What questions to discern the reality of a school?

[KleineDracheKokosnuss]

looking ahead to secondary open days, and noting the articles this weekend about how there are hardly any subject specialist teachers available to teach classes - what would you ask to try and identify whether your local secondary is affected and how badly?

How would you need to phrase the question to achieve a useful answer? Would a question about “how many classes are taught by a permanent subject specialist work”? How can we phrase “how Often do the kids get chucked in the hall and told to work from textbooks while a warm body keeps watch?”

What part of: "given her position at the time, quite stupid." Did you miss?
You can have your opinion on her, but the woman is relentless in raising standards for kids. I may not agree with all her methods and everything she says, but I definitely don't agree with the hatred people give her. She has done more for social mobility than any guardian article or journalist.

@Foxesandsquirrels sorry I seem to have annoyed you! Birbalsingh is not some kind of messiah; there are hundreds of Head Teachers and schools doing as much as her and more, but they don't court publicity and bask in the "Britain's Most.." kind of facile titles that she seems to so enjoy. (Guardian, BBC, Telegraph, Independent, ITV, Daily Mail.. ).

You haven't annoyed me. She isn't a Messiah, and there are hundreds of headteachers who are doing exactly the same as her, quietly. Many of those are grateful to her for saying what they can't. Just because she is doing it loudly doesn't make her a demon.

Uniform can be important, most schools base uniform policy on middle class white children. Does the policy cover hairstyles and how?

Does the uniform consist of a white shirt that can be seen through? In that case most girls will wear a jumper even in the hottest weather to not have underwear on display. Are there options for Muslim, Jewish, JW, Sikh (insert faith or culture) students?

You might be white middle class but the way students from different backgrounds can be made welcome impact on your child as well.

No GCSE subjects are not compulsory, most schools stick to the ones that give the best progress 8 score but academies don't have to.

This can be a good or a bad thing depending on your child, You may have a child who is a brilliant artists, plays a musical instrument and wants to be an actor. Progress 8 will severely impact their choices.

SEN matters because how the school approach SEN impacts on all children in the school. When I'm teaching I use PowerPoints on a blue background because I am dyslexic, I also use a dyslexia friendly font.

If I have a student I know is dyslexic the background colour will change to the preference of that student. If I have two students who used different colours then they get a printout on paper that matcher 'their' colour.

It doesn't impact on the students who are not dyslexic.

@sashh

I get now what you mean about uniform. All local to me secondary are allowing that kids are not roasting in the summer and can take the jacket off. I have a boy that is why I haven't thought much about hairstyles.I live in Greater London, embracing multiculturalism goes here without saying unless it is a specific, religious school.

I am not sure what you mean that GCSE subjects are not compulsory. Yes, there are even as per wikipedia: Math English and Science. This is regardless the status of the school and if it is academy or not. Here, in every single state local school also RE is compulsory at GCSE. They can chose additional three subjects.

I am unsure what you mean that Progress 8 and how it would affect artist s. I find Progress 8 a usefull measure.

I don't understand your comment about SEN. Compeletely out of blue.We were not discussion the sheer existence and importance of SEN for those who have those needs, but how number of SEN children could affect the school

No GCSE subjects are not compulsory, most schools stick to the ones that give the best progress 8 score but academies don't have to.

This can be a good or a bad thing depending on your child, You may have a child who is a brilliant artists, plays a musical instrument and wants to be an actor. Progress 8 will severely impact their choices.
Totally agree with this.
There's some 'high performing' schools in my region that I'd not send my DC to for this reason.
The leaders have done a good job turning round schools in areas with historically poor community and parent engagement. The progress 8 scores are high because they focus on P8 and have a lot of students with low prior attainment.

The side effect is that the curriculum is narrower than I would want for my DC and their behaviour policies have been written with the schools' history and context in mind.

I'd never bash the schools because the leaders have transformed the schools given pupils a better education than their parents had at the same school, but their approach isn't what I'd want for my DC.

Progress 8 is very useful when you look at the non selective schools. When I decide on the school I really want the school where parents are engaged in their kids education. The overall attitude of parents and kids towards educattion matters a lot as it motivates also my child

The local hugely selective Grammar for Boys ( Tiffin) has excellent GCSE results Grade 5 or above at 98 percent but Progress 8 that is a comparison between SATs in year 6 and GCSE results is 0.47 which is only around the local authority avg. Most of state schools in that borough made a bigger jump between Year 6 and GCSEs.

It Attainment 8, another measure that in selective schools will naturally be high.

@RedFluffyPanda Genuine advice, you need to stop thinking progress 8 is the be all end all. From your posts and the PM you've sent, you seem a bit fixated on it. As I explained earlier in the thread, look up how it's calculated and why many schools that are excellent, may have a lower progress 8.
Tiffin will have lower progress 8 as a huge aspect of it is comparison to KS2 results. Tiffin will have lots of kids who never sat those as they come from preps. It is also more difficult to have a high progress 8 when you're already getting very clever kids. There is only so much they can improve when there is obviously a cap in what they can achieve at GCSE. Schools that care about their kids will not force them into EBACC just so their progress 8 improves.

Have a read of these.

https://www.locrating.com/Blog/attainment-8-and-progress-8-explained.aspx

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2018/05/value-added-measures-in-performance-tables-a-recap-of-the-main-issues-for-secondary-schools/

@Foxesandsquirrels but that is exactly wh at I was saying about selective schools in reaponse to post above by Lolasmiles, that progress 8 at selective may not be the best measure as they start high and resultingly end up high; it is not that all selective have high Progress 8.

But for state schools if they take children basing on catchment in my opinion it has a meaning if it is coupled with the good GCSE results.

How otherwise assess academic success of the state schools if not by results?

But progress 8 doesn't equal results in all subjects. It takes into account a very limited range of subjects. So it's one of the worst measures when looking at schools. You need to look at your child's learning profile and see how that school looks after those types of kids. If your child is high attaining than their needs will be different to low attainers or the middles which tend to coast.

Well definitely you are right that if somebody has a child e.g artist...let's say musician etc Progress 8 would not be a useful measure and I would definitely look individually at schools where there is a good emphasis on music. All that results are no use in instance like that.

However for a child that is as they say "academic" e.g Maths or English.... Progress 8 is a good measure.

Progress 8 can be looked at as a whole, or separate to previous high, middle or low attainers.
It isn't the be all and end all, but it is a helpful measure to look at alongside other information.

I agree. But that poster is consistently criticising the progress 8 of schools and my consistent point is that it's not the be all end all. It's not completely useless, but best taken with a pinch of salt and as you say, alongside other measures.
A high progress 8 would make me want to look closely at how rigid option blocks and compulsory GCSEs are.

@Foxesandsquirrels

Could you give examples of rigid option blocks as opposed to flexible and compulsory GCSEs vs more flexible schools, please?

The reason I am asking is that I have only understanding how it works in the local schools where we are in catchment and I wonder what we are missing and if we are missing anything at all.

Apart the subject in the attached image they also make RE compulsory GCSE subject ( in local state schools, non religious too)

Thanks

@RedFluffyPanda Did you have a look at the links I sent that explain what progress 8 is made up of?
A school that will be very rigid will expect all students, regardless of ability or joy in the subjects to take all the ebacc subjects. They will expect them to take subjects that score the highest in terms of progress 8. In a lot of schools this means that kids end up only having one or two free option choices for GCSE. The rest are compulsory.

Progress 8 is only based on English and Math because this is what SATS year 6 consists of. But English and Mathematics is compulsory on GCSE. There are no other subjects involved in that measure because they are not tested at SATs.

Are you sure you are talking about Progress 8 and not Attainment 8?

I'm just going to ignore your replies now sorry. I've tried to be helpful but you choose to ignore facts and can't even be bothered to Google what progress 8 is made up of or read the links I've sent you so you can inform yourself. I don't understand your obsession with progress 8, but if that's what you choose as your deciding factor, that's fair enough. All the best to your son, I'm sure he will do well in any of your options.

I'm not. But you probably are. This is the difference:

Attainment 8 is a measure of how well pupils have achieved in their GCSE results and Progress 8 is a measure of how those achievements compare with other children in England that started secondary school at the same level.

That's meant to say I haven't confused them, but you probably have.

I'll be honest - glossy brochures and fancy websites mean nothing, it just means they directed their scarce budget to marketing, or had a keen member of staff. In fact results aren't even the be all and end all - your child's potential at a given school isn't just because of past results of other children eg a small nurturing mixed ability students may be getting excellent results from their able students, above what they would have got at a larger more competitive school, yes lower average schools because it's not selective and take children who were never going to achieve high grades.

Finally I don't want to put a real downer but unless it's fee paying, you may not get much of a choice, your nearest school is your most likely to get in

Obviously I looked at your links and read about it before.
Can you tell me what are the subject that are taken into consideration in Progress 8?
I wonder how you understand it.

( I am totally ignoring any offensive remarks because it is just a noise. I am very keen to understand how Progress 8 that consists of comparison of SATS y6 results with the same compulstoy subjects English and Maths would block any other subjects. This is very unclear to me and the links provided are not addressing it. They are addressing it when Attainment 8 is concerned)

You are missing the point- Progress 8 is only about English and Math that is compulsory at SAT y6 level and compulsory at GCSE in England and Wales. Therefore, Progress 8 is not blocking or affecting any other option subjects as it is not relating to it.
Attainment 8 is a different story.

And as I mentioned, for a little musician, artist, sports kid etc I would not even bother to look at Progress 8 as long as the child will be able to grow in the school. But for a child that is a strong qualitative or quantitative academic mind it could matter

Progress 8 doesn’t just look at Maths and English. It also has ‘buckets’ for 3 EBacc subjects and 3 other approved qualifications. For example, if a pupil doesn’t take enough qualifications to fill the EBacc ‘buckets’ it drags down their progress 8 (and attainment 8).

I'm glad you've commented. I'm refusing to engage with that poster. She can't even be bothered to Google. It's literally on the first hit after you Google what is progress 8 made up of.

OP if you're interested in progress 8 and what that's made up of, and how schools sometimes game the system, here is an interesting blog entry from Ofsted. It breaks down what the buckets for are that make up progress 8 too.

educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2018/09/04/vocational-qualifications-progress-8-and-gaming/