Finding a good secondary school

[gridnik]

Hi everyone,

I was reading the thread about catchment areas. We live in Lewisham and my eldest son is in year 5 of a primary school here, we thought it would be a good idea to start looking at secondary schools (there is a lot of competition). And found the same problem, that catchment areas here (by-enlarge) use a banding system which is defined by exam results in year 6, we had no idea! In terms of a good school, the most important thing to us is that he attends a school in a safe area, we don't mind making a longer journey if it means that the school is in a safe environment, but of course he will want to go where his friends are going. What does everyone else think, what do the other mums think of the banding system for catchment areas? And what do you look for in a secondary school? For us its not all about how well the school performs at exams.

I do not think that banding makes a huge difference. Comprehensive schools have to take an equal number of children from each band. I do agree that finding a good secondary school in London is extremely hard, especially in boroughs which are surrounded by grammars.

Yes thats probably true, I was just a little susrprised, as I had made the that the catchment area or proximity for all the kids would be the same and not determined by the band they are put in, even if the schools do select equal numbers of pupils from each band. It just seems like quite a lot of pressure for a ten year old!

I think the whole banding thing is very confusing and that schools using banding don't give out much information.

Banding can reflect the abilties of whole range of applicants for a school
or the range of ability for a local area
or the national ability range.
I puzzle over how the national or local ability range is determined ,what assessments are used ?
The gov guidance www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/downloads/InformationNoteonBanding-Feb09.pdf
talks about this being optional QCA tests taken in year 5 .
But then what tests are the secondary schools using for incoming year7s to determine their ability and decide which band they should be in ?