How did your DCs school do in the GCSE tables?

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

DD1's got a crummy 38% on the 5A-Cs including English and Maths.
This pisses me off for several reasons.
Results have been declining for several years and this is the first time the figure has dipped under 40%.
The school is utterly complacent about its results and doesn't see them as a problem - they explain them by pointing to the supposedly difficult intake.
This is entirely disingenous - there is only one local primary among their feeder schools that could be said to have a lower than average SATs score and they account for only 10% of the intake. Many of the primary schools in the area, including the one my children attend, have very, very good results, well over the national average.
I do not understand why the school feels it is acceptable to fail its pupils in this way.

Oh yes I think they do in Maths, that is for sure.

Maybe if oyu were teahcing 6th form( which is far from the bulk of teaching) you might nee dto have a good a level in that subject.

Orm - I don't think it's actually about the state/indie debate, more a class thing.

There are plenty of parents with independently educated kids who agree with you about children being their own person - myself included.
It was posters advocating state school yesterday who thought it was important to consider UCAS forms when chosing a school for a 10/11 year old.

I think there are just some parents ( a lot on MN but probably far less in rl) who are absurdly over involved with their children' slives and schooling. They remain convinced that indie school can 'turn' children into braying emotional retards or whatever the state alternative would be.

Yes, that is ridiculous Duchesse, esp the Maths teacher example but GCSE results do matter to students nowadays IF you want to go to a decent university and do a reasonably 'hard' degree.

If pupils make the wrong choices at GCSE they could be ruling themselves out of taking a degree in a subject they want to do (see the other discussion about someone's DC wanting to be a barrister and the replies from MNers who are lawyers etc).

Yes litchick. I doubt that it is just to do with private v state schooling. It just that on MN the debate appears to polariase along those lines.

I know parents of state school parents who are hot as mustard on goals and attainments, and parents like mine who sent their DC to private school because 'that's what you did' and sort of hoped I'd pick up 'success' by osmosis

I dont think GCSE results are relvant to law degrees
( and i speak as someone who got into law college)

'I think there are just some parents ( a lot on MN but probably far less in rl) who are absurdly over involved with their children' slives and schooling.'

Totally agree.

violet hill - in response to your query about my relative being turned down to work in a comprehensive due to being privately educated.

You are right that one doesn't always find out the real reason one is turned down for a job. There may have been a better candidate as my relative was newly qualified (but did have very good degree and PGCE).

However the reason my relative was given was that he would be unsuitable for the post having been to private school. Maybe they thought he would not cope in the state system without having been educated there. However I expect it was that the person deciding on the job was in some way anti private schools. There are lots of people about like John Prescott with a massive chip on their shoulder. People who haven't been to private schools have misconceptions about the schools and those attending them. This irritates me as when I was at private school a good number of girls were there on assisted places from less well off backgrounds.

My relative is an excellent teacher and is now at a very good private school. If there are many people in comprehensives who do not want to employ privately educated teachers, or teachers who have taught in private schools first, the state sector is missing out on some talented teachers.

I also get irritated by those on Mumsnet who appear to look down on the state sector and seem to consider themselves and their offspring too good for it. There are loads of professional well spoken people in my area who send their children to state schools, even those who could afford private. So if you have a good state school nearby it is not always necessary to use the private sector to get a good education for your child.

There is too much narrow mindedness on both sides!

Well I agree with the last part of your post entirely. I can afford private education, in fact one of my children is currently in private, but I think considering the overall package and what is best for the child is more important than whether you pay or not.

I am really shocked that someone would be told they are unsuitable because they'd been to private school. They might well be unsuitable for all sorts of reasons, but how you would be entirely sure that was because of their school I'm not sure.

Having said that, I recently turned down an Oxford graduate (private school!) who was very well qualified in favour of someone less well qualified academically, because the successful candidate showed more aptitude for the job.

duchesse

Any employer turning a top university educated person down on the basis of an A level result must be bloody narrow minded

either that or its an excuse for not liking the candidate!

But I think the A levels have been a gold standard and the BBC or CCC person who then manages to scrape a 2/1 which are fairly ten a penny these days is probably not as good academically as the AAA A level student with teh 2/1 although you also have to allow for BBC being fairly good if you go back enough years which is an unfairness against older people competing with those who did A levels more recently.

older people trying to get into university these days have been known to have their a levels upgraded

Ria- I think she was probably perfect, but they had someone already lined up for the job and needed to find some way of not taking my friend.

That is conjecture btw- I don't know that they had someone lined up; it just seems a bit fishy otherwise. It was a high-achieving independent girls' school incidentally.

There is no reason, though, why a child going to a local comp will end up with all the "wrong" GCSEs. If they are the sort of children whose mothers hangs out on Mumsnet Education threads, they'll know, or it parents will know, which subjects are the ones to avoid.

I'll be able to make it quite clear to my (future) teenagers which subjects are going to be important if they are the type of children who are likely to study things like medicine, law, or aim for Oxbridge or Russell group universities. As long as the school offers these subjects, there's no reason whatsoever why an academically-minded child should mistakenly end up with a batch of social care or leisure studies GCSEs.

I think a lot of it comes down to parental confidence. In my wider family and friends the route from bog standard local school to Oxbridge/Medicine/Russell group is well-trodden, and correspondingly we all have faith that our children, if they do turn out to be academically good, will be able to achieve whatever they like via the local schools.

I'm not too bothered about peer group pressure and motivation, I rather hope my children will find their own motivation for what they want to do, not just follow the herd.

In my local comp they didn't even offer triple science at GCSE, which frankly was the last nail in the coffin as far as my scientific son was concerned (now contemplating Chemical Engineering as a career). This may have changed now (I believe that the gov has made is compulsory to offer triple science at GCSE in all schools) but it would have been too late for him.

Totally agree Fennel.

I aree with Fennel too, but not all parents are as well informed as those on MN, unfortunately.

Duchesse,

You don't need triple science for science A-levels. For Chemical Engineering, he will need to do Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths (if poss).

Doing separate sciences at GCSE adds a little breadth to the topics, not depth. He will not be unequipped for A-level. Any breadth that he missed at GCSE will be easily caught up at A-level. The A-level courses are designed to follow on from Science/Additional Science.

In the olden days, most future scientists only ever did two sciences, with the rest of the curriculum given over to arts and humanities. If he does Chem Eng, he will probably not have any optional subjects at uni, so it is good not to get rid of non-compulsory subjects too early. If your DS did triple science, he would not be doing something else, which may be a loss.

I did Chem Eng, btw.

But he didn't know even at the beginning of this year which of the sciences he wanted to take to A level. (he was just predicted at least A for all three at the end of this year) Added to the fact the our local school didn't do actually physics at A level at the time, and we were dubious that it would the right place for him. I may need to pick your brains further about chem eng. He is thinking of doing the Cambridge course, which is a broad engineering course for the first two years, after which you can specialise or switch to a variety of different engineering courses. The broad course over the first two years sounds very attractive.

Oh, and he's doing:
English, English Lit, Maths, triple science, French, History, Geography and DT. He is considering taking up Spanish next year- he can do alongside his A levels at his current school.

scienceteacher- another question- would he need to do F Maths to A2 level? He's hoping to be able to do it as an AS only, but we think he needs to go all the way with it.

At the moment for AS he is contemplating:
Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths, History (or Critical Thinking- not decided yet)

The Cambridge tripos system seems really good - broad first year etc.

I did my degree at Edinburgh, and although I signed up for Chem Eng, I did the same course as all the other Engineering students in the first year. As a Chem Eng student, I had to do Chemistry as my third subject, whereas other Engineering students had a fairly free choice. In my second year, there was a strong overlap with the Mech Eng students, then we were on our own for the last two years. This was over 20 years ago, I hasten to add.

It is good to be in a broad first year - firstly, you can swap to another discipline, but more importantly, in the world of work, you have to work in multidisciplinary teams, so it is useful to have an understanding of what everyone else is doing.

As for Further Maths, the Cambridge site says that it is very desireable, but recognise that not all schools offer it. If you can't do a full A-level, then as many modules as possible will make life easier. The maths burden for Chemical Engineers is immense, so I would definitely advocate doing Further if at all possible.

My DS is in lower 6th and doing both Maths and Further - he does not view them as double the work. I think he will be doing one full A-level this year, and the other next. He is also doing Physics, Chemistry and Philosophy - although still has no idea what he wants to do.

Do some school make you swap the "third" science for another subject?

DS's (grammar) have it with all the other compulsory subjects and let them choose 4 options (as long as one is a Modern Language).

DD's comp gave her the option of double or triple, but she still had 4 options. TBH they started with an additional after school class once a week, but soon dropped that in favour of just working harder in scheduled time.

The long-term tradition is to do two science subjects, Milliways, in order to keep the curriculum broad and balanced. When the national curriculum came in, they maintained this balance, but combine the three science disciplines into a double-award. This tradition has continued in the recent change in the science specification - Science awarded in Year 10 and Additional Science awarded in Year 11.

There have always been options to study three separate sciences, before the national curriculum, during the dual award phase, and now. Now, students do the same Science (B1, C1 and P1) and Additional Science (B2, C2, P2) examinations as everyone else, and then study an extra module for each (B3, C3, P3).

How schools manage the extra modules is really up to them. Theoretically, it means not doing a humanity, language or tech subject that they otherwise would. It's hard to properly deliver the courses on fewer than the recommended lessons - if you did, you would have to cut out a lot of the practical work and it would be death-by-worksheets, tbh. I have no doubt that clever kids could do triple science in the space allocated for double, but I don't think this is going to turn them into future scientists.

Thanks.
I know when DD's school cut the extra lesson they told us all at parents evenings - the kids were too tired after school to concentrate properly and make the lesson worthwhile. DD found it tough, as she then took 11 GCSE's (+ the compulsory ICT award thingy) and it took a LOT of slogging to keep the grades up - especially as sciences were the first thing she dropped as soon as she got to sixth form! (Not a natural scientist - but she DID consider Biology as found that more interesting as the courses proceeded).