Newstead head to report into Head of Independent Schools

[bluesea]

As an ex-NW parent here is my take:
NW admin disorganised at most, so may account for non-inclusion in media league tables if they are asked to confirm figures by given date.
Always suspected UL were planning something new. Perhaps increasing size and rebuilding as green fields, selling off tennis centre next door. Taking school independent is now a possibility. They will lose a lot of talented girls if they do this as parents move close to the school to get free state places. Why keep governors from the old days on LGB? Will they be replaced gradually?
A level results down last few years as best yr 11s move to St Olave's who increased their sixth form capacity each of last few years. NW sixth form never full as a result and have again this year reduced the entry requirements. Former governor said NW viewed as the place for GCSE but not necessarily for A levels.
Job ad: the head is not retiring, the interim head is retiring. Early. No permanent head since last one left 2015 after just over a year.

There are still some good teachers at that school but it is not what it was, sadly.

[bluesea]

Just noticed this sentence in the job ad document. Is it me or am I being too suspicious?:

LOCATION
Newstead Wood School or such other nearby place operated by the school or to which
the school may relocate.

[PettswoodFiona]

Curiouser and curiouser!

[PettswoodFiona]

Maybe they might plan an Annexe? All this just seems to have too many opportunities to read too much into it that isn't there or miss what might really be happening. The school need to sort out their communication and tell the parents!

[bluesea]

Parents will be the last to hear - as always!

[thickasabrick]

I really thought I couldn't see the (Newstead) woods for the trees but it really is not in any of the listings.

The countrywide list features the top 150 which also does not mention NW, neither do Southeast nor London.

The league table takes both A-level and GCSE results into account - Olave's moved from 4th into 3rd place because their GCSE results are 89.7% against Wilson's 86.1% (4th place). However, Wilson's A-level results are higher than Olaves - 96.6% against 95.6%. (It mentions A-level A*-B get double weighted).

The next school in 5th place is Tiffin Girls with 92.9% and 92.4% respectively.

Interesting.

The last one on the list in 150th place, Crossley Heath, has scores of 62.3 and 56.2.

So it would be really interesting to know both NW scores as I can't believe they would be lower than this.

[bluesea]

Perhaps there is some other criteria which they didn't meet for entry in the list? I can't quite believe they are not featured.

[PettswoodFiona]

GCSE for 2017 was
A* and A = 738 out of 893 = 81.97%
7/8/9 = 443 out of 492 = 90.04%

I don't know what weighting they give the Maths / English but either way it is still higher than the lowest scorers.

I don't want to speculate but I suspect someone in admin just didn't send off the data to The Times, or if The Times missed them out last year maybe they added them manually last year but forgot to include them somehow. It does seem very odd they are not even in the list of 150. Not that league tables are everything, but just something doesn't add up.

[Guest55]

Schools don't have to give data to newspapers.

Here they are on the DfE performance tables: https://www.compare-school-performance. ... ool/136551" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[PettswoodFiona]

Very true Guest55 but they have engaged with the tables in the past and even fought to get data corrected so it seems odd to suddenly not be in the tables or to at least not tell the parents that they have elected not to be in the tables. Somewhere the communication has gone awry. Certainly upto GCSE they seem to be doing very well and it isn't catastrophic at A Level, just not upto their usual high standards and it does seem a big drop when comparing years.