St Olave's students petition to Nicky Morgan

[salsa]

And just what is wrong with 3 B's?

If children who've been at the school since yr7 aren't achieving the requisite grades - even if the requirements are over inflated - then surely the school has to answer a few questions? I firmly believe that any school has a responsibility towards its pupils.

Absolutely! This is what one of those "failures" had to say:

"Under the new rules I would not have made it into sixth form. I have since graduated with a Masters degree in physics and am now studying for a PhD."

[Catseye]

Just to add a bit of balance to this public lynching of an eminent State School.

1) This is a selective school with two points of entry at year 7 and year 12 why is OK to have a ferocious selection at the vulnerable age of 10/11 but not at a more mature age of 15/16?

2) they are opening up access to a wider range of the community at 6th form not restricting it like QE does.

3) are 64 points from 9 (a tad over an average A grade at gcse/igcse) considered overly arduous for such a selective school.

4) parents have bought into selective education no doubt are avid supporters of the adage that "cream will rise to the top" way of thinking are hardy in a position now to complain. They bought into selective education and I would suggest that such education is rarely fair it certainly is not a 10 and I see no good reason why morals should suddenly come into it at 16.

The Devil's Advocate Q.C

[amfnc]

All of this is so sad, for the students but also for the parents and the school. These years are supposed to be the some of the best in a childs life ....

I really hope something can done about it - a school should be so much more than its results

[salsa]

All of this is so sad, for the students but also for the parents and the school. These years are supposed to be the some of the best in a childs life ....

I really hope something can done about it - a school should be so much more than its results

I agree. The boys have 938 signatures. When they reach 1000 their petition will have to be looked at.

Keep signing!

[amfnc]

I've just been reading some of the comments and I am shocked. It's so heartbreaking that these boys have so much negative feeling about their school, describing it as an environment where the students just switch off and more often than not don't want to turn up to school. On top of that they seem to have such a lack of confidence in the teaching staff. From reading these comments I now understand why a friend of mine moved two of her DS's to DGS.

There are two sides as G55 rightly pointed out, but for these poor boys to have this much pressure, it's really worrying.

[Guest55]

To be clear - I'm not in favour of such high Sixth Form entry requirements nor needing grade Bs in AS to enter Year 13.

[amfnc]

To be clear - I'm not in favour of such high Sixth Form entry requirements nor needing grade Bs in AS to enter Year 13.

I know, tbh I can't see who would be in favour of this.

[PurpleDuck]

I've signed - or at least I hope I have. The petition website has crashed and when I click on the link now, I can see only a blank screen. I hope this is just my local computer issue and not some strange 'coincidence'....

Anyway, there were 975 signatures before it went blank, so not many more to go now. Good luck to St. Olave's boys!

ETA: Just checked the link again. It says 'Error 502: Bad gateway. Website is offline. No cached version of this page is available.'

ETA2: It's back on line, 16 more signatures to get to a 1000.

[salsa]

It's back on line. I wonder what happened!

[salsa]

Done! 1000. I do hope the boys are heard. Thanks to all that signed.

Salsa