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Sutton Coldfield primary schools - Help pls

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:32 pm
by decision
Can anyone provide me with some advice re primary schools in sutton coldfield. We have a 10mth old daughter and want to move house (currently in boldmere) we have done our research and maney hill seems to be the best school in the area, however there do not seem to be many houses for sale in the maney catchment area.

Can anyone shed any light over how good other schools are for example coppice primary, four oaks primary and little sutton ? we would like a school which has a good track record for getting students into grammer school.

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:49 am
by 999 mum
Please don't assume it is the school that gets them into a grammar school. It certainly isn't in SW London - I don't know your area.

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:58 am
by hermanmunster
indeed no guarantees for GS from ANY school.
If you think about it most kids are either:

-going to get in easily to GS,
-haven't got a chance or
...somewhere in the middle :wink:

Probably tutoring and primary school affect the quite large last group.

However I think you have to look at why you consider a primary school GOOD or THE BEST in an area.. presumably this is from SATS as there are few hard measures to find. How does a school get good SATS and a good reputation,
.... well it is probably in a fairly affluent area so high achieving parents who may well have passed on their higher than average intelligence genes to their offspring send the kids to the school and get good results and hence the school gets a good reputation and people look at it and want to move into the area to send the children there but it is hard to get to live there are because the houses (in estate agent speak) are "in a sought after area, with excellent schools" so the only people who can move in are affluent and successful and their kids do well so the school continues to do well...... phew it goes on.

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:53 am
by mike1880
This should probably be moved to the Birmingham forum.

I think parental influence will be more significant for the B'ham/Sutton 11+ than anything any state primary school does, especially with the slight format change this year which increased the emphasis on literacy and vocab skills. There will be some primaries that make it more difficult than it needs to be by not covering enough ground early enough, but if you want a primary that will really work hard to get your child through 11+ you should be thinking about a prep school like Bluecoat in Harborne. And if you're considering living in Sutton, it would be advisable to think carefully about your secondary school catchment in case you don't get a GS place (unless you expect to go down the indie route in that case).

Mike

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:40 am
by hermanmunster
Good idea Mike .. I'll move this to Birmingham. Agreed the options if you DON'T get the GS have to be carefully looked at...

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:29 pm
by fm
I think the three significant factors in a child attaining grammar school are their early experiences at home (do parents listen to them read, talk to them, do their tables), the child's innate intelligence and the the relevance of the child's tuition (whether by parent or tutor) towards securing a place. I believe a child's primary school is a fairly small part of the equation.

Even Bluecoats' success may be largely founded on the tuition the children receive rather than anything the school does.

Re: SUTTON COLDFIELD PRIMARY SCHOOLS - Help pls

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:19 am
by um
I do agree with fm - but would also note that the seriousness of parents in ensuring their child is well prepared plays a massive role here.

If I lived in the Arthur Terry or Tudor Grange catchments, I have to be honest, I would naturally be more relaxed about my ds2 going to a Grammar, knowing that I had a pretty good fallback.
However, as I don't think he would survive (literally) at our local comp, the stakes for us are higher and because of this, no doubt, I take things a lot more seriously and by default he does more work.

This doesn't have anything to do with his Primary, although I have noticed that good Primaries in areas such as Harborne and Kings Heath, which don't have great secondary comprehensives, will send quite a lot of children to Grammar school, yet Primaries that are probably equally as good in Solihull for example, don't send as many.
The parents in Harborne (especially of boys) have a lot more at stake than those in Solihull who have pretty good secondaries to fall back on. Therefore they will probably put more effort into 11 plus.

There will also be parents who disagree ideologically with Grammars (this is easier to do when you are near a good comp!) and so will not enter their child, even though they may 'pass'. I know of one parent who chose this route.