Crystal Palace Harris Academy

[Crumblemum]

Hi there. This was my son's first choice of school, but he didn't get in so we've just completed two successful weeks at our nearest school. However, Friday lunch time we got a call to say he's got a place. As we're out of catchment area I don't know any one at the school. I really liked it at open day, and was impressed by the Head, it's better academically than the school he's at but would love to hear other people's experiences.

Is it really better academically?
Harris are notorious for massaging statistics.
Could you say what school he is at? For comparison.
No direct experience of Harris Crystal Palace, it started out very popular and then lost favour but may have turned that around again. ( We are on the Lambeth side of the school).

Following with interest as we are visiting on Thursday. They have by far the best results in the area in terms of pass rates and grades.

In our borough someone did a FOI request to get data on the number of children removed from the roll of schools between Year 10 and 11. Many schools were zero. The Harris schools had high figures of children managed out or removed from the roll for reasons unknown. CP is I believe in a neighbouring borough but wouldn’t be surprised if the same tactic applied and supports what knots said.

BitLost: check the results against the cohort, because they also have their specialist places etc designed to attract a higher proportion of high ability kids.

I’m not saying it isn’t a good school, but comparing like for like is hard.

They seem to have a fair admissions process. I've heard the stories and tried to keep a sharp eye out. They test all applicants, split them into ten bands on ability and then take 10% of each band. I don't know about removal figures but the ethos of the school and head impressed me when I visited. School he's at at the moment is hopefully on the way up but different completely when it comes to results.

This is the school my son attended up to 4 years ago so my information here is slightly out of date. The head is new I think, which of course is one of the most important things to look at, though probably less so at a multi-academy school with a strong brand, like this.

This is a good school, good ethos and atmosphere, and I say this as someone who doesn't like Harris very much - they have a sausage factory attitude to education and can be fairly ruthless. They do all sorts of things to game their results and they don't always care whether it is in the kids' interests. However, like you, we got a place after originally being turned down and I never regretted taking it. I suspect that good teachers can build a positive ethos even when management does not entirely support it.

The school gets good results because it has a lot of brainy kids. How this happens given their admissions process I do not know - I think that some schools get a reputation for being more academic and that parents then self select the bright kids in - depressingly I think some parents start to feel that a school is 'not for the likes of us'.

That's my 2 cents and I hope it is of a little bit of help.

They get ‘brainy kids’ because 10% of the intake are the highest scorers in an aptitude test for technology.

This ‘ups the ante ‘ for competitive parents.

They then take in the rest of the kids on ‘fair banding’, taking in an equal amount of kids across 9 ability bands.

This ensures a full range of abilities, but often the effect is that the highest ability bands take in kids from further away.

So they get a double whammy of kids on high score tech tests and a higher % of high ability kids than they might on distance alone.

And the whole package then becomes a magnet to aspirational parents.

Taking any form of test, including fair banding, excludes the most chaotic families from the off.

"Taking any form of test, including fair banding, excludes the most chaotic families from the off." Really agree with this Knots.

When my son was at Harris Crystal Palace, I was aware of this and assumed it just selected out the least able and those most difficult to teach - thus skewing the school's results a bit upwards. The degree of the skew came as a surprise to me.

Someone on Mumsnet - I don't remember who - pointed out how big the skew actually was - at that point they had 70% in the brightest group. That's the same as some of the grammar schools in Kent. It's higher than any other school in the borough apart from Coloma Girls.

Stay away from Harris, especially if your boy is happy at his current school. They ship off kids that won't make the grade to colleges where they are basically abandoned and forgotten about. That skews the grades. They don't care about the kids or the staff.

I think there is a place for “fair banding “, and ensures that a comp is comprehensive in terms of a full range of ability. This challenges one of the main concerns of aspirational parents, that in a comp a clever child will not have peers and it will not be cool to be clever.

In turn, this prevents polarisation between so-called sink schools and the over subscribed school that everyone pushes to get in.

Fair banding, various ‘aptitude’ places and a Lottery are all ways that a school can widen it’s ability band upwards and turn around a less favoured school. Kingsdale is a prime example. Uses Banding, two different aptitude / scholarship places plus lottery.

Dunraven uses fair banding but no ‘aptitude’ or scholarship places and has an almost representative ratio of Pupil Premium students and no students coming from far and wide in aptitude or lottery places.

I'd like to see proper fair banding enforced on all comprehensive schools - but interesting as this is, we have wandered off the original point of the thread!

I'm interested in this as also considering this school. tearsdontcare can i ask you what the teaching was like in your DC's experience? I looked round last year and had mixed feelings. Compared to other schools, they seemed very open about and proud of the idea that they teach to the test and everything is aimed at the grades and i've heard this about some other Harris schools - e.g. heads saying they are quite happy with the label 'exam factory' for example. This obviously will contribute to the good results but I wonder how it leaves the children in terms of longer term study skills and thinking skills and enthusiasm. I'd be interested to know if the teaching felt narrow and limited from DC's point of view or otherwise...

I'd say he came out of it pretty well as far as study skills and enthusiasm. Support with university applications was good as well. Some of the teachers definitely didn't think of the school as an exam factory and encouraged discussion and genuine interest in the subject. There was a certain amount of cynicism towards the school from the pupils. I will have a word with him for a bit more detail and let you know tomorrow.

Reading with interest as there’s loads of Harris schools around here and this has cemented my view that I want to keep away from them!

thank you tears, that's v helpful

This is the FoI request in case showing the dip in numbers if anyone wants to review: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/numbers_of_pupils_in_bromley_sch#incoming-994626

We looked at a different Harris elsewhere in Croydon. We were impressed at open day and my daughter loved it.......however after getting in on a waiting list I had my misgivings (and turned it down) . This particular one had had 3 heads in 3 years. We also went to the open evening for a new Harris opening nearby. The head mentioned that his current school he had started at the year after they were opened and they were sitting GCSE's the next year.

So another 4 year max headship. And obviously a head for only 1 year before that.

So based on that experience they ship them around a bit. Whether that's because they fit their skills to the phase in a schools life or whether it doesn't matter who is head because they all follow the Harris 'formula' I don't know but it put me off a bit!

Yikes, guys. Let's get serious. Have a look at the Harris reduction figures posted in the link by PettsWoodParadise (thanks PWP). They are so high. Harris Beckenham 18 children eased out, Harris Bromley 13, Harris Orpington 10. Only other school anywhere near those figures was Coopers with 11 children. I would be asking why so many children were removed from the school. Harris schools seem to have no major discipline issues from what I've heard so could these children have been eased out for results and league table manipulation?

Lord Harris, long time Conservative party donor and sponsor of the Harris Federation, speaking to The Telegraph on 20 September 2017 said "we can give our children the best education possible. We don't care where our pupils come from, it's where they're going that counts".

Where exactly are the 18 children that left Harris Beckenham going then?

How do they remove these children??

@sarahbeeney after many other behaviour intervention strategies (read: a handful of fixed term exclusions) parents are threatened with permanent exclusion but then are given college as an option for managed move which seems like a dream option rather than PE and off they go.

Wow. And all so their results look better. Awful.

The latest ofsted on Harris Purley said they had relied heavily on fixed term
Exclusions to manage behaviour although that had improved in last couple
Of years.

My bright, sporty godson managed his own removal from his Harris academy because he discovered when he started year 10 that they would no longer be doing any games or PE. All in the name of cramming for GCSEs. He's now thriving at an out of catchment comp and going for a 100% bursary at a posh boarding school for sixth form so he can play all the cricket he wants to.

I don't know if much has changed at Harris Crystal Palace in the last 5 years, but this old thread started by Nennypops makes for interesting but rather depressing reading. The school is fairly local to me but I wasn't tempted to apply for my dc after reading it

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/1784040-Harris-Academy

onewhitewhisker, had a word with DS and he said teaching was very much to the test, but he thought this was a problem with all schools anyway. He claims to have acquired no study skills until university. He pretty much enjoyed his time at school - there was little or no bullying and behaviour was good.