Would a bright child do well at any school?

[stubiff]

Following on from my offer here

Question: Would a bright child do well at any school?

To provide information for you to make your own conclusions I wanted to look at:
Do similar pupils do better at Grammar/Selective schools.
Would similar pupils have the opportunity to do as well at an 'average' school.
Do similar pupils do worse at schools in disadvantaged areas.

Your gut reaction could be along the lines of - should do better at Grammars, could do as well at middling schools and would probably do worse at schools in deprived areas.

Data Source EPI
"Pupils attending a grammar school achieve, on average, one third of a grade higher in each of 8 GSCEs, compared with similar pupils in comprehensive schools"
"Pupils who attend grammar schools do no better than similar pupils in high performing comprehensives (those in the top 25% for value added)"

Data Source ffteducationdatalab page 26
"The child scoring highest at KS2 who goes onto a non-selective school outperforms their peer who ‘just’ passes their 11+"

Conclusion: pupils do better at Grammar but could do equally as well at decent non-selectives.

Data Source Ofsted
"Students eligible for free school meals, boys and White British students are not doing as well as other groups and make less progress from their starting points at the end of KS2."

Data Source Sutton Trust
"While high attainers overall make an average level of progress between KS2 and KS4, those from disadvantaged backgrounds fall substantially behind, with a Progress 8 score of -0.32."

Conclusion: disadvantage can have a big impact on attainment/progress.

Data Source Government
See attached graph where I created a subset of data from the Gov data. Data is school based rather than pupil based.
The plot is a bit of a splodge, rather than obviously bottom left to top right.

Conclusion: a pupil CAN attain the same progress regardless of the percentage of high prior attainers at the school.

I bloody well hope they can as we have had zero choice over where ours go!

I think academics should be downplayed as the goal or at at least be equalised to level the playing field as an employer and who sits on the decision making team of graduate recruitment we need to concentrate a whole lot more on softskills and the ability to develop acceptable social manners, team work, confidence, articulation and debate skills. disadvantaged bright kids at poor performing schools or even average 'good' schools don't achieve the soft skills needed to be successful. It's proven time and again, that disadvantaged kids with straight As won't do as well as wealthy kids with less A grades in the world of work where it matters. I think we are missing a huge angle in schools, miss the point of what employers are crucially after.

RosiePosy4: if those DC have had crap leadership and teaching for most of their 7 years in the school, is it any wonder they probably under achieved? Good teaching is measured over time by Ofsted and these DC clearly didn’t get that. Of course it’s not an Oxbridge destination school if only one DC got AAA and Medicine and vet med and lots of competitive courses would be off the agenda too. Did anyone really believe it would be after such an awful past?

Also how many high achievers does the school have in this cohort? It sounds like a comp that is much closer to a secondary modern in attainment. Are all the brightest DC in your school? How many of the DC should have got AAA at A level based on prior attainment?

Cookie:, the academics shouldn’t be downplayed. Everything else you say should be upped. They are not mutually exclusive. DC can do both!

Bubbles, no selection at all for either local school or my own. As I said local school supposed to be on the up after a poor past, I think the cohort leaving having only had a couple of head teachers, but the OPs question was will a bright child do well anywhere. I was merely showing that poor schools with with poorer than expected attainment still exist.

My brother went to grammar. His GCSE results were much better than mine but not as good as most of his peers. He did go on to get a good degree and has done v well for himself. He still maintains my parents were wrong to send him, but I don't think my school would have been that great for him.

Although we live in Essex so have grammars, a distance cut off was brought in so the children living around here are considered out of catchment for all grammars. The local secondary used to be pretty awful but it has improved a lot.

Coming back to this after results day! I asked this question originally in the midst of worrying over dc’s impending results and wondering if I’d done enough to support them at home through secondary. I was also questioning if I was mad to have sent them to the school in the first place and that maybe I should have done what others had done at primary and found some way to move house to avoid school etc.

So, our own anecdotal evidence is that yes -an able child can do well in a poorly performing state school.
Dc got seven 9s. Other grades: 887. Could there have been a few more 9s if they were in a better performing school ? I suspect yes because dc is a grafter and would have taken every opportunity given them at a better school. But maybe they are a grafter because they’ve had to be, to get where they are.
Who knows?
Anyway.. this is for redsheep and others on this thread who also had little or no choice at secondary level. Stick in there! It can be done!

@Beesandtrees this is wonderful to hear! I'm thrilled for you! Your dc has had a rounded experience with a school reflecting society. They'll be ready for anything! Good for you! And yes we send our children to the school other parents warned us about. You have to shut out the noise and prejudices sometimes.

Thank you whotheeff
Good luck to your dc also