Hi

As always, I would appreciate helpful advice from the forum. DS sat Bucks and Berks exams and has achieved sufficient mark for selection to the schools within reasonable commute distance.

We are now struggling with finalising selection for CAF...so the questions I have is; given St Bernard's and Langley admission policy have strict criteria based on faith and location respectively shouldn't this in theory lead to these schools achieving lower academic and progress scores? I would have thought that just through the rank selection approach taken by Upton Court and Herschel would over time lead to better progress...but this doesn't seem to be the case and both Langley and St Bernard's appear have better results.

Can anyone help me with this apparent anomaly?

I'm not sure how the criteria work in the Slough schools & whether it would be enough to make some of them "superselective", but remember that the results you are looking at in league tables are from students admitted 5+ years ago. What were the criteria then? Also, it is better to look at the progress made by the students rather than the actual grades. One school may have children with high attainment on entry & good GCSE results, but the progress may not be as good as at other schools.

This is precisely why I am confused - both LGS and St Bernard's admission policies have been stable for a number of years...

St B's has changed this year. It now recognises the children of non christian faith that have attended local Catholic primary schools.

It's only a couple of years ago that Langley introduced the catchment areas instead of taking the highest scores and working downwards.

I know that we all look at exam results but so much of this is also down to the child. I know a child who entered grammar school 5 years ago with an 11+ score of 115. She has just achieved 10xGCSE's at grades 8 and 9 - cracking results. An example of where rank score was irrelevant.

Then, how much support do they get? For example, St Bernard's have had only one art teacher so if you have good rapport you build a relationship over the GCSE years (the opposite can also apply of course!) Historically, being a smaller school and with good pastoral care the staff get to know pupils better. With this year's increase in PAN to 150 will this be diluted? - time will tell. But more pupils leads to more teachers so a variety of teaching methods which again has it's benefits.

With my three kids (including my current year6) we have been lucky enough to have the pick of the schools based on high 11+scores, location and faith. I didn't consider Langley as when I first started looking 5 years ago it worked on Rank score, I'd heard it was a hot house for results, many kids being tutored throughout their school life (I don't know if this is true) and it isn't what I wanted for my kids.

When I recently asked my eldest for her views she said "mum, I'll do well wherever I go" and for her that is true. We wanted the balance of good education, great pastoral and the ability to make friends (so not isolated by distance from friends).

So, I'm saying, consider your child, what did you/they like when you looked around? How engaged are the schools with the kids an the parents? What's important to you? Results? Travel time? Pastoral? Social life? It's all one big melting pot!!!

It's been explained a number of times that 11+ scores haver no bearing on GCSE/A Level results.
Where did you see that Langley and St Bernards perform better than Upton and Herschel? They are all pretty much the same,(all excellent) one year Langley get 1-2% higher GCSE results the next year one of the other Slough schools are marginally better.
Last year Upton outperformed all mixed Grammar schools across the country, (for progress 8 ) this year they have dropped down again.
What results are you checking?

Absolutely agree

my source is gov.uk website - and i'm relying on attainment score plus the a-level results (i'm ignoring GCSEs as they are all similar).

I totally agree with MightyMum...when we did the open days I liked Herschel (pastoral care) whereas my son preferred LGS (music). Based on the open tours I couldn't understand why LGS is oversubscribed compared to others...the cynic in me suggests that it might be the "exclusivity" and subsequent pressured environment that leads to their higher rankings.

Check out the following tables, the first one is 2017 Data, the second is provisional 2018 data

https://www.compare-school-performance. ... ersepolicy

https://www.compare-school-performance. ... ersepolicy

You will see that Langley is not the top performing Slough school for 2017 GCSE (Grade 5 & above) they were exactly the same as Upton but Upton had a far higher Progress 8
2018, Langley had slightly better GSCE results but again a slightly lower Progress 8 score!
Each year the 4 schools change places with each other but remain very close.

I really believe that there is nothing to choose between the Slough schools academically, they are all very close and all excellent schools.
Upton is the perfect fit for my two DC, whereas I feel Langley wouldn't have been

IMHO A Level results are not important at this stage but GCSEs are, DC can change schools for 6th form.