why are bucks uppers so unreliable?

[pippi]

The obvious elephant in the room here for me is that the fundamental problem is not the uppers ( who clearly suffer because the thing that the 11 plus selects for above all else in my view is cultural capital; the attribute in the child-family that encourages and nurtures academic growth ) but the whole idea of separating children at 11 into 2 groups and then not (or at least in a very restricted way ) allowing for any readjustment.

It's worth watching this webcast:
http://www.buckscc.public-i.tv/core/por ... ive/123682

[bikeman]

My DD is at the end of year 8 at SHFGS. Over the past 2 years I have observed that the school places great emphasis on self starters, allowing pupils to decide how much or how little they want to do. Confident children no doubt do well there but less confident children are allowed to drift. Homework is neither challenging nor time consuming. Pupils are given individualised subject targets (that are meaningless to us parents) with no explanation of attainment against the national curriculum or within their peer group.

My DD is not especially bright (she wasn't tutored for the test) but she is capable and does well. I do however think though that the school allows her to coast along at her own pace and whilst I have no doubt that the school will get her through her 5 x A-C GCSE's, I know she is not being driven to her potential.

Recently I had to teach her long division of decimal numbers (at the end of year 8 in a Grammar school she could only do long division on integers!). She informed me that there was an expectation that this was covered at primary school (it was not) and they now used calculators anyway. Jeeze and she's a grammar student.

A friend's dd takes her 11+ in September - She shows promise as a mathematician but lacks verbal skills so she doesn't fit in with the counties view of 'grammar material' and is expected to fail her 11+. She will be condemned to a substandard education at one of the upper schools and will unlikely develop her mathematical ability. Is it fair that excelling in one subject is so easily dismissed by the system?

Why is it acceptable to prevent primary schools from preparing all their pupils equally for the test but it's ok for those with the financial (or intellectual) means to privately tutor? Could it be perhaps that the status quo is maintained by those with the means to support their offspring at the expense of those that do not regardless of how capable the child is.

Condemning a child to a substandard education at 10 on the strength of a single test is just not acceptable. The selection system needs to end and more emphasis put on improving our upper schools.

btw why is it called the 11+ when half of the kids are still 10?

[Yamin151]

Did you do practise papers with your dd? If so, you coached. Just because you didn't pay for the coaching, doesn't mean your daughter wasn't coached. I apologise if you never picked up or showed her a practise paper, but if so, you do her a disservice as she is clearly extremely bright!
Believe it or not, certainly in our case, most tutors are there to a. Back up the curriculum
with practise in curricular subjects, maths etc and b. To help the pupil see how to do here more unusual questions, verbal reasoning and the like, that haven't cropped up before. Both a and b is not beyond a parent doing for themselves with free resource front he web etc, it's merely a necessity in some cases or a choice in others to DIY coach, and entirely depends on child, parent, time and financial resource. I don't see a paid for coached child as at any advantage over one who has been coached at home. Following that through, this other child you speak about, if I were here parent, I would be doing all I could to increase her ability in verbal skills with reading, and all manner of free resource to help her bring this subject up to the level of her maths. This is totally doable.

[southbucks3]

The obvious elephant in the room here for me is that the fundamental problem is not the uppers ( who clearly suffer because the thing that the 11 plus selects for above all else in my view is cultural capital; the attribute in the child-family that encourages and nurtures academic growth ) but the whole idea of separating children at 11 into 2 groups and then not (or at least in a very restricted way ) allowing for any readjustment.

It's worth watching this webcast:
http://www.buckscc.public-i.tv/core/por ... ive/123682

I completely forgot to thank you for this link pippi.

It was very interesting, also depressing. The gap in attainment between top and bottom achievement is higher in bucks county council area than anywhere else in the country!

The councillors seemed to close their ears when the educational specialist said this was partly due to children resigning themselves to being non academic when tested and divided at 10 or worse as failures. Basically conforming to the label their secondary education uniform brands them with.
Difficulty in recruiting staff in a high cost living area is also a big issue, if the grammars struggle Lord help the uppers.
One even suggested rural poverty with low aspirations of rural parents, which is nonsense, just a daft spin, we are hardly in the middle of Wales.
The children leave bucks primary schools with a 3x attainment gap between top and bottom and leave upper/grammar school with a 5x gap. This was emphasised to be only partly due to very high grammar school achievement, also due to very low upper school results. Both factors worked towards the horrible statistical end results shown.

I personally think the uppers are struggling to be too many things with limited budget. Teaching highly academic children who just missed he 11+ pass mark for whatever reason, teaching academically motivated children that need more help to fulfil their potential and teaching children who are motivated by a completely different criteria with far less emphasis on academics and more on practical learning.
Yes comprehensive schools have these goals too, but their finance both from government and parent contribution is lumped all together not fragmented into different buildings.

[Becks]

An update... Cressex Community School in High Wycombe has just received a 'good' in its Ofsted, with an outstanding sixth form. This reflects the school's significantly improved results last year, and is well-deserved, particularly in terms of their excellent leadership team and strong maths department.

It is much harder for upper schools to get a fair Ofsted judgment as their attainment is compared with the national average - with no allowance being made for the fact that the 'top' 25-30% of pupils locally are creamed off by local grammar schools. Yet these schools often have strong teaching and value added.

[Tolstoy]

The area we used to live in has 5 comprehensives.

The socio/ economic mix was pretty standard across the whole area.

Out of 5 Comprehensives in the area , 2 are currently in SM, one is satisfactory one RI and one is Outstanding. Only a very small percentage of the children will opt to go to the Grammar schools because of the travel involved and the difficulty of getting a place there. Interestingly it is the Outstanding school that is closest to the Grammar schools and Independants so they are more likey to lose high achievers to those schools but I do not know if this happens.

The problem of poorly performing schools is down to poor management from the top IMHO and not down to the catchment or selection.

p.s Welsh rural parents are just as aspirational or not as any other parents in the U.K and not necessarily steeped in poverty. The poverty is more often found in Urban areas.

[southbucks3]

The problem is the instability, the uppers go from being half decent yo struggling in the time a child is schooled there.

Anyway, ofsted is a tiny component which really seems a bit at loggerheads with public opinion. Cressex for example is a school that is actively avoided my many parents from many different cultures, even after its 40million makeover and even with its giant socially manipulated catchment. I can only assume the inspectors are looking for different things than the majority of parents. I know it's results have improved enormously, but they are still very low and there is still problems with racial tension. They also include gcse's such as "Good citizenship" as one of their most widely achieved....not exactly a cv winner, that's what dofe is for! Hats of to the leadership team, it has improved hugely, but still has a long way to go.

[kittymum]

Cressex is a school I would love to love - the facilities are amazing, the Leadership team is obviously committed and yes the results have improved - but still only 46% A* - C incl English and Maths. But compare the curriculum (no triple science at Cressex) and results with GMS and it really is a no brainier. With regards to the 6th form I appreciate that they do what they do very well but the only offering is a btec in Childcare. The Ofsted talks, quite rightly in glowing terms about how the school is helping the high proportion of students who are in the early stages of learning English and they have done good work in closing the attainment gap of pupil premium pupils (again they have a much higher % of these then any of the other local schools) but the report makes little or no reference to the progress and opportunities offered to high attainers.

The battle Cressex has is not with Ofsted but with winning over the hearts and minds of the local community and I truly hope they are successful with that.

[Guest55]

kittymum - given their intake the results at Cressex are amazing.

You just cannot compare the results of the two schools as the intake of GMS is far more able to start with.

[kittymum]

kittymum - given their intake the results at Cressex are amazing.

You just cannot compare the results of the two schools as the intake of GMS is far more able to start with.

You're right of course they are amazing considering the starting point students are coming from.