What percentage of A or A* at GCSE would be considered good in school statistics?

[shelsco]

My DS1 is in Y6 and we are looking at the local comp which his school feeds into. We don't really want to separate him from his friends but are a bit concerned, as on seeing the statistics for last year,the percentage of higher grades seemed low. For example, 132 pupils were entered for maths GCSE but only 1.5% got A* and only 3.9% got A. Maths was the worst but the figures were low for other subjects too.I was confused as 1.5% equates to 1.9 pupils! Surely pupils have to be measured in whole numbers! Do these figures seem low to anyone else? I should really have spoken to the Head at the time but couldn't seem to catch him. OFSTED was positive but they only seemed to look at grades A to C as a whole. Am I expecting too much?

No, but results were the only thing OP mentioned. Ofsted look at 3 yearly figures and at all kinds of measures of attainment (vulnerable groups, G&T, CVA, etc etc) so if the report is good, it would be worth widening one's perspective just a tiny bit.

Also measuring every school by national standards and deciding on that basis what a school 'should have got' without taking into account the individual circumstances of the school is just breathtakingly unfair. Surely one has to look at the intake and see how the school does with the children who attend? CVA would mean more than baseline to me.

Well these results would be abismal by my standards. I think my kids could get A but by sending them to the school mentioned they would either be freaks and get bullied or the school would fail them and they wouldn't be taught well enough to gain an A. I don't look at exam results when looking at a school but to be honest a comprehensive education doesn't offer much more than an academic education so what else is there to look at? The comps we looked at had poor facilities, languages were on the decline and there were no resources for kids to sit GCSE Music. Not sure there is much else we should be looking at.

voulezvou some comprehensives don't offer much more than an academic education. While I don't want to take away from the fact that you have clearly viewed a poor state secondary there are very good state secondaries out there.

I teach in a school with a thriving languages department at GCSE and A level and a very well resourced music department.

The trouble is, many children are capable of getting As but when you factor in teenagerdom etc, they don't always achieve their potential, however hard the teachers are teaching. It's easy to think when your child is 11 that they will definitely get all As at GCSE, many children will have that potential but not that many will achieve it, for many reasons.

In my DCs' grammar school many do get A*/As across the board at GCSE (guessing about 85% get all As at least) but some don't, and that isn't to do with their intelligence or their teaching, they, as individuals, just haven't put the work in.

I think in independent schools they probably spoon feed crack the whip a bit more to get the results, but you cannot force most children to put in the work required if they can't be bothered themselves.

But it's about balance no?
If the vast majority of pupils either can't be bothered or are incpable of getting good results, do you want your own children going there.
I went to a school like that and trust me, it's very hard to swim against the tide. No pleasure in it whatsoever.

From my limited experience of indepenndent and grammar schools I don't think they crack the whip but instill a sense of self worth and self belief in the pupils so that they want to work hard for their own personal gain. Of course some kids don't get A* at grammar school because of a variety of reasons but that is a small percentage and I would be really worried by the stats at the school mentioned.

As MORgueOSKY says, what a shame you had such a poor experience with 'comps', Voulezvou. My daughter's 'comp' offers free music lessons for all, Duke of Edinburgh AS, Young sports leaders, all manner of outward bound-type experiences (in fact the last one this summer was free!) a media course during which she made a short film, a thriving languages Department, ski-ing trips, golf, horseriding and multi-gym as part of PE, a student membership of Amnesty International,and a fantastic VLE.

And yet you would no doubt consider the results 'abysmal' (spelling courtesy of my 'comp' education ) and yet if you look at the CVA they're doing really well with the kids they get, plus high student turnover.