondaries, the assumptions are not the same as if comparing beyond London or in comparing different age groups (preps are quite different and I would not make the comments about general absence of weeding for them).

Of course if/when I do come across that practice in a private London secondary school, then I'll stop saying that I've seen no sign of it.

another
I do not believe they are found amongst the private secondaries in London, which are a quite different set of beasts to those found elsewhere.
Could you elaborate on that statement ?

Well said Traalaa.

I wonder how many of the 7 per cent opt to buy a helicopter so they don't wear the roads out, deliberately buy expensive books so they're still on the library shelf for someone else, take their own rubbish to the tip to save the bin men/women time, and go litter picking to ensure the council has more funds for other things? How is it supposedly generous to avoid public services to "let the 93 per cent have more resources" if it's only when it greatly benefits you?