Becky High, Dr Challoners High, Aylesbury High, Wycombe High or Chesham Grammar

[sadierussell2]

I'm narrowing down the schools search but I'm more interested in the diversity of these schools because challoners high is a bit more diverse than becky high, and i want my DD to go to a diverse school (shes mixed) and also i want your opinon on how you would rank these schools (forget about distances to my house for now). Thanks

Bucks gives numbers SWB recruit from Maidenhead. Catchment 3.74 miles on 1 March allocations.

Ok so maybe I should have said less then 4 miles if we’re picking holes or 3 point something miles? If I were to pick holes they are not recruiting from their Maidenhead catchment they are offering to qualified catchment pupils who do not fall under a higher admissions category up to a distance of 3.74 miles.

My youngest child is in their first year of Uni and this distance (so less than 4 miles) has been the case since they were admitted in year 7. Prior to that they would admit all of catchment and occasionally a couple outside of catchment.

@KittyMcKitty How do these schools compare? Waddesdon is a fantastic secondary but all secondaries have many middle and lower achievers and therefore are not directly comparable. Cressex is rated Good. I can think of one grammar that’s Good. It has issues with MFL and too few dc studying one (thereby manipulating results and p8) so certainly not a grammar. Popular and well run overall though. 12 years ago: RI. No Bucks grammar has been RI. The secondaries do yoyo a bit. The grammars don’t.

@TizerorFizz sorry if I’m being dim but I’m not sure what your question is. Cressex is hugely over subscribed now only admitting to a radius of 1-2 miles. Yes it has a chequered past but has been excellent under the current and previous head.

Grammars - RGS is good isn’t it? The majority haven’t been inspected since 2014 / 2012.

A good school is a good school. It’s tricky to compare grammars to uppers as their cohorts are substantially different in very many ways.

I know nothing about Waddesdon so can’t comment but I do think Cressex and GMS provide great opportunities to students who go there. Cressex doesn’t have a 6th form (save for a small child care course) and many of their students transition to bucks grammars for A level achieving places in a whole host of top level unis.

As far as grammars my experience only stretches to where I work and where my children attended but again they are both excellent schools.

I think you have just repeated my thoughts. Cressex to 16 cannot be compared to a grammar. As I said, a couple of grammars are Good but AHS is a recent Outstanding inspection. It’s true that some secondaries have a very chequered history with ofsted. It’s also fairly rare for grammar slt to move to secondary slt. Some secondaries just don’t get the best people applying. Some do but there’s definitely a pecking order of secondaries. So living near a good one matters.

I’m confused when you say “Cressex to 16 cannot be compared to a grammar”?

Grammar schools are just selective schools - RGS and SWBGS are poles apart in terms of what they are like as a school. there is no single thing which defines a grammar school except for the fact that it selects at 11 (or 10 for the vast majority of pupils).

What there are are schools which provide good environments for students to learn, where students are safe, where students are nurtured and encouraged and can go on to flourish - this really is all it is.

Cressex and RGS both provide this environment (I chose them as examples as they have the same Ofsted rating) and therefore yes they are comparable- they will both allow students to have the best opportunity to progress to the next stage of their education.

Cressex cannot provide the whole secondary school curriculum as it has no 6th form. Of course it’s different! Has very different dc. It’s fair it’s judged on what it does for dc it has. However it’s not a grammar and doesn’t provide one stage of education at all. Nor much MFL.

But aside from the possibility that those teachers who value teaching sixth formers over KS3 / GCSE students may give the upper schools with no sixth form a swerve, it really makes no difference to the students in years 7-11 that there are no sixth formers being taught on yhe premises, in terms of the curriculum provided. Year 10s aren't going to be taught AS level Geography, or year 8 A level Graphic Design, for example, either at an upper school of a grammar.

Almost no schools in Hampshire have a sixth form - the vast majority of students do post-16 at one of the colleges. Students in the county's 11-16 schools don't do poorly on the strength of this.

I agree with @MarchingFrogs that having (or not having) a 6th form is of no relevance to students in years 7-11. Also many students (even those in grammar schools) go elsewhere for KS5.

I actually went to school in Winchester (Hampshire) and non of the cities schools had a 6th form and pretty much everyone went to Peter Symonds which is highly sought after and always seems to be in the Tatler lists.

Gillotts in Henley - another high performing school doesn’t have a 6th form.

The absence of a 6th form doesn’t prevent students from these schools going on to highly sought after universities.

By MFL I’m assuming you are referring to French, German and Spanish? (as obviously there are very many other modern foreign languages). Cressex only offers French so I’m guessing this is your point. WHS offers French and Spanish. SWBGS offers French Spanish and German - although students will study either Spanish or German during year 8. Yes the grammars make students take a language to GCSE. Cressex don’t (neither do Gillotts). We could go off onto a massive tangent as to teaching of French German and Spanish in schools I guess. It would be interesting to compare figures as to the numbers of students who are bilingual in schools - I would hazard a guess that Cressex would have reasonably high % who are fluent therefore in 2 modern foreign languages.

So aside from having the opportunity to learn Spanish and German (although not all Bucks grammars offer German) what is it that students at Cressex are missing out on?

Edited to add you say Cressex has a very different type of pupil body. Yes the difference is that they don’t select at 11 and can be considered to have the pupils not selected by the grammar schools. The fact that Cressex pupils are represented in the cohorts of RG and other universities surely shows that selecting at 11 is not a great means of identifying future potential?)

I don’t agree. Having no 6th form leaves a school bereft of music talent. Of older role models. Of sports teams to look up to. It is not the same experience at all. Plus the concerns of applying for 6th forms elsewhere and not all will make it to the grammars. It just would no do for me and my local sec has a bouyant 6th form.

My point about MFL is that the school gets too many pupils to swerve it. According to Ofsted.

But Hampshire manages just fine without 6th forms - Peter Symonds (6th form college) hosts the county specialist music provision any many go into conservatoires etc so it’s just fine. I don’t know if looking up to sports teams is a thing is it?

Anyway I’m just giving you my experience of working in Bucks secondary schools and sending my children there- no one has to send their child to a Bucks state school after all.

I just think that perpetuating the grammar good / upper bad rhetoric is both incorrect and also damaging. A grammar is not the be all and end all!

Hampshire doesn’t have grammars! It’s not the same. Bucks does so it’s a different playing field. Hants 6th form colleges are 3500 pupils. That is not available in Bucks. We have the system we have and it’s difficult for secondaries to be Outstanding. Few have ever been. Ever. Just Waddesdon from memory. Many secondaries have had RI inspections. Even the ones that are sought after now. They fluctuate and some have been basket cases. Most are not but some teeter. The grammars never have. Even with a few inspections due, AHS proves you can still get outstanding if you are.

I kind of think you're both right! I had a DS at grammar and a DD(2) at secondary modern at the same time. The schools were similar sizes and equidistant from our house.

I don't think there's much doubt that grammars in Bucks benefit from greater resources and funding. For example, if DS's subject teacher was not available for a lesson, it would be covered by another specialist in that subject and work would be seamless; in DD's case it would be covered by whoever was free and they would be given worksheets (at best). Similarly both schools were fund-raising for a new sports hall – it took the GS about 6 months and the secondary modern several years to raise the same amount. I don't think there's any disputing @TizerorFizz 's point that the secondary moderns have a more fluctuating profile than the grammars – DD's school was a basket case until about 2-3 years before she went there.

Equally, though, I agree that it is possible to achieve academically in many of these secondary moderns. Of DD's friendship group of 8, all of them went to university and 3 of them (including DD) have Masters. And impressive ones at that, which involved changing to top universities rather than merely staying on a year where they were. There's a fair bit of data indicating that 11+ results don't directly correlate with success in GCSEs, let alone beyond that, so we need to be a little more circumspect about the quality of certain schools and their teaching – I know of several pupils at a girls GS who went to DD's maths teacher for private tutoring.

That’s interesting you say that the grammars have better funding. I always thought it was lower as they would have fewer pp children and other deprivation flags. Or do you mean that the parents at grammar support more financially.

Oh sorry @Anon2190 , I wasn't clear. They don't get more allocated funding. In fact, they often get less for exactly the reasons you outline.

What I meant was what you say in your last sentence – that GS parents (particularly in south Bucks) are typically pretty wealthy and happy to support fund-raising efforts. Apologies.

@thing47 thanks. Yes that does make more sense. I know from talking to my sister who has a child in a grammar that the ‘voluntary parent contribution’ was several hundred pounds while for the comp local to me it’s only £50

When we were looking at the Bucks girls grammars, Beaconsfield High had annual parental contributions in the region of £500 per annum through regular monthly donations through the PTA. Many give more with a recommended minimum of £30 per month.

https://www.beaconsfieldhigh.bucks.sch.uk/docs/REGULAR_GIVING/FINAL_ALL_YRS_RG_Form_2021.pdf

It’s not compulsory but most do. It generates a huge amount of income for them each year.

With the average house price in the town at £1.3m and the savings from going state instead of private, this is a mere drop in the pond for many.

Most grammars get little PP funding. Some have raised over £100,000 from parents for decades. RGS used to boast about it. Their funding otherwise isn’t more generous but seemless teaching can happen due to more specialist teachers. It’s always been the same.

Also the GCSE results need some scrutiny. What GCSEs? Do they ignore MFL? Make choices from easier subjects? Take fewer GCSEs? All sorts of ways to look at this.

In fairness, DD did maths, triple science, english x 2, history, Spanish, further maths, stats, ICT and PE at her secondary modern, so a pretty decent spread of standard academic GCSEs. Very similar profile to DS's grammar school.

No ides if all secondary moderns offer such a wide range, however…

No arts subject? Few take 12 I think. Very rare. Also very maths and science biased. Most secondaries don’t offer all of these I think. My DD1 wanted MFLs and most secondaries struggle with this too. I know AHS used to limit GCSEs to 9.

Over recent years some rather unpleasant mental health stories have emerged from Becky High. Please make sure you do your homework, ask around and are comfortable with sending your DD there. It’s a bit of a dirty secret with parents knowing it’s not an ideal school for all girls but enjoying its kudos.

It’s the same at AHS

Yeah, I don't think they take that many now, they had a weird approach then of taking 6 GCSEs in Y10 and 6 more in Y11, but hadn't thought through the consequences of it.

They only offered French or Spanish as MFL, she could have done both but didn't want to, she's actually found stats very useful in epidemiology modules during her degrees. Could have done art or drama instead of PE but she's very sporty (represented school in 7 or 8 different sports) so reckoned she'd get a better grade in that.

I can see why she chose PE. My DDs definitely not sporty. I think taking subjects in y10 isn’t great if they could have got a better grade by waiting a year and doing less. I think DD1 did IT early and it was a waste of time. I doubt if many secondaries do this now.

2 years ago AGS definitely did statistics in year 10.
AHS offers two MFL at GCSE level, alongside 3 sciences, I seem to remember the payoff was no art subject! That was three years ago, my dd did 11 GCSEs. Chose not to stay for sixth form.
Grammars are not the be all and end all, they do not suit all children no matter how bright they are.