23% of students get grade 5 or above in Maths & English

[outsidenowinside]

I am looking at secondary schools for DS and have become despondent about lack of quality.

Aside from 2 very over subscribed schools, schools in my area don't perform well. Even the better schools in my local area have a grade 5 or better gcse maths and English pass rate of around 65%

The remain schools have

23% of students getting grade 5 or better in Maths & English GCSE; another has 29%; another 35%; another 43% (even best schools in my area have a pass rate of 65%).

I have been to these schools' opening evening and the staff seemed attentive, the students seems bright, the school's' facilities were decent.

Am I expecting too much? I am worried DS will end up at the schools with the poorer pass rate and be dragged down by lower expectations.

How can schools within a 10 min walk of each other get such different results? None are selective.

The national average is 45%.

(I was very surprised by that!)

I personally prefer the Progress 8 scores... what are they kite?

Definitely look up the progress 8 - that will tell you how the kids do compared to expectations - so if it's 0 the kids get the results expected.
If it's negative, the kids do worse than expected. If it's positive, the kids are doing better than expected.
So, low GCSE results, combined with positive progress 8 suggests the school are doing amazing things with a week intake.

I wouldn’t send my kids there not in a million years. Over 3/4 of the year aren’t getting a good pass in English and maths. No way. I would like the confidence that there’s a good chance my kids would get a proper academic opportunity. If they’ve such low achievers are they even teaching beyond a level 5? Are the able children being stretched or is the school full of low expectations where it’s easy to drift ?

It is very likely reflective of the intake. P8 is a much better measure.

We have two local schools with similarly dire (23% and 29%) results. Most schools around here have a negative progress 8. Those two schools are rated good, but I've lived here long enough to know that there are social issues that complicate the matter.

I am not sending our children to those schools. If you have the means, I would advise you to consider all other options, including schools further out, moving, or private. We certainly will be, as well as brushing aside any judgement from people not in our situation.

It's bad. Imagine what kind of children get results like that.

What kind of children are you imagining?

What are their relative value added score?

You need to drill down into the stats on this, so look at what the cohort is that they usually get ie how many are classed as low/middle/high ability coming in, it is under Prior Attainment on the .gov website when comparing schools. Also Progress 8 for individual achievement.

I started looking at secondaries when Ds1 was heading into year 4 and we moved house for an outstanding secondary catchment. I would usually pipe up with not all learning is done at school and you can supplement at home but those stats are worrying and I would be talking to the schools about why those are their results.

Don't forget as well this isn't just about pass rate, it is all well and good saying 73% get grade 4 and above in maths and English or 67% get grade 5 and above in 5 GCSEs, it doesn't tell you how many are knocking it out of the park with 7s or more. They could all be 5s, it depends what your child is coming in on and whether they are academic.

Most anecdotal reputations of secondary schools are several years out of date. A school getting 40% grade 5 or higher in 23 or 24, might be anticiating that their current year 7s and 8s will do considerably better. Visit the schools, speak to people, ask neighbours with children at these schools what they are like, find out about streaming and the school improvement plan. Those results do not tell the whole story.

Let me go against the grain here. Most brilliant P8 would mean there is a real issue with intake. Of course you've seen the best of cohort during Open Day.
Cohort does matter a lot, peer pressure etc. If your kids are way above average of this cohort they are likely to suffer. I'd never send mine there

Seeing no value in education, neglected or with parents not invested in their future? And all the problems that go hand in hand with that. And you?

Shittiest schools nearby have 39% Gr5.

Agree.

Dd went to a comp with a figure of 32% of kids getting maths/english.

Science, maths and English were streamed and she was in top sets. Other subjects were taught by form intake and behaviour was poor, teaching was poor, the teachers teach the content to the majority I guess 🤷‍♀️

she did pass all her GCSEs at 6s and 7s and an 8 for English. English she’d got a 2 in her mock, and in a panic I employed a weekly private tutor who said Dd was bright but had no clue/hadn’t been taught how to answer questions. Once she knew her grade obviously massively improved. Sorry I’m waffling. I don’t think I know the answer myself. I guess the 6s and 7s show that a bright kid can do ok in a not very good school….its not the end of the world. But don’t be under an illusion that teaching will always be at their level. I do think she’d have got 8s and 9s in a better school.

Don't look at the overall percentage- it's a meaningless number as each school.has a different demographic shape to their intake.

Look at the progress-8 score and dig down into the stats that differentiate performance according to prior attainment - that looks at the GCSE grades of those who scored high, medium and low in y6 SATs and grades the school on how much progress these cohorts make. For some schools, getting 23% might be an excellent result if the expected figure given their intake might have been 20%. For another school getting 55% might be a bit crap if the expected figure given their intake might have been 60%.

Like this

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/138682/southfields-academy/secondary/results-by-pupil-characteristics

i get this. But if it means the school has an intake which is significantly of a lower average ability than your kids it’s still going to affect your kid.

I'd suggest looking at low/medium/high achievers.

For example, my DC's school gets the national average of 45% at Grade 5 in English and Maths.

And this is how it splits by prior achievement
(columns are average/low/medium/high)

45% / 6% / 54% / 91%

oh OP that is disappointing. The problem is, even if the schools with the low % success rates do use streaming, they won’t probably stream every subject from day 1. And there will be subjects where there is no/ineffective streaming.

If your son is average or struggling now, being in a school that doesn’t raise aspirations won’t help. Progress 8 does help you benchmark so you can work out if they’ve dragged people down, or helped them at least fulfil the potential they started out with.

In any event do visit the schools- sometimes there are good reasons for low results, and the school may explain or you may love it for other reasons.

My DD does not have passes for Maths or English GCSE.
We massively value education, she is not neglected, and we are invested in her future.
Unfortunately she has had a lot of challenges to overcome and bit by bit she is doing so.

There's a lot of average children who may struggle to get the 5 in both Maths & English but who may well pass both but one with a 4.

I'd look at the results for the 'previous high attainers'.

My child struggling with Maths or English does not bring down the result of your clever child.

Being neglected or having parents who don’t support your education does not automatically make you a shitty person.

Or even "spiky" profile children.

My DS has got some good GCSE results in STEM subjects.
But only a 4 in English.

And this is why we pay for Private, its 21% at our local Comp and over 50 at the Private school, which is non selective.
And thats before we look at anything else

Some kids work way way harder to get their 4s than those who get 6s, as they know that 4s are key to college courses and not resitting.

Plus the GCSEs are designed so that around 1/3rd fail Maths and 1/3rd fail English.