Discover Hertford Online Forum

Hi,

I've never really known much about Simon Balle, but the only thing I ever did see about it was in estate agents and properties near there - You know the thing, an extremely desirable school.

Same for sele - I've heard good and bad, and generally the results do show that sele does lag a bit behind the likes of presdales and richard hale. Not surprising there - given they're single sex schools.

However; The most recent results that came out this week show that sele and simon balle are not far apart in terms of % of children who get 5 a-c's (or whatever the stat is). Now IIRC presdales/richard hale are 80%+ and sele/simon balle are languishing around 60%.

How can this be? Is there a problem brewing at simon balle?

I dont want this to get into a massive argument from defensive parents - more simply what is going on, and is there a reason for it. Obviously there's more to it than just results, but something seems not to make sense.

I also heard a pretty horrible story about richard hale recently (maybe true everywhere) about how the kids spend all their playground time on their iPhones (And homework is expected to be done on an iPad - nasty)

Thanks!
Dan

The system has changed this year ...

School league tables branded a 'nonsense' amid changes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31023685

Dozens of private schools branded failures in controversial new league tables

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... ables.html

GCSE league tables slammed as a 'nonsense' by private schools

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/educa ... 10263.html

yes, so the changed system makes simon balle look even WORSE... Not because everyone changed, because they didnt adapt to it at all. If every school had gone down 10% then fine - but that didn't happen.

Sele, Richard Hale and Presdales ALL improved even under the new "harder" system. Simon Balle completely lost it.

So; Could simply be they took their eye off the ball and didnt understand the upcoming changes in a way the others did? they do have to learn to play the game after all. Or it's more severre.

But even looking over historic results I don't quite see why simon balle has this amazing reputation in the town. What am I missing?

From what I've read, it's not quite as simple as the system being harder.

From The Indy: "Under the Government's overhaul, some combinations of English GCSEs and some international GCSEs - often known as IGCSEs - do not count in the rankings."

Resits are also excluded, so if you pass an exam on the second attempt, it doesn't count.

yes; they're discouraging retakes. no bad thing.

Do simon balle do those international ones? highly doubt it. why would they - it's the preserve of the private schools.

Doesnt hide the fact all other schools did better..

there is one quirk. Simon Balle seems to have 2 entries because of turning Academy in Nov 2013. Is it possible there's been some sort of down side from that? Results have been split or something? Seems odd, it may have changed funding structure but it's the same old school with the same staff, so why not just have 1 entry.

Richard Hale also turned into an Academy in 2013 though.

So Haileybury move to the bottom of the table with 0%

http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/sch ... sec&no=919

so clearly they are doing those "international" exams then. I doubt anyone considering haileybury is going to consider league tables

No one has any idea about the issues at Simon Balle though. I'm surprised.

No real idea what's going on at Simon Balle but maybe it's just "one of those things", if you looked at the figures for Presdales, last year they were down to 79% (5+ A*-C GCSEs), this was a decline from 90% in 2011, a seemingly precipitous decline, however this year the figure is back up to 88%. So I guess there are variations depending on intake etc. Presdales and Richard Hale also have a far greater number of "High Attainers" than Simon Balle, and a far lower number of "Low Attainers".