Please Help Me Choose

[mussyhillmum]

DH and I have been going around in circles trying to choose the best school for our DC. Please help us choose between school A & school B.

We live in the catchment area for school A. School A has a very mixed academic intake. Apart from maths, it has mixed ability teaching throughout. The staff seem very friendly and enthusiastic.Results are ok - not great, but not dire for London. There is a fantastic range of extra-curricular activities and plenty of traditional academic subjects on offer. I have heard mixed things about discipline. Some parents say it is very good, whilst others have complained of bright boys being bullied.

School B's intake is very able and it has a narrower range of academic ability.There is setting in all subjects. Again, it has a very good range of extra-curricular activities and follows a traditional academic curriculum. Its results are much better than School A's, but I realise that may reflect the more able intake rather than the quality of teaching. Its value added score is lower than school A's, for example. We are just out of the catchment area for school A, so would have to move (at considerable expense and hassle!)

My DS (like all mners DC) is very bright. However, he is not very self-motivated and often needs a competitive edge to get him going. Whilst school A has a lovely friendly feel, I worry that DS will simply coast in a mixed-ability setting. I simply do not understand how all abilities can be catered for in one class. That wasn't meant to be provocative; it is an admission of my ignorance of modern teaching methods!I would be very grateful if one of you could enlighten me!

So, what would you do: school A or school B?

It depends so much on your DS!

My preference as a teacher would be for school A- school life is about so much more than a set of letters on a piece of paper at the end of 5 years there - but that may not suit your DS.

Care to name the schools? Or the area of London? I teach in London and have spies in some other schools, you know...

School A sounds good (especially for London) and enthusiastic teaching is key.

If you think your DS would be happy there and that there are sufficient like minded children going to the school, so that is not overly influenced by any of the unambitious ones, then I would go for it.

From your post it sounds as if the schools are not that far apart in terms of suitability / desirablility and so I think you need to be pretty convinced that School B is much, much better for your DS in order to justify the moving expense and hassle.

Good luck!

2010herewego - Yes, I agree. It isn't worth moving if the schools are much of a muchness. I think the real nub of our dilemma is that whilst we like school A, we are uncertain whether our DS would thrive in a mixed ability class where the range of ability can be be very wide indeed.

Tethersend - I agree that school should be about more than grades. That is why I am keen to send DC to a local school rather than commute to a private school. School A is Alexandra Park School. School B is Fortismere - the holy grail of comprehensive education in North London! Any gossip gratefully received!!

I used to work at Fortismere!

There is a LOT going down there at the moment. The current head made the school a foudation school- however, he is off (err... can I say that?...ahem...allegedly).

Fortismere gets excellent grades, it is effectively a selective school IMO due to its tiny catchment area and house prices within it. It has a very strong art & science department. It does attract good teachers, but you are correct in thinking that the overall intake is significantly more able. Many of the teachers have been there for a significant amount of time, yet there are still may new teachers. It is a split site, which makes it difficult to navigate at first, but kids soon get the hang of it.

Gah. I don't know much about Alexandra Park; which school does your DS prefer?

Thanks Tethersend - Thanks to the soon to be ex-head's recent admission policies we are now just outside Fortismere's catchment area. At the moment, my son prefers Fortismere simply because it is more familiar - he plays cricket there on Sundays. Unfortunately, he witnessed a violent altercation between a large group of APS students at a bus stop last year and he now thinks it is a "scary" school. However, he has class-mates who will be going to both Fortismere and APS so I think socially he would be fine at either school. APS has a marginally smaller intake but larger class size and, of course, a smaller site.

mussyhillmum - wouldn't go too much on what your DS feels at the moment. My DS changed his mind frequently over his preferred school and most of it was based on the most minor peices of information or gossip. I heard from other mothers that this was also the case with their DC.
Once you have decided on which to put top of your list, you then have to "up" that school in a subtle way so that by the time he goes, he's pretty happy about it. Not too dificult with a 10yo imho.

Am conscious that my posts are not helping you with your question over mixed ability teaching.
I am so NOT a teacher but perhaps if you post specifically on the question of mixed ability teaching you might get some more secondary school teachers replying.

No offence intended to you or your son at all in what I am about to say.

The assumption that a child would do better in a set often assumes that the child would end up in the top set! What if the child ends up in a low set? One of the advantages of mixed ability for middling kids is that sometimes the brighter kids raise the general level of discourse and aspiration.

I know there are other downsides to mixed ability lessons, I'm just challenging the assumption that being in a set is always better for a 'coaster.' If there's only other coasters to compare themselves to they will happily carry on underachieving. And what's the motivation to try and get into a higher set? You'd go from being top of the low set (fun, easy) to bottom of the next set up (hard work, and you'd be bottom!)

School A sounds much more like real life....

WHere are he friends going?

School A