11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi

I just happened to read the latest results for slough council in the BBC Web site.

Langley continued to lead the pack both in GCSE and in A followed by St Bernaud , Herschel and Slough Grammar in that order though the margin of difference is not much.

I am new to Slough area and do not know much about the history of these schools

Is there any other significance , details that we could derive from he latest results. Is there any major improvements to the previous years performance.

Thanks for the details.

Regards
ARK

According to the league tables (DfES website) for Key Stage 4 results (GCSE and equivalent):

% achieving 5 A-C (inc English & Maths)

Herschel was highest with 98, followed by Langley with 97, St bernards with 96 and Slough with 92.

If you were comparing average point score by pupil then:
Slough Grammar led with 526.1, followed by Langley with 505, Herschel with 489.7 and St Bernards with 476.9

Does this mean that Herschel had the highest percentage of pupils achieving the standard set by the government but Slough Grammar had the highest achieving pupils (as a cohort).

If anyone can explain this to me I would be grateful.

Thanks
Chad

Ark

Realised that I hadn't really answered your question and then my broadband went off line.

If you go to the DfES league table for 2006 you will be able to access the past 4 years figures. Herschel (to my mind) stands out if you are looking for improvement. I chose Slough Grammar for my son completely on matching the personality of the child to the school.

AS to the question I posed - Spoke to an education inspector who said....

The high points score for slough grammar would be in relation to either

on average each pupil taking a greater number of GCSE's

and/or

each pupil (on average) achieving a higher grade at GSCE.

So unless we are told the average number of GCSE's taken by each pupil within the school we cannot be sure of the figures.

Again with the league tables the phrase

'Lies, damn lies and statistics' comes to mind.

Hi ARK,

I don't read the results the same way as you did, and wouldn't say that Langley leeds the pack.
As regard to GCSEs, Herschel has the best A-Cs percentage and CVA, Slough Grammar the most points butLangley has the lowest CVA.
St Bernards beats Langley in A levels points per student, and Herschel in points per examination.

As far as I am concerned I agree with Chad that the school that stands out for improvement is Herschel.
It is first in GCSEs A-Cs percentages, CVA, and A level points per examination. Its results were not that good only last year.

As for the issue of Slough grammar having the highest GCSE points per pupil but the the lowest A-Cs percentage, it seems that the explanation lays in the number of GCSEs per student in each school.
From what I can gather, all SG students take 11 GCSEs mimimum, whereas, Herschel students take 8 GCEs minimum, and Langley mentions that the average for the school is 9 or 10.

Hope this helps

Catherine

Hi Catherine, Chad,

Thanks for your detailed replies, With your inputs, I am able to follow the results more clearly

Warm Regards
ARK

I am aware that both Herschel and Slough Grammar have a large 6th form that allows them to receive students from the local secondary schools, and this has the effect of bringing the 6th form entry standards and A level results down.
As Langley and St B 6th form intake is almost completely from the grammars, I thought that a post-16 measure of improvement would be welcome in order to compare the schools more fairly, and I finally found something in the '2006 Post-16 CVA Pilot’ of the DFES performance tables.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/performancetables/

The CVA scores for the participating Berks grammars are the following:

Langley: 971.1
Kendrick: 987.7
Slough Grammar: 998.9

...Edited...

Interesting...

I also about this :

Catherine wrote: As for the issue of Slough grammar having the highest GCSE points per pupil but the the lowest A-Cs percentage, it seems that the explanation lays in the number of GCSEs per student in each school.
From what I can gather, all SG students take 11 GCSEs mimimum, whereas, Herschel students take 8 GCEs minimum, and Langley mentions that the average for the school is 9 or 10.

the DFES tables give the average number of GCSEs taken: roughly 11 at SG, 10 for the others.
The difference in points between the highest (SG) and the lowest (St B) is roughly the number of points given for 1 GCSE grade B.

Hi, does anyone known how we can find out how many children sat the Slough 11+ plus and how many actually passed (111 pass mark or above) this year. It would be helpfull to know as I am really worried that my child may not get into a Slough Grammar school as he only acheieved 113.

There are 4 grammars in slough all taking approx 120 children - 480 children approx max get a grammar school place in slough.

There are about 145/150 places in Langley and Slough Grammar, 120 in Herschel and St B. I don't know how many passed the 11+ though. Usually, most children with scores down to 111 get a place, but it depends which grammar you are aplying to. Traditionally, you need a score above 115 or more to get into Langley.