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Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Fri 15 Jun, 2018 11:56 am
by newgirl
Just came back as outstanding !

That's a fantastic achievement for a school that has seen so many recent changes in becoming an all through school and developing a primary school on site too.

Congratulations to them

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Tue 19 Jun, 2018 3:39 pm
by newcomer
Great news indeed! You can read the ofsted report on their website.

Hopefully this will challenge some perceptions...

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Tue 19 Jun, 2018 6:04 pm
by Steve
newcomer wrote:Hopefully this will challenge some perceptions...
I'm not sure what you mean by this comment.

What perceptions?

I'm not aware of Simon Balle having anything other than a good reputation.

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2018 8:01 am
by Kateg28
I agree. Whilst my son attended RHS, I have only ever heard good things about Simon Balle. I have never heard bad things about it whilst I have heard some people not liking RHS.

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2018 8:52 am
by newcomer
Steve wrote:
newcomer wrote:Hopefully this will challenge some perceptions...
I'm not sure what you mean by this comment.

What perceptions?

I'm not aware of Simon Balle having anything other than a good reputation.
It does have a good reputation as a good all-round school. However, whilst you would choose a school that suits your child's individual needs, I think there was also a perception that you would send an academic boy to Richard Hale and an academic girl to Presdales whereas, in reality, boys do better academically at Simon Balle and girls do better academically at Simon Balle.

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2018 10:22 am
by newgirl
To some extent I would agree with Newcomer that the view used to be that if your child was academic you would send them to one of the other two schools. The results for Presdales are consistently good so I can see where that comes from to some extent. I never understood that assertion in regards to Richard Hale though as the results between them and SBS were neck and neck for many years.

Last year the secondary school results show that SBS and Presdales both achieved 60% in the Grade 5 and above Maths and English GCSE marker and Richard Hale achieved 49%.
In addition the progress marker puts SBS as well above average, Presdales as average and RHS as below average. In terms of where to send an academic child, its no contest !

In terms of influencing perception, Richard Hale does look the part though with lots of emphasis on its posh uniform, old buildings, house system and 400 years anniversary celebrations. I think its time to concentrate on the actual schooling though as the "perception" we were talking about is changing fast..

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2018 12:43 pm
by newcomer
newgirl wrote:To some extent I would agree ...
That's a very sensible post and much better than I would manage! :)

Re: Simon Balle All through school Ofsted report

Posted: Mon 25 Jun, 2018 2:36 pm
by Drama Queen
I too would like to congratulate SBS with its Ofsted Report. However, I always think parents know their children and whether they will thrive in a larger school, better being educated in a single sex school environment etc, etc, etc. Ofsted is a good marker but other qualities of the schooling in relation to how they care for pupils etc, etc are very much down to parental choice and I think we are, on the whole, very, very lucky in Hertford and Ware with excellent schools that I think tick a lot of boxes all the way round for children whose needs, lets be honest, need to be met for them to thrive in any school - this is not to take away from SBS excellent result though