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?

I know that most people don't have any genuine choice....they can look at league tables as much as they like and whether the school looks like it is good fat providing for their type of child or not is irrelevant, because they will have to send their child there anyway.

In London, perhaps because of the urban nature of many schools close together, there is a little more choice than elsewhere....but still very limited choice. Some people do generate themselves more choice.....it's not fair, but many manage to do it - by going to Church, or by coaching for exams, or by moving house.

And I agree that paying fees or paying for tutoring or even resources to home tutor a child for a state grammar place is in reality often about ensuring more people 'like us' and less 'different to us' which usually means in social terms. It isn't acceptable to say it out loud, but it's in most people's thinking. Aren't the League tables of all types just another way people make that judgement about where the people 'like us' are and where the 'others' are - so that if they have that luxury of choice, which usually has to be paid for in some form,so isn't available to most, they know which to choose.

So you accept that the A*/A (actually 8/9 now) measure
just reflects selection and funding
rather than teaching skill ?

Yes of course I accept that there is a clear connection between his selective a school is on entry and it's results. There is also some connection with funding - clearly helps independent schools, which are far better resources due to fees. Many state grammars which have very selective intakes clearly do fantastically well despite their financial struggles.

Regarding teaching skill - well, lots of fantastic teachers working with less able children and getting lower academic results, maybe teaching better and adding more value. Some fantastic teachers are also working in selective schools and adding lots of value too - don't many state grammars get good Progress 8 results - not all, but lots do well, even with their very able cohorts. So I would say high academic results may reflect great teaching skill or it could be mediocre, and lower academic results might reflect great teaching or mediocre teaching too. I wouldn't say that teaching has no impact at all on results in any school - so poor teaching can suppress results in both those with very able and less able intakes.

I don't think I have ever suggested that the best teachers are all in any type of school. I think there are good and mediocre in both sectors and looking at results in context of pupils ability is just one way of assessing teachers.

But Teen asked the question about the state of London State schools

the key differences identified were

• funding
• covert / overt selection

resulting in outcomes better than much of the rest of the country and yet MN posters persist in slagging off the state schools in London.

If DCs old school had funding on a par with a London school, they would not have had to make a fraction of the cuts or reduce the number of subjects they have done ....

Thanks for clarifying ChocolateWombat.

I think you are right about the way many people wish to choose education for their own child.

My concern is that the demands and pre-occupations of these parents alone do not set the definition of ‘good education ‘ or overly influence policy making.

The shorthand ‘best schools’, ‘top schools’ etc can set an agenda.

I'm sure you're right. It's all relative isn't it. People complain in London and they complain elsewhere too. Things are bad everywhere regarding funding. And yes, they might be even worse in some areas for funding than London. That doesn't stop it being bad in London too, even if not so bad. People will complain everywhere.

The funding issue is shocking. I have heard a number of people dithering between state and independent say that the funding crisis is tipping the balance in their choice - in London and other places too.

I agree that London has lots of advantages that people forget about in terms of opportunity and transport etc.

Slack, I think you're right. Obsession with top positions in League tables which can never be achieved by the vast majority of schools isn't helpful. It's not good if it starts driving policy and its not good when it drives parents either. Too many are sure that whichever school has the best academic results must be the most desirable for all people and not that it might be good for some families and not others. This is where you get these crazy applications from ridiculous distances and then children doing 3 hour daily commutes.

I think London has many fantastic comps. And I think there are factors in addition to funding that contribute to higher than national average results.

Cultural opportunity, stuff going on, and an intense level of diversity.

I actually believe that mixing in a highly diverse community throughout school life increases cognitive stimulation and development. Perspective, a wider understanding, pushing the boundaries of ideas and expectations.

However, no child in my Dc’s High performing comp has done long jump, javelin, hurdles, any traditional athletics :(

I'm in London (not central). I have chosen to send my child to a highly selective independent school in September (with a bursary, could not have afforded it otherwise).

For me this was because although I have in theory lots of good schools near me which could meet my child's needs, in actual practice I have only the school that will be allocated to me on offer day and maybe another couple on waiting lists, with all the resulting uncertainty and disruption. We have no more choice than someone in a small town with a few schools in striking distance, perhaps less because of density of population and shortage of school places. The school we will be allocated on offer day is fine, yes. But it doesn't suit my child for a number of reasons and I don't want her to go there. None of the state schools I applied to do banding or aptitude tests apart from the super-selective grammar, which she may or may not get into (and which we are not accepting, following the bursary offer).

The school I would prefer out of the state options is single sex so some selection (and postcode selection) but it is otherwise just a normal comprehensive. I would be delighted if my child could go to this school but we would have an anxious summer on a waiting list, ringing the admissions people every week to check what was happening and it would not be a happy time but rather a stressful one - and there might be no place at the end of it.

DD got offered a bursary. She will be going to a school that offers stuff that she will greatly benefit from and is interested in and she will no longer be subject to the national curriculum or the stress of Ofsted which I think does schools no good at all. I'm sorry she could not go to the state school I liked but I'm not sorry that I have prioritised her wellbeing and future academic enjoyment over anything else. I'm NOT choosing 'people like us' as actually her primary school is highly socially mixed compared to other local ones and I did choose it as my first choice in full knowledge of that; the social mix doesn't matter to me. I just want her to go somewhere that suits her.

London schools have been funded well because until not that long ago they were doing badly. They were doing badly because of the inevitable inner city challenges which are greater in London than elsewhere and because London suffers considerable population churn, more than most other cities in the UK. The constant movement in and out of schools by pupils did mean that London schools were having to work harder than most just to stand still. The extra funding helped. But saying 'Oh London gets too much' is NOT the point. If all schools were funded to this level, I cannot help but think that society would be a lot better for it.

The progress scores and attainment scores are largely meaningless for very selective schools - if you have a cohort that has achieved 90%+ A and A or 7-9 at GCSE and they go on to achieve 90%+ A or A at A Level then they have made expected progress. This does not take account of the extra stuff that is offered by a really good school, whether state or not.

The funding thing is key. We all need properly funded schools for our children and it is ridiculous that we cannot achieve this in a country that is one of the richest in the world. Yet for some reason the majority of the country elected a government that absolutely will not deliver this. Go figure.

Aren't people reading too much into/misinterpreting the funding aspect?

Classroom/Subject Teachers on the inner London pay scale (roughly zones 1-4) get paid between 29 and 47k. Outside London it's 23-39k. Given that a vast, vast majority of a school budget is spent on staffing, London schools need 20% more money just to cover the basic staff.

JoJo, the funding gap is such that central London LAs get nearly 2x as much as the lowest funded LAs elsewhere. A 20% gap I could understand. A 90% gap is harder to justify.

It maybe that parents shouldn't be interested in finding schools that just have high ability cohorts similar to their child's ability, or just middle class children, similar to their child......that they should be more interested in whether a school can meet the academic needs of all abilities or the ability type of their child........however, I think the reality is that many parents aren't just interested in that.

I've copied this at random from the above discussion just to comment that the frequent use of 'many parents' and even 'most parents' is just misleading. Most parents can't afford private schooling and don't have children who would get into highly selective schools. Many parents aren't middle class. Many parents are looking for schools that will get their kids through GCSEs with good enough grades for FE. Many parents are looking for schools that control behaviour enough to keep their children away from crime.

The automatic MN assumed attitude is simply not representative of many parents. The majority of London schools deliver on those critical things, which is great. Properly great. We visited a school that had got its first ever kid into Oxbridge, although via a link with a private school's sixth form, and while they were rightly proud of her (she spoke to the kids and was a really inspiring young woman), they were more proud that they had turned a notoriously bad school into a well-run, happy environment in which children could gain the skills they needed for life. Most parents in the country care about that and not A*s.

The Local AUthorities are in control of education funding - the new National Funding Formula is central government interveneing to ensure that more schools are on an even footing. So, from our point of view, this government is going to give us a more cash sooner (let's ignore the removal of £40 000 from the block grant, and the fact that although they say funding has been maintained, we're now asked to pay for thousands of pounds worth of stuff the LA will no longer pay for). It's also why London has been able to increase funding for schools - London has the power to do so, the way it has the power to offer free transport for under 16s (it cost hundreds of pounds a year to get the "school" bus here and there are absolutely no public transport options). So you have children having to stay in education until they are 18, and it costs parents hundreds of pounds just to get there. That just doesn't happen in London.

Our Local Authority is doing its damndest to prevent the extra money we would get (to the tune of about £600/pupil p.a.) from reaching us -spinning out the increase over three years etc.

Lupiform - the costal towns with really dire education simply don't have access to money the way the London schools are - they're entirely at the mercy of their local authority.

I'm absolutely not saying that's right! I sincerely believe that funding the education system generously for everyone is an essential part of making society work properly.

What I like about this thread is that it is state vs private (again) but with the private schoolers firmly on the back foot - first thing they have to do coming on here is justify themselves! I love it, though I know that they feel they have to do it all the time (poor things) . . . Which is why whatever original intentions I suspect they do end up just mixing with their own kind . . simpler in the end, innit?!
Tbh this is my main objection to private schooling; whatever apologetic attitude you may start out with, you end up buying into a system that unfairly privileges your kid and so develop (if you didn’t already have it) a vested interest in maintaining the unfair system as it stands. How many (nominally liberal) private school parents end up bemoaning the fact that state school kids get “unfair advantage” when it comes to university applications? “After all that hard work making extra money to pay school fees! (What was the point if it didn’t buy us advantages?!)”
And that’s without the messages you are unwittingly transmitting to your kids, along the lines of “Everybody’s equal, of course, but actually darling, some people are much more equal than others.”

It's the 'we're against the principle of private schools but we would have let our children down to send them to the local state school' line that I find difficult. Principles matter more than disposable ideas that don't apply to you. If you are against private schools 'on principle' why is that?

Great post, Mary.

I don't think you can beat Alan Bennett's neat summing up on the subject of private education

"Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted."

marytuda exactly. We looked at private for DC. Teachers in private all looked like the parents - Boden clothes, pearl earrings, spoke very naicely. Classrooms all very new and swish. Didn't see any differentiation of teaching going on - entire class doing same stuff. Granted, these were "selective" pre-preps (what does selective even mean at reception age?) but I highly doubt that the entire class of 20-odd were working at exactly the same level. We've also "lost" teachers at my school to the private sector - suffice to say they weren't our best teachers and we weren't overly concerned to lose them. Fundamentally, most parents don't know what good teaching provision looks like, so they default to selecting on what they think is best - People Like Them.

Also, the metrics parents use to judge a school (SATS,GCSEs, A levels) are so heaviliy influenced by tutoring and parental income/aspirations/help as to be far removed from a measure of teaching quality. If you want a measure of how good actual teaching is, look at the progress of pupil premium kids - those are the results that will depend most on quality of teaching.

My parents sacrificed my education experience on the alter of their staunchly left-wing principles and I had a miserable time at school. Utterly miserable, but they didn't agree with allowing me to take the private school exam in the hopes of a scholarship.

I achieved despite the experience but the major lesson it taught me was that I'd never subject my own children to that.

No-one is talking about making our kids miserable for a principle, here-there. Glad you achieved in spite of it.
Love Alan Bennett for this alone notmy.

No-one is talking about making our kids miserable for a principle, here-there

Really? I thought you were advocating the principle of free education being the only 'right' choice?

I can assure you my parents decision (including being active throughout my 5 years there and one being a parent governor) did nothing to improve my experience, or the experience of my peers. The target was always to ensure that free school meal kids got as many Cs as possible. Given the feeder estates to the school the value-add was massive. My experience was still shit, because I didn't ft that demographic.

So, herethere, are you saying that comps can only inflict misery and the only way to protect your child is to send them private? That THAT is the only right way?

None of us wish to inflict misery in our kids. My kids (high achieving, slightly built, play instruments, not white...) love their comp. All the parents I mix with report that they have seen no bullying. Their kids are achieving and succeeding.

What they do complain of is the boys in the bus from the very prestigious boys independent school (it might even be a public school). They are brutal to each other and are rude and contentious to state school kids, calling them ‘peasants’ and are inconsiderate to vulnerable members of the public. Kids from our comp are shocked and disgusted.

But I know this is not true of all private school kids. And all Comps are not like the bad old ones from the 80s and 90s. There have been huge improvements in behaviour management.

Some independent schools are in need of the same.

That's appalling behaviour calling other children peasants. I will certainly take a photo of them and report them to the school not matter what school they come from. Any good school won't tolerate that.

A friend reported some kids to the local comprenhensive as they were smoking drugs in front of her house. The school acted very quickly.