Good or outstanding?

[flipofacoin]

My decision...

On offer day we got our second choice school. It is nearby with a 'Good' Ofsted. Attainment VERY low at the moment but it is definitely on an upwards trajectory. Confidence in the school is growing and the catchment has shrunk by >75% in the last 2 years. Decent curriculum. Nice facilities. Plenty of sport. Friends from primary going with the potential to make more local friends.

My DD has now been offered a place at our first choice 'Outstanding' school. Good attainment. Further away (50 mins each way). School bus but no friends from primary so likely travelling alone at first. Large catchment so no guarantee of local friends in the long run. Loads of sport. Incredibly hard to get into the school.

My gut says to stick with what we have and it will all be more than ok, possibly better! Am I crazy to favour a school with low attainment based on a 'feeling' that it will be ok/improve? Will I kick myself further down the line?

I'm looking for some words of wisdom from fellow mumsnetters! Thanks

I think Ofsted should be taken with a pinch of salt. (And definitely I would check if the Ofsted report is even recent).

50 minutes is too far and would have to be a massively better school to justify that sort of travel (or put another way, think what could be done with the extra time!?)

I'd go for local school on upward trajectory over Ofsted outstanding long way away any day.

I don't think that the difference between good and outstanding is worth 50 mins each way. I know some kids travel that far to a grammar or private school but I would stick to the good school and your dd will be grateful on those cold and wet winter days when the bus is late or it's dark when the bus arrives home.

I would definitely take OFSTED with a pinch of salt. We had a local school go from outstanding at it's previous inspection to inadequate. The school hadn't been inspected by OFSTED for over a decade. I know people that were sending their children there because they favoured an outstanding school over a closer good school.
I wouldn't be taking my child away from a closer school, with a network of friends and good facilities.

Thanks for your replies. Making me feel much calmer about my decision!

I think 50 mins each way is a very long commute for an 11-14 yo.
I'd probably stick with what you have.

However, there was a reason you put the other school first...

Trust your instincts @flipofacoin. And don't underestimate the importance of a great HT and strong SLT. Fwiw DD2 went to a school which wasn't very good but was turned round by a dynamic HT – when she went there they didn't even offer science A levels, she now has a first-class Masters in infectious diseases from one of the world's foremost universities for that subject. We backed the school.

It’s not unusual for a secondary modern to be light on science A levels. Go back 30 years and they offered no A levels at all! Sciences are less likely to have minimum numbers in secondary schools.

Ofsted reports are relevant if they are recent. The best info is on the government web site. Are DC at both schools making great progress? What does absenteeism look like? What about higher, medium, lower achiever percentages? How does each group do? Is low attainment due to higher low achievers? Is this realistically going to change? A new head cannot change everything immediately.

Therefore check all the data. Not just Ofsted.

@TizerorFizz makes a good point about a new HT not being able to change everything immediately, but ime they can have a swift impact on the 'culture' of a school, so if you feel it is on an upwards trajectory OP, I would suggest you are probably correct.

That said, there are a lot of metrics you can delve into, as @TizerorFizz says, which would give you the data to back up your feeling. Progress8 stats are often more revealing than exam grades, for example.

Thanks for all the comments. The progress 8 is slightly better at the local school.

The 'Outstanding' school is a comp but offers places for music and sports scholarships. This, plus the fact they run a no-catchment admission system for the remaining places makes admission very competitive and therefore indirectly selective! There are a higher than average proportion of higher prior attaining children in Year 7.

The local school used to be a sixth place school. Children travelled in from a wide catchment to fill the places. There was a lower proportion of higher attaining children. It was underscubscribed so they also inherited quite a few children that were excluded from other schools. It was rebuilt with a new primary attached. The primary is now outstanding and the catchment has shrunk to a very local area, so the intake is now a reflection of the local community. Not selective but more 'average' if you like. The primary school is now feeding the secondary school. It is now a 'first choice school' with a waiting list.

The attainment is low at the local school but my thinking is that the combination of good leadership + good progress 8 + a more local, committed intake will all mean better results.

@flipofacoin
Yes. I do agree ethos can change. Quality teaching is harder to change. However a great head can attract better staff so improvements can happen.

If the other school has no catchment, what are their admissions criteria other than the talents you describe? Who gets in and how? If you are happy with the local school and you believe it is improving, then stay with it. You must now know the type of family going there and hopefully fewer disruptive ones. Travelling to schools usually excludes poorer families and often lower achieving ones too. I would expect to see far fewer lower attainers at the 50 mins away school.

Quantify "low" - if it's very low I would perhaps be a bit wary. Otherwise (as I'm sure you're aware) a school with a high proportion of high achievers is always going to do much better than a school with no low achievers.

You should also be aware that any attainment data is 2 years old, and things may look drastically different in your local school now. Have they put anything on their website/local paper about how their students did in the last 2 years?

Pretty sure I know which the further away school is based on your description. If it's the one I think, then my DD is there and happily does a 90 minute commute each way to get there. She does lots of after-school clubs and gets her homework down on the train home.

The pupils are spread over an incredibly wide geographic area so there's no issue with missing out on local friends - none of DD's friendship group live anywhere near each other.

Only one child from DD's primary went as well - don't think they spoke at all in Y7, but are now very good friends. She didn't find it hard to make friends there and they do a lot to help the kids on that front given that they have no catchment.

The local school had a 30% grade 5 and above GCSE pass rate in 2019. The Outstanding school had 60%. These figures are out of date because of Covid. And the new y7/8’s in the local school will take a few years to convert into results

Not so much on their website about results but positive, consistent communications about school projects/events etc which all looks promising

Each to their own, but there's not a school on the planet I would make my 11-year-old travel for 90 minutes to get to.

You might if your nearest secondary was in special measures and still a 50 minute journey each way...

@OhCrumbsWhereNow
I would have moved house. My DDs boarding school was nearer to home than that!

30% at grade 5 and above is not great. That’s far worse than most secondary moderns where I live and that’s in a grammar county with many higher achievers in those schools. Therefore where are the brighter children? How many are higher achievers are at the school year on year?

60% is certainly better but I would want to know the new SLT at the local school can really attract the DC who will do well and give them a great education. Parents do like local schools but they need to trust them.

Assuming we are talking SE London here, we'll be starting at the further away Ofsted outstanding secondary vs the our local Ofsted good secondary.
I think it's important to try to make the right decision for your child, and everyone's experiences are different. They will spend a huge amount of time at school so it is important they will be happy there and have the opportunity to become whatever they can.
We looked at it like this:
Our son loves math. Further school offers maths scholorship which is basically an extra hour a week which is meant to be great, and includes some trips. Clsoer school doesn't set or stream for math which we were not keen on and he wasn't either.
Our son also loves sport. This is more developed at the further away school, but the closer school was ok and does have good facilities. Closer school offers specific extra classes for 'sports scholars' which again is meant to be good.
Drama. This was far more developed at further away school and would enable him to drop weekend class he was doing. Only just starting at closer school.
Extra-curricular activities - far more options at further away school.
Languages. Further away school you can study 2 for the first 3 years, and both languages from our family background. One at local school.

Maths and English only 22% Grade 5 or above at closer school, 60% at further away school.

Closer school on upward curve, further away school already where closer school wants to be.

Distance 15 mins walk to closer school, 35-45 minutes to further away school.

Friends - half class going to closer school, none of core friends going to applying to further away school (though we have since found quite a few local kids going from different schools, his football team etc).

We were lucky i nthat we moved our son to a new school at the end of year 5 as he was unhappy as he couldn't study properly in this former school, as well as not liking 'group punishements' 'for other kids behaviour. This gave us an insight into what he wanted, and also make him more comfortable starting at a new school where he doesn't know many people.

So my point it try to work out where your child will be happy, and what that is. It is different for everyone and only you know your child. I desperately wanted to send my child to the nearer school as all the kids at my primary and secondary were from all over London so I loved the close primary experience we had here, but ultimately distance for us can't trump the other bits that for him will work much better at the further school (well we think, you never know of course - it will however be easier to move him back to the closer school if we had to than the other way around, though of course we would hope he stays there).

// we did have another local school that we put 2nd, a boys only school that would have worked for him, but that did much better than the closest school to us I refer to above, which I really like but he wanted co-ed so we left it in the lap of the shool draw.

Good luck and feel to PM if that helps.