Really concerned about a schools performance - is it worth the risk?

[CabbageOrGreenbeansHmm]

I really like a certain secondary school. It was up there as number 1. I had a really good feeling about it. I like the feel of the place, the curriculum, the positiveness of the teachers and the fact it’s only a 20 minute walk (other schools are all 30+ mins on the bus or select on religion). DD loved it and really wants to go there.
Other parents who have chosen it with DC in Y7 or Y8 now are saying really positive things about it. I know one parent with a Y11 who was “forced” to go there because of how admissions worked out and says it is a completely different school to what it was.

It’s had a bit of bad past but it really is getting better. They were oversubscribed last year. They turned into the new academy about 3 years ago and recently been OFSTED’ed as good. Historically alway had poor results and never in my life have they had an OFSTED higher then satisfactory. It always was inadequate and in special measures.

I was a bit shocked by this years results (see screenshots). I expected a slight below average, but the reality is a lot different.
I’m wondering whether this is just historical results from the previous school, covid and other factors such as the new management and staff changes which haven’t had time to embed into the new academy yet? I do know a few got all grades 8/9 this year so it’s not like everyone is getting poor results.

I also know another school in the trust had a similar background. It joined the trust about 5/6 years ago and this year it’s results were average, all the numbers above 0 and bang on England average for English and maths GCSE % - hoping this might be the case for the school we are interested in?

I was looking at our catchment school last night and was pleased that the results were above average. I wouldn’t be at all pleased with those results regardless of how I felt about the school. Has there been any changes at the top do you know?

There’s been lots of changes. It became the academy. Everything has been stable since then with no major changes. I’m hoping that it’s just not had time to embed yet and these results are reflecting that?

These results were for children who started 5 years ago. If there have been changes since then it wouldn’t necessarily show in the results yet.

Plus progress 8 is an imperfect comparison tool. How parents in the lower years think will give a better indicator of the school culture.

Is your child academic? Is he likely to go to Six forms? If yes then if I were you I would find another school.

Parents rarely admit that their kids go to underperforming school. They try to rationalise their choices. So do not rely on the opinions.

Check 5+ and ,7+ and Attainment 8 as well.

I suspect the results haven't come up yet - but we found that a school that had reputation but made good and it had time to show steadily in results can go down really fast though academy might give it slightly more protection I suppose.

I think it depends on the cohort of the school - what does progress 8 look like? Although that is also not always the full picture. Do they have high FSM, send, eal?

If you look at the school data, where does your child.sit - low, medium, high attainment? What do the results say about the group your child is in? Low attainment can be due to many things - low attainment on entry to the school, high FSM, high send - the headline results are an average so may not represent how your child would do ?

I suspect I am alone in picking a school based on the pastoral care - if my children are happy and inspired to learn they will do well. And they have. Even though they are not the best results in the local area.

You need to figure out what is important to you. I decided I could always support them academically but if they were not settled it would be much harder to manage...

Parents in the lower years seem to all think it’s a good school and are positive about it. Parents in the higher years are talking positively about the changes.

I was hoping that the school might be following the trend of another school which was very similar and for the first time ever, after 5/6 years in the trust has average results.

I had hoped they would be higher this year. And compared to what I looked at at the start of September, they are a very slight improvement on last years.

I’m just feeling very confused right now. Everything was looking so positive until I saw these. 😭

Sorry, I’m going against the grain here but I wouldn’t consider it. At best it’s a gamble. 16% achieving very basic maths and English is too low and even a 2-3 year management team should be able to do better.

My concern about this school is that the makeover is still theoretical.

The school may be a great place for kids that are likely to go to vocational training, apprenticsshio after GCSE. Not a stressful place, easy going. It is all what you plan and what is your kid like

16 per cent getting maths and English is incredibly low.

I would move heaven and earth to go to a different school - no matter the good points of this one.

16% is quite frankly awful. As a teacher I would struggle to explain those kind of results. I would really want to dig deep to find out what the school’s justifications are for only 1 in 6 students gaining a pass in English and maths. It’s below the LA average by miles too. Why are children underperforming? What’s the ethos? What’s the mechanism used to track student progress?

I had chosen based on factors other than the results, it seemed a good fit, pastoral care good, parents liked it, happy kids, positive teachers. But I was still interested in seeing what the results were like, hence, I haven’t put the form in yet and have looked at results to see if they are improving - they are, but I thought they would have improved more than they have.

Looking a bit deeper. The cohort that sat the exams for these results, 1/3 were disadvantaged and about 20% were mobile - don’t know if that makes a difference?

Also about 40% were low attainers and only 14 of the whole cohort were high attainers - I am assuming this is one of the factors as to why the results are weighted downwards and that’s something that needs to be taken into consideration?

71% of the high achievers got grade 4+ in English and maths - I don’t know whether that’s good?

Ok.

So the low/mid/high attainers thing basically divides the year group at the end of year 6 into thirds.

So at this school, where you would expect a third of the year group in year 7 to be high attainers, only 14 children are. This says that parents with children in the top third are pretty much completely avoiding this school.

The teaching, pastoral care etc is therefore almost certainly geared towards mid and low attaining students.

So if your child is low attaining (bottom third) and you/they are looking towards apprenticeships/vocational training then the teaching will suit them.

However, all 16 year olds need to pass maths and English at gcse or resit in college. If your child goes to this school, based on the data given, there is a 84 per cent chance they will have to resit.

If your child needs to resit at college then they will generally be made to do a lower level vocational qualification so they have time to do the resit.

So your kid will get a less-good vocational qualification. If they pass the resit (some do but not many) they may be allowed to do a higher level vocational qualifications.

Basically, not getting maths and English at gcse fucks up what you can do afterwards,

If you are thinking that your child might want to go to uni then do not even consider this school as she is unlikely to be taught well enough to get in a-levels never mind uni,

Actually, these results are appalling.

The school I used to work at had an intake that was broadly in line with expected intake and we got 71 per cent getting English and maths for all our intake.

71 per cent for high attainers is really bad.

It might be a nice school but they aren't teaching the kids properly,

Those results are terrible..
I'd look again. The school has had 3 years to improve them.
I wouldn't chance it with my child

Unless your dc would benefit from a less academic approach and this school is excellent at a certain vocation they want to persue then I would look elsewhere. What results does your next school option have? Your dc should not base their decision on their friends going here, they branch out into a new group of friends anyway.
BTW what website is this from? It looks very useful.

16% mins is terrible. Really dire. the progress 8 indicates significant underperformance across the board.

Is your child academic? If yes - avoid. If no, are you willing to top up school with a tutor to ensure maths and English receive good passes? If no - avoid.

@Octavia64 thank you for that really thorough explanation. That is useful for informing decisions.

I am leaning towards putting our 2nd choice as our 1st now. 2nd is quite a trek away and was tied with 1st choice but 1st won because it was closer. Looking at the results. I think the daily journey will be worth it to the other school. Other school has much better results this year, and has always been a good school all round.

Its from this website

https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england

changing the teaching staff has little or no impact. Changing the intake would. Changing the behaviour policy would.

Look at their behaviour policy - are disruptive pupils removed from the room so the lesson can progress?

Look at the intake. Stand outside at school leaving time, Or get on a bus with the pupils

What's the cohort like?

Sorry-ignore me! I see you've said that.

What does the OFSTED say about the teaching?

I would move heaven and earth to avoid putting my child in a school with such atrocious test scores. The fact that the demographic break out is even more skewed shows that the school is not managing to teach children, they are just coasting on what children bring in themselves. Certain groups will have lower scores on average, that is sadly inevitable, but huge splits and the overall low score is really concerning.

id look into moving if there were no other options nearby. When we were house hunting, we nearly fired our agent for wasting our time by showing us a house where the only school available was one with scores like this.