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?

Bakedappleflavour well done you but from the gcse stats you quote, it is clear that odds were against you in that comp.
Maybe 1 in a 100 is so brilliant that they do as well as you, but as a parent I don't want to rely on my kid to be the spectacular genius, of course parents are going to increase chances of success. People can have different aspirations but 30% gcse pass rate is an absolute disgrace.

I am slightly confused that middle class parents are criticised on her for sending their kids to private school and accused of snobbery and racism, but if they send their kids to good state schools, they are apparently stealing the places from poorer kids. Each privately educated kid in london saves the tax payer £10,000 per year. Given the funding cuts, the whole education system would collapse if the majority of these parents started applying to state schools in London.

We don’t exactly accuse private school parents of racism and snobbery - just wonder why they do what they do, and whether these things might perhaps be part of the mix??? In some cases, perhaps?? We wouldn’t expect anyone to admit it, naturally! All best sanam, and thanks for your interesting posts.

Bakedappleflavour well done you but from the gcse stats you quote, it is clear that odds were against you in that comp.

Clearly, but perhaps they wouldn't have been if children from more families who were interested and supportive of education had sent their DC there.

I am not a "spectacular genius", just a normal kid with good teachers and a supportive family.

I think you have some of the answers OP - family habits and snobbery . . Racism also in the mix I fear; London state schools are, like inner London itself, surprise surprise, virtually all majority minority-ethnic . . . . Many indeed 100% minority-ethnic (though usually far from mono-ethnic, unlike (so I've heard) in a place like Bradford.)
That means they have no white kids at all! Imagine that, if you are from a posh or poshish all-white background yourself (bar the servants . . .) My poor little darlings!!

Marytuda if your earlier post isn't an accusation of racism and snobbery then I don't know what is.

Maytuda and SlackPanther we did a similar thing last year with our DC2. It really was not on having to get her out of bed on so many Saturday mornings (she is not an early bird by nature) to do selectivity tests. In the end, come allocation day, she got the local comp which was No 3 on the CAF. We were just happy she got one of the six TBQH.

One day, idling away the time waiting for my DC2 to get off the bus after school, I counted how many different secondary school uniforms I saw (at a smallish transport hub) - 25 in 20 minutes!

I went to a not very good comprehensive 'up north' at one point in my own school career. I had friends and although I was mildly teased for being 'posh', I was generally happy there and was a top student! However, when we moved I was way behind (about two years in Maths assuredly) academically. The legacy of the time spent there marred the rest of my school based education and results and did untold damage to my confidence.

Would I want my children to have the same experience? No, so I have been very invested in trying to ensure that they have got into reasonable state secondary schools.

There appears to be lots of choice in London - state secondary schools wise - but not everyone can get places at the sought-after comps. Would that it were the case. It's not right that any children have to tolerate sub-standard schools, is it?

Thank you all, this has been really interesting. It seems they are not all bad but there is a lot of uncertainty as to which schools people would qualify for given things like selective, aptitude, faith criteria. The bulging population has made this even more so.

So you have a situation where most people have a lot of schools within easyish reach of public transport, but very difficult to judge where you will end up. And although I still get the feeling that most schools are pretty OK/good (but not maybe generally outstanding), there are dire ones around which leaves people twitchy about what they might be allocated. Is that a fair summary?

Would anyone care to hazard a guess (or better still actually know the figures) at what percentage of the state secondaries have no selection at all (ie no 11+, no aptitude, no faith, no parent juggling ability etc)?

there are dire ones around which leaves people twitchy about what they might be allocated. Is that a fair summary? Yes I think that is a fair summary - certainly for London!

Hmmm, I think some boroughs are more egalitarian than others in terms of not using some form of selection process (other than the obvious catchment area one).

It really ires me that many of the best comprehensives in London are faith schools. It drastically reduces options for those of us who are agnostic/atheist.

OP: I am not sure at all that you have picked up an accurate picture. It is a highly self-selecting group of respondents on this thread, for a start.

I think I read that London is the place that has more kids in ‘Outstanding’ schools than anywhere else.

It is a minority of schools that have any ‘aptitude’ tests, and in any case those schools have those in addition to the main criteria, which is distance. So the vast majority of local people can get in.

Also in London you get 6 slots in your preference form. So many people (as Maytuda) explains, go for aptitude places miles away whilst still putting down their completely acceptable (or better) local comp.

London is densely populated and built: we have 3 co-Ed comps within 10 mins walk, all of which we could have got places in, 2 of which are great. Had we been eligible for / inclined towards, we could have had a vast choice of aptitude / faith / single sex options.

Apart from those who do love in a pocket where their choice is limited to a school they don’t like, It is the range of choice that makes it complicated!

The density of London also means that many many schools have a wide diversity of population within distance. A council estate and right next to it, Georgian terraces in a conservation area. And private rental and small mortgaged. All of whom send kids to the same school.

“It's not right that any children have to tolerate sub-standard schools, is it?”

No child should have to be in a sub-standard school.

It is more common where I live that a school is Outstsnding / Good (and good schools ARE good!) but the demography is if a critical mass that affects the overall stats and / or puts off MC parents. I will be honest; of the 3 local co-Ed comps we could have sailed into I only applied to 2. Both have v high pupil premium / EAL etc stats, very diverse demography, but the third does not have diversity: it serves a vast swathe of very disadvantaged estates which have a gang issue, and as a parent of a black boy I did not want him to go there. For social reasons.

There are quite a few schools that do banded entry, so they take equal numbers of five ability bands in order to be truly comprehensive. So even if you live close enough, your child still not might get in, depending on how many children fit into the same ability band as your child. I also think that parents tend to not like their closest school (unless they've deliberately moved close to one they want), which is odd, as these schools are often ones that parents further away want for their children. In my area, parents didn't want their local comp, whereas parents much further away had it at the top, and vice versa.

Would anyone care to hazard a guess (or better still actually know the figures) at what percentage of the state secondaries have no selection at all
In London : very, very few
If you download the full DFE table and then sort by criteria its astounding
London is full of single sex, faith and selective state schools
something we just do not have round here

With banded entry, do you have to actively apply in advance to take fair banding tests, or does everyone within say 45mins commute of the school automatically take the test (even if outside the borough?). is it one test for the whole of London, or does each school / borough have their own?

If there is any organisation up front for the parents, I would include that in my 'selective' criteria. But if it happens automatically then I don't so much.

Talkin and Slack Seem to have contradictory views on how widespread selection is.

TalkinPeace absolutely right.

The school system in London is a game for those in a position to play it and those that suggest they don't play it are not being honest. Those that head to church for years to get the DC into the local school who are not religious, those that move into the catchment area briefly to get there DC in, those that send their DC to a state that has a selection process via a banding assessment and offers scholarships for music and sport thus playing the system to get whats perceived to be a mixed group of DC across each band. Some of these schools are miles away from where they live.

London is full of single sex, faith and selective state schools which is what makes applying for secondary school places so potentially difficult.

There are definitely London schools, traditionally taking the majority of their pupils from the poor areas, which tend to be actively avoided by many local families living on the richer side of the boroughs.

In our home borough if you're not religious and want your DC to go to a state secondary with a good reputation AND a good cultural and socio-economic mix of children, you've effectively got no choice (one school)! Seriously! And people wonder why there's an 'arms race for schools' in London.

My children go to truly comprehensive London schools (although they are single sex). Local to us there are plenty that do selection by stealth which, when combined with automatic sibling places, ensures that they get more "sharp elbowed" middle class families than actually live in catchment. See Marytuda's post yesterday at 19:21 for an explanation.

In my borough all schools have their own admissions criteria, none are under Local Authority control.

There is an awful lot to be said for going to your local school! My son is a 25 minute journey by bus/walk from his and even he finds that he is a bit out of the loop with after school activities and impromptu meetups at the weekend. Most of his friends live walking distance and we are right at the very edge of catchment.

It is probably worth saying (again) that demographics and Ofsted ratings are not wholly independent variables.

If you sort schools in England by %PP (so one measure - however crude - of relative deprivation) then:

Those with the smallest % PP are a) almost all selective and b) almost all Outstanding.

Those with the largest % are much more likely to be in Special Measures / RI [the few exceptions are in London - high funding relative to elsewhere - and / or Catholic, so selective by faith]

I am not saying that low % PP absolutely guarantees an Outstandign Ofsted, nor that a school with a very high %PP will always get a RI / SM judgement, just that the two factors are not wholly independent - the issues that are associated with very high %PP may make it more difficult for a school to obtain an Outstanding judgement than it is for a school who, by selection or otherwise, have a vanishingly small percentage of deprived pupils.

From my limited experience with my own DC (but also being aware of what's happened with friends' children too), I would say that the London state school system is great if you have an academically bright child, have a faith and possibly they have additional aptitudes (in music and/or sport). If you have a much more average child and are agnostic/atheist there can be real issues with finding a good school for one's DC. Oh and let's not forget having the ££££ to helicopter into the sometimes tiny catchment areas for the "best of the rest".

The problem with banded entry is that all the schools in a borough won't be banded entry schools, just some. I think - but can't swear to it - that if you apply for a banded entry school, the results can be used for an application to another banded entry school but only within that borough - ie different boroughs will have different procedures. Within the banding, other selection principles will then apply - looked-after children, distance, siblings, etc. No, you are not automatically entered for banded entry selection. You have to pick the schools you might want and if there's banded entry, the child sits the banded entry test for that borough - although you don't need to live in the borough necessarily.

The banded school we applied to admits on distance, taking an equal number of kids across a range of ability bands, but within each band admits in distance. No aptitude tests. You apply and then do have to do the test, but as it is the local school, all parents are used to it, the primary schools have meetings with parents and facilitate kids getting to the test. No one tutors for it as the score, per se, doesn’t get you a place, and you can’t second guess how many of each ability will live between you and the school.

I don’t know why they don’t do the Bandung test in primary, tbh. Most of the kids from the local primaries go, most of th kids in the school have come from local primaries. (The chaotic and ‘failing’ families from our primary all got their kids in)

My church has a whole lot of faithful parents, its quite the ongoing commitment needed for the faith schools.
Volunteering for your local parish doesnt hurt either, so the church gets an active congregation and the dcs get a decent education its a relationship that works.

No one within 45 mins commute would stand a chance of getting into my Dc banded comp. 15 or 20 mins walk is the limit.

There is a banded school I know of that admits by Lottery though.

Obviously the Banding test can act as a barrier, but it does ensure a good range of ability. It tells parents that their high ability child will have peers, and a top set with a fast learning pace.

Because of the choice in many parts of London, it actually prevents schools like the one we didn’t choose becoming trapped in a spiral of downward reputation.

Because parents can usually choose to go elsewhere...polarising the difference between favoured and non favoured schools.

(I live in London and have put 3 kids through secondary transfer. Talkin’ lives in Hampshire . Though is wise and knowledgeable about education)

"If you have a much more average child and are agnostic/atheist there can be real issues with finding a good school for one's DC." This is what I originally thought, as well, which is why I went for a private school for one of my "average" children. But I now thing it probably didn't make much difference as they ended up at a normal comprehensive for A-levels with some of the same "average" children they were at primary school with - they virtually all have places at RG universities. Whereas some of the private-school pupils ended up dropping out altogether and going off the rails. But you just don't know in advance - adolescents change so much. You don't know if yours is going to be one of the hard-workers who keeps their head down or if they'll go off the rails at either the state school or the private school.

We looked at 14 schools in south London for our son as he was applying under social need and therefore catchment was less important. (Had it been distance our choice would have been two single sex schools and the lottery school SlackPanther mentions). Of those 14, only one offered any sort of aptitude test. The lottery one offers 'scholarships' but that is unrelated to offers of a place supposedly - the admissions for there are so confused and murky that I couldn't swear to it. Some of the others did fair banding but, as Slack says, that's not selective. So that's 1 of 14 in our own experience.

I worked on a parents' campaign for a new secondary and one of the providers who came forward ran the school with a percentage aptitude test. We were very clear with them that we didn't want that for the new school and they agreed.

As I posted above, the majority of kids in London go to their local state school and, while performing better than schools outside London, many of these schools are struggling. I suspect I know the school that SlackPanther will NOT send her son to, and I don't blame her in the slightest, but parents whose children end up there are not on MN posting about how to find the best school for their children. It would be brilliant if that didn't matter.