sandy09 wrote:
I'm looking at non selective secondary schools as back up options for DD in Y5 who is taking 11 plus in September. Neither DH nor myself went to schools in this country so we struggle to understand why the average percentage of children obtaining a standard pass, ie grade 4 at GCSE, and don't need to resit the test, is only 59% across England. Even very outstanding comprehensives that people rave about get about 60%, and most of the good ones get about 50%. Does that mean the education system "fails" about half of the children? Of course tests don't reflect the entire education but one would have thought they are there for a reason at the end of the compulsory education stage and a strong majority of children should pass.
The gap between grammars and non selectives (especially non faiths) is too significant ie 99% vs 50%. Maybe that is one argument against selection which I don't want to dwell on here. Just want to get my head around the fact that it's normal ie 40% chance to fail GCSE if my child goes to a non selective non faith school.
But it's an average, it doesn't mean that your child
as an individual has a 40% chance. There will be a whole range at the comprehensive, some of whom have problems that mean they may never be able to achieve a grade 4 in English. It doesn't mean that the school has failed them. Look at the attainment of the high achievers for the school. It often isn't so different to a grammar school (certainly if you look at non super selective schools).
You could say that the grammar schools have failed the 1% who went in at a very high level and didn't get a level 4 (or 5, as I think the tables show now).