Below average secondary school - what lengths would you go to in order to do better for your kids?

[Curlewwoohoo]

What would you do if the local state secondary was below average? And there are no other local choices as its the only secondary school in our market town. By below average I mean, the school has a poor reputation with local parents, Ofsted requires improvement, now being taken over by a big academy, lots of teachers leaving, fairly big school with some bullying reported.

Would you think below average is OK for average kids who will (I hope) work hard and have supportive parents?

Would you hope it picks up?

Would you move house? How far would you go to make that happen, eg significantly impact finances? Work more hours? Move away from friends and family?

Would you try to get child into grammar, even if that would mean tutors etc? And might not be likely.

Would you go private (not really an option for us financially)?

Would you try to go out of 'catchment'? Involving long bus ride or drive?

Would you accept the school and put effort into activities and support outside of school?

Eldest is 9 and in yr4 so got a year to think about this, potentially dyslexic, very hard working at school and good attitude there but won't do much at home. Youngest is 6, several years ahead in reading but slightly behind on writing and maths. If that info would influence your decision!

I would go and look around the school and make your own mind up. In my experience views of local parents can be quite misleading- people have long memories and schools change quickly, especially if there have been changes in leadership. There is bullying in every school, what’s important is how it’s dealt with.

I’m not a fan of selective education and am a state secondary teacher myself. Both my DC go to the local school, it received ‘requires improvement’ when DC1 was in Y7 🙈 She is now in Y11 and is on track to get her targets of 7s and 8s for GCSE. It’s not perfect, there has been a massive overhaul of the senior leadership and loads of teachers left. But they have local friends, and they walk 5 mins to school, and they have had a rounded education with friends from all walks of life- as opposed to friends’ DC who leave the house stupidly early to get 2 trains to the grammar.

I also became a parent governor- I think if you have the time and inclination then it’s a great way to be a supporter of the school and have an impact.

Just to point out that in the specific circumstances you describe @Curlewwoohoo this isn't de facto a negative. It might be that the weaker teachers are being scared off, or are choosing to jump before they are pushed. Don't underestimate the potential impact of a strong HT and SLT coming in, if they are given the authority to do so, they can turn a school around pretty fast. This is what happened at the not very good Secondary Modern my DD2 attended.

37 teachers is a lot to leave. I notice there are people on the thread telling you this could be a positive, but I'll tell you my own experience with a school in a similar situation (and a similar context except no commutable grammar schools). Bear in mind this was a few years ago now, and the teacher shortage if anything is more acute than it was then.

So when my previous school was taken over by an academy trust, although the terms of our employment were exactly the same, there were some red flags from the trust CEO, and they bought in policies some teachers weren't keen on. Over the course of the first year of being in the academy, quite a lot of staff left. Despite what some PP were saying, these were (in general) not weak teachers being pushed out, but strong teachers with lots of options to find employment elsewhere. We lost some excellent middle leaders.

The school (which was also rural and not the easiest to commute to) struggled to replace all these roles, so we went in short staffed at the start of the year, with unfilled posts in e.g. Head of Department roles. Staff had to teach out of their specialisms, and we were asked to do a lot of cover to make up for unfilled posts. Teachers were also asked to take on full planning/marking for "shared classes" where there was no other teacher.

Despite being massively short staffed, the trust was really arrogant and treated some people on long term supply very poorly. Being on long term supply, they could just walk out and not return, which made the situation worse. Christmas of that year we had a lot of staff leave, again, including some amazing, dynamic young teachers who could have been real assets to the school.

Around this time, I think parents started to realise something was badly wrong, and some parents started looking at moving their children to other local(ish) schools. At least one of these schools became full/oversubscribed, which it never had been previously.

Despite this, the MAT were obviously on a mission to force out the old leadership team. Some of them were great, some of them were less so, some of them were our only teachers of a particular subject, but that wasn't seen as a concern. Summer term of that year was a mess (for lots of reasons), at that point I decided I needed to get out, and luckily was able to find a new job. Again, a lot of people left at the end of that summer.

As far as I know, the only people forced out were the those former members of SLT. Everyone else who left, left by choice- they weren't "jumping before being pushed" type situations, and I would say those who started leaving first were good teachers who had lots of options and found it easy to get another job. A lot of the people who left only had to go to one interview to find a job!

Obviously, I don't work at that school any more, but their most recent OFSTED makes specific mention of their staffing issues, and I've heard from people who are still there that things really aren't great. The other school in the town, and the school in the next town are now oversubscribed, and I know parents who are desperate to get their children in year transfers.

The school is now 4 years on from the new MAT taking over, and it's maybe starting to show some signs of recovery, but I've also seen lots of job adverts from them since September, so make of that what you will.

There are a lot of people trying to persuade themselves that the education system isn't in crisis, and these schools will sort themselves out and be "fine" but I would strongly urge you to at least look at the other commutable schools. Yes, local friends are great, but students who commute to another town for school still make friends, and you can make local friends through hobbies etc as well! You may have to be prepared to give a lot of lifts to facilitate social life BUT I also think you will find you are not the only one doing this, and the danger is that you give your local school "a try" in Y7, and realise there are major issues, and then can't get in anywhere else.

A school that's lost 37 teachers in a year isn't likely to recover fully from that in 2-3 years, and often it's Y7 and 8 who miss out on getting permanent/specialist teaching in these scenarios.

In my experience, it's the strongest teachers who leave a school first, because they find it easiest to find new jobs.

The problem is, in the current context, many of those 37 teachers won't be replaced at all, let alone with stronger candidates. At the moment "RI ofsted, been taken over by a new MAT, teachers leaving" is a red flag to most experienced teachers. The best teachers, especially in shortage subjects, can pick and choose the jobs they want at the moment.

You can't turn around a school with no staff.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl i appreciate your reply!

I’d wait and see how things go with the school under the new regime. Give it a few months. My main concern would be the bullying. Schools don’t get a reputation for bullying unless the school is failing to tackle it effectively. If they can’t manage to stop bullying, how is student behaviour generally? What’s the learning environment like in the classroom? It doesn’t matter if a child is bright and motivated if they’re afraid of going to school or if the teacher spends half the lesson dealing with behavioural issues.

I wouldn’t pick a school just because it’s local. That’s really failing your DC.

The classes are mixed ability and level of messing about is very much luck of the draw.

the Fact you are even concerned about this shows your kids will do ok from their upbringing / family situation alone. School is such a small part. The local one will improve. Don’t burden yourselves with a long school run it will ruin your life as a Family, most important the kids stay with their friends and are happy, and can get themselves to school.

I sold my soul to the devil for their education and I’ve no regrets.

Sorry but this is incredibly naive. How can DC achieve their full potential with a school with unchallenged bullying behaviour, significant understaffing which mean lack of regular FT teachers (not to mention no subject specialists) and no doubt disruptive behaviour in classes.
So many parents are ignorant to what is happening in our schools. Hoping it will improve doesn't make it so!

The hidden factor for a school being "good" or "lacking" for a child is the peer influence. At the secondary age, they get more influenced by the value or the behaviours of other children in the environment. (That's a big factor why grammar schools do well as the type of admitted children is rather even - aspired for high goals). The influence that your family value can apply to them will be a lot less significant than at primary age. (Independence plus a lot less interaction by the parents with the school.)

So it depends that school, what kind of admission intake portfolio they generally have, any chance of improvement on that or not, it will reflect back to the "changeability" of the school.

A school has poor reputation would scare away decent family sending their children to, therefore leading to the environment even less desirable for children to learn positively. But that's being said, I do think the head teacher is another decisive factor - we have an example locally with a head admirably turned around a school 's culture and got lots of local family willing to send their children there after seeing the improvement made.

So surely it's a risk that nobody can tell how it turns out in five years time...

I'm a single mum and I basically mortgaged my soul to send my ds to a local independent, but the state school offered was in chaos. Even Ofsted said it wasn't safe.

DS helped by getting a partial scholarship to his new school and we've muddled through somehow.

But I only have one dc. If I had more than one dc, I'd move house.

We didn’t do anything. We let Dd go to the local requires improvement comp where only 35% of kids got 5 GCSEs at grade C and above. We did pay for a tutor for English as they’d had a revolving door of supply teachers and she failed her mock…..got an 8 in the real thing!

dd got good GCSEs, mainly 6s, 2x7 and an 8. She moved school to a much better school for sixth form, got poor A levels, 3x D I think, maybe a C, (due to missing most of year 13 due to health) but thankfully had an unconditional uni offer. Got a 1st class degree.

She probably would have got better GCSEs at a better school as going from a 2 to an 8 from her mock to her actual result shows with some good teaching she was capable. She said prior to the mock nobody ever explained how to answer the questions in a way she understood.

the problem with moving house is you could move and the other school slide downwards over a year or two? Only needs a change of head for things to go south ime.

Oh just seen this, yeah I think I might run like the wind from that 🙈

I'd go and have a look around one or two if the other secondaries in the same MAT.l and see if you can get a handle on the ethos,l. You may even be able to meet the Chief Exec or other MAT staff and get an idea of the direction of travel for the school you're considering.

We are in a similar situation. We live in a fairly nice area however the state school provision aside from first schools is incredibly poor. There is no way I could send my DC to any of them. I’d feel awful.

We decided to prioritise schooling over everything else and enrolled DC into a very good local private school.

It will of course cost us a lot of money however we have offset this by deciding to stay put in a fairly modest house and use the money we would have spent on buying a bigger property on school fees instead. It’s similar to having a new mortgage so not as unaffordable as some may claim.

Private school is £24,000 a year per child... £168,000 in total per child. So £336,000. More than my house is worth. But not as much as a new house.

Why is the school bad? That would decide my answer. Our local comp is horrible because it draws 80% of its pupils from a sink estate, and those poor kids have far too much going on to engage with learning. They've been under special measures, had hot shot head teachers flown in, had money thrown at them...it's still a shit school with shit outcomes, and always will be. I've made sure my children won't go there.

Why is your local school bad?

Looking at the town it should be an OK school, mixed. But then the top 20% get creamed off by grammar. Then things like teaching by form so luck of the draw. Poor leadership maybe. The requires improvement from ofsted was about things like poor reading progress (not great for dyslexic Dd) and poor sen support. I know they are throwing lots at this now. Kids going to different schools now are those who need additional support and don't think they'll get it there, and those at the top end which I can't think how to phrase. A bit more middle class. So the local school is going to be further narrowed in intake.

Can you share which Trust is taking over? If one with lots of schools in the area and a good reputation, the teacher issue would worry
Me less. They may share resources. A trust near me trains a lot of its own too.

What size is local school & what is trust policy on sets / streaming as might well change

Anywhere that removes the top 20% is not great if your child isn’t in the top 20%. Are you close to a non grammar school area?

That's really tricky based on your update. I think I'd move and get in catchment for a better school if your dc aren't grammar kids.
Not just because of the quality of teaching, but because of the poor behaviour / bullying. Even the brightest child can't excel if they are getting bullied, I'd be worried about self harm, eating disorders etc. Imagine signing up for 5 years of hell.

It's a sad state of affairs where engaged parents swerve the local comp, but I wouldn't be the one to let my child be a guinea pig of a new academy.

When my neice & nephew were about to start secondary, my SiL put them in a school 15 miles away rather than in the schools in the nearest town. The nearest town had one crap school (my former school actually) and one good school. Both are academies. What the extended family found was that neice & nephew had good schooling but their friends were scattered over a huge area so they couldn't easily see them outside school. So they missed out a lot, socially. They are both very quiet shy young people. Why SiL hated the good school at the nearest town is a mystery, though my DB says, "she just didn't like it". 🤷‍♀️

Since both have left my oldest friend has sent her son to the "good" school in the nearest town and he's thriving.

Usually if a school is failing the HT is replaced and a ton of money is thrown at it, and/or it's academised. I think watch and wait is a good strategy. Have you visited all the schools? My DD went to a very average inner-city school and did very well. She also has an active social life. I think you have to consider your child's social & emotional wellbeing alongside the academic rigour.

Schools do not always turn around when they are academised. The school near us has been an academy school now for nearly eight years and it still requires improvement. It has got better in terms of the children feeling safe and the behaviour is better but the results are not great. It still has a very long way to go even after eight years.

I would be looking at moving house or commuting to school.