Graveney school: good for average kids?

[Lifesatoot]

We have an option to move into Graveney catchment and considering it for our daughter but having done a lot of thread searching we can't find much info about how happiness amongst the kids who aren't in the top stream.

The general feeling from people not at the school seems to be that the top streamed kids are nurtured/pushed/thriving and that the lower stream kids are left to get on with it a bit. Our concern is that if we have an average student (and average is just fine in our book), do they miss out in some way. i.e. do they somehow feel inadequate when there is emphasis placed on the high flyers? It's hard to find the average kids to speak to as on the open days they always push out the super bright ones who are in every club going and are wonderful to speak to but don't really give a true picture of the general intake.

Our other option is not to move and to send our daughter to Burntwood. We think it's a great school and she could be very happy there but a single sex school isn't our preference and she is likely to know more kids at Graveney. We are out of catchment for Chestnut Grove, Dunraven and Ricards Lodge and are concerned about potential pollution levels at the new Harris academy in Colliers Wood.

If anyone is able to shed any light on how their Graveney kids or kids of friends do in the lower streams that would be amazing as polarised opinions of 'it's brilliant for the academically gifted and bit lacking for the rest' are probably a bit unfair... Thanks!

@Lifesatoot I’ve just found this thread when googling about the same question - just wondering if anyone got back to you?

I would like to know the same thing - we’ve just had the WT test results and DC1 has a good enough score to get a place at Graveney - which is brilliant news! However, the journey isn’t the best for us and we have DC2 as well, who is not at all academic and would almost definitely be in one of the lower streams. We also have another school which is a better fit for DC1 - but if we choose that are we throwing always DC2’s chances of a sibling place at Graveney IF it is just as good for the average child as for the very academic one? Like the OP, we’re struggling to find this out.

@Skoolchoices may I ask what the required min score is for Graveney? And does it differ depending on whether you live outside of Wandsworth?

@lookhappy - it changes from year to year but the minimum score for the last 4 years for both offer day and being offered a place by 31 August is on the Wandsworth website so you can get a fairly good idea!

@Skoolchoices surely you have already listed your schools so your child will get Graveney if you put it first and if you want to change your mind you will be trying for a waitlist place at the alternative school?

Given that only 70 out of 280 places are selective then I would say they have more than enough children who are not as academic for DC to be fine. Their exam results can't be just based on the few selective children so they are obviously doing something right with the rest of the pupils too. Sounds like a decent option if you have two DC of differing abilities.

@AveEldon - the alternative school is an independent.

@Hersetta427 - that's a good point, but I very much doubt DC2 would be in either of the upper two streams, and I get the impression they make up the majority of the school? Happy to be corrected if that impression is wrong!

Thanks @Skoolchoices. Are you in Wandsworth? And can I check: did your daughter score high enough to get one of the 70 selective places? If inside Wandsworth then your second child will presumably just be in a lower band, if outside Wandsworth, not sure if the younger child will get a place? But I'm sure younger child will be OK in a lower stream if they go there. However, obvs need a parent with child/ren there to comment. Think Graveney and Ashcroft are the best regarded of all the Wandsworth schools, but of course, an independent school would be a whole other experience (and cost!).

@lookhappy Graveney's current sibling policy is not affected by where you live

Sorry for highjacking the thread but could anyone explain the top bands at Graveney please?
are there 2 or 3 upper bands ? and are they the same level or is there a sub-order?
If you are offered one of the 70 selective places, are you guaranteed to be in one of the upper bands ? it doesn't seem to be guaranteed based on the prospectus.
DC's WT's results have just been received and they are around the March cut off so hoping to be offered a place sometime.
how many years do those upper band exist for ? as the kids get up the school, are the pupils set by subjects and the bands disappear ?
Thank you

@Iamsodone Year 7 has 10 classes in three bands of ability.
There is some setting for maths and later years I think
Banding is decided based on WT & Sats but a top 70 place should guarantee being in the upper band
Kids do move between bands

I imagine the top 70 kids might find themselves in the top band at the beginning but they will not be guaranteed to stay there. They will soon work out who may have been heavily tutored and not able to keep up so there will be regular moving between bands as there is in every secondary school.

This is the Wiki entry re banding:

When students begin their life at Graveney in Year 7, they are placed into sets depending on their Year 6 SATs, their Wandsworth test result and the recommendation letter of their previous teacher. Students can either be put into Extension (4 classes), Enrichment (3 classes) or Endeavour (2 classes). Students can be moved across sets depending on their ability. However, most remain in their assigned stream. Students in one Endeavour class receive personal mentoring by the school, with their tutor often being a member of the special needs department.

I think with the banding it means if you’re brilliant at maths and some other subjects but terrible at English for example you would remain in Extension for all classes unlike Chestnut Grove who stream according to ability in different subjects? I might be wrong but banding would seem to be more rigid and restrictive than streaming in that you could be a genius in one subject but might remain in Endeavour for all classes if you weren’t as strong in other subjects?

@Lifesatoot did you move in the end or not?

I was also wondering what happens if people live with the local catchment. Do people still end up tutoring their kid in order for them to get into the top sets and compete with the tutored kids who got there on their tests? We are considering moving into the tiny catchment but I definitely dont think that DC would get the same SATS grades as the tutored peers without a tutored. Not sure if anyone has any experience of living locally.

Nope - for various reasons not made the move as yet...

There's a thing called a 'Progress 8' score, which shows "how much progress pupils at [a] school made between the end of key stage 2 and the end of key stage 4, compared to pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2 "

Graveney's score is 0.51, i.e. "well above average", it's really good - it translates as kids doing just over half a grade better at GCSE there than you'd expect given the level they were at aged 11. There aren't all that many state schools who do better.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&region=all-england&for=secondary&orderby=ks4.0.P8_BANDING&orderdir=asc&page=9

In the interests of balance, over the years there has been some fairly serious consistent amongst lower streamed Graveney pupils, reports that those outside the topside treated like second class citizens (and e.g. see www.instagram.com/graveneystoriesofracism/?hl=en).

Related, I'm not sure how Graveney's Progress 8 score would look if you calculated it seperately for each stream.

@pinktv - yes, tutoring kids within catchment area, aimed at getting into higher sets, is very much a thing.

Also related www.change.org/p/graveney-students-past-and-present-and-wandsworth-residents-change-the-streaming-system-at-graveney-school?use_react=false

Also relevant, there's a telling snippet from the stats in the petition - it's hardly unusual in schools for there to be a difference but you can see that the top sets at Graveney have WAY more kids in them than the bottom ones, so I suppose that is a form of support for the less able.

"n the three extension forms, which comprised 96 students in total, only 29 of those students were BAME and only 13 students in this group were black students, with one form having only 1 black student. In contrast, the lowest streamed set in this year group was a form comprising of 16 students, all but 2 of whom were BAME students. "

Graveney is a huge school and there is a lot of focus on the ‘extension’ group which is only made up of 70 or so kids. The fact it’s called extension tells you everything you need to know imho. When you tour the school, teachers and students emphasise this stream quite a lot and it does feel like if you have a kid not part of this group then they may as well be at any any oversized average comp.