Secondary school treks and overwhelm

[Trekkingschools]

Another evening, another school. Dreaming of an app where I can put my postcode in and it tells me which schools we fall into the catchment area for. Some have really big catchments, yet we don’t fall into some of the ones closest to us. Our primary catchments are tiny, bar one huge school (we didn’t get into our primary a five minute walk away due to large sibling year).

How normal is it to do knife checks now? One school said most schools do it.

One school said they’ve banned smartphones and bullying has dropped by 90%. Is bullying just generally really prevalent now as that seems a big drop considering ban only came into effect at this school this school year. It also seems like wishful thinking-I went to school before smartphones thankfully - I also know bullying wasn’t dealt with well at my school. Can someone explain why if a brick phone needs to be in a bag all day it leads to less bullying than if a smartphone has to be in a bag all day (is it just because kids ignore the rule)?

Another school head basically said kids lie and school view will normally be right although some parents will get annoyed by this.

All say they’re nurturing, challenge each kid appropriately, bring out individual goals, yet all have isolation rooms.

All say they don’t have a problem with retention or turnover….all had at least several teachers on the walk around who were new (is that normal).

All schools are so crowded on the open days - queueing to squash into each classroom, queuing to squash back into the corridor. All schools are oversubscribed apart from one.

Anyone know why there’s a push away from streaming? As long as there’s movement if someone is struggling/not being challenged enough, how does having several mixed ability classes for the same subject make more sense? If streaming doesn’t work, why do most schools still do it for maths?

I’m getting a bit overwhelmed!

Big secondaries have a lot of staff.

my most recent school had 2000 kids and 250 staff. Teachers pretty much all change jobs for September and so yes I’d expect there to be a few new teachers around.

they all have isolation rooms. Never worked in a school that didn’t.

most of the bullying these days is online. It’s worse because it extends into the home rather than “just” being at school. Banning phones in school means fewer kids need a smartphone so more have bricks for later.

you wouldn’t believe how immature and stupid year 7 can be on a whole year WhatsApp group,

All depends on your area. Our council have a nap to show catchment areas.

Cities often do knife checks- not always called this.

Isolations rooms are often used for SEN child that can't cope for sone time out- not necessarily bad behaviour.

There is a move away from smartphones- i think all schools probably have kids getting phones out in toliets to message peiple- social media abd photos has alot to answer for in bully! A 90 % drop this year sounds like a con, but if only 9 cases were reported this time last year abd 1 reported this year than it fits- doesn't mean bullying dropped just not reported often schools change the reporting system so no direct comparison.

Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, so new teachers are drafted in- can be young, new to profession or learning on the job!

Streaming- honestly I'm not sure!

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-and-streaming#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20pupils%20experiencing%20setting,impact%20for%20higher%20attaining%20pupils.

Sorry for the messy link, but basically setting is not very effective, and actually has worse outcomes for lower attaining children so is bad from an equity perspective. Kids from marginalised groups are more likely to be assigned lower sets, even if that's not their ability level because of unconscious prejudice. Parents like it, unless they've got an ambitious child with previous low attainment stuck in a lower set.

You'll sometimes hear people say 'but behaviour' but that also presupposes that children in lower sets are either a) all disruptive themselves or b) somehow we should be ok with those children being disturbed, but not higher achievers. Behaviour should be disentangled as an issue.

Thanks. I hadn’t considered about fewer kids having smart phones at home as a result. Mine have neither yet.
Thanks also for the streaming link - I thought this went off scores/aptitude, but I guess bias could set in if deciding who should move set and could see how it could affect confidence. So, slight increase for those who would have been in lower attainment groups and slight decrease for those who would have been in higher attainment groups? From my own very limited personal experience at senior school, there was a big difference in behaviour between mixed ability subjects and those that were streamed, so that may be colouring my perspective.

Have you seen a difference between schools in the use of isolation rooms for behaviour/punishment, rather than as a quieter space which might help a child that needs it? There’s so much press ranging from awful behaviour to ridiculously over draconian rules that it’s hard to assess which schools actually strike a pragmatic balance to achieve a positive learning environment.

I think you're overthinking some of this. Schools are a really different endeavour than in the 90s, so don't project your own experience.

You'll have to ask the individual schools what their use of internal exclusion looks like. I'm a governor and our school has both a quiet learning and wellbeing hub with a specialist teacher and an internal exclusion space. The former is not punitive, the latter is somewhat (although it moves the child away from the peers they are disturbing also). Work is still done in internal exclusion to support return to the classroom which can include emotional needs.

Schools should share their discipline policies and you can learn a lot from asking around.

All the schools near us are smartphone free as well. Kids might have their own smartphone they use after school, but it's a week's comfiscation if seen or heard.

My eldest went to a primary that we loved for lots of reasons and so glad they did.
Choosing secondary (now in Yr7) I didn’t love any but was happy enough with the one she chose. They are strict, ban phones, give out detentions frequently, uniform strict but they are focused on learning, have good opportunities for extra curricular, good range of trips at reasonable prices. After a shaky start my child is getting used to it but nothing beats the loveliness of primary!

Isolation rooms... they need somewhere safe for a pupil is acting dangerously for being disruptive for whatever reason. They can't just chuck them out the class into the corridors these days.

Phones. One of the biggest problems is children filming on phones, perhaps even live streaming. Then that is out there forever. No smartphone, that can happen.

Streaming... streaming or setting. Streaming is putting them into the same class for everything, setting is more targeted, so you can be top for English a d third for Maths etc. It seems a long way off now, but there are still different tiers for Maths GCSE and not for English. So the top Mathematics people need to be learning more content from Yr7 really, while those who are struggling need to spend more time on basics. Whereas in English they all need to cover the same things

Catchment... I'm presuming you are meaning a distance from the school rather than a set Catchment area which can be shown easily on a map. Unfortunately all you can do there's looking at your distance to each school and the data for last admitted child which if you are lucky is on one table from the council. However due to lower birth rates these distances are increasing.

I'm guessing you are in a City.. its a lit easier in rural areas!

Could you do some daytime tours? Those tend to be better organised, less busy, and you get to see lessons.

there is an app called Locrating which shows you the radius of the schools' catchments on a map. It also tells you the past 3 years' data in terms of furthest distance offered, and tells you how many applications were received and places offered including (I think) how many of these were first choice, second choice etc.

It's a fantastic app and I used it lots when I was choosing schools.