Topic ID 1297
Did anybody see The Times on Friday? It had the school performance figures in for all schools in the Country. It was great to see Hertfordshire's 6th worst school is Sele, with a whopping great 33% of kids managing 5 or moce GCSE A-C grades. What the hell do they teach the kids up there if only 33% of them can pass 5 GCSE's? I thought last year's results were bad at 42% but they're sutrely having a laugh. they may as well close it and let the kids stay at home all day, as by the looks of those results, most of them must do that already. Is it really such a terrbile school, or is it suffering from having Sele Farm as it's main pupil base? Or both?
Reply ID 15539
How did the others compare ?
Reply ID 15541
I think Simon Balle or whatever it's caleld did pretty well, with 78%ish of pupils gainging 5 or more GCSE A-C passes, which is really what all schools should be turning out. Sele also had one of the highest truancy rates too.
Reply ID 15545
I thought Sele School had improved. I was there until 1987 and left with 9 "O" Levels and 2 "A" Levels. Always has been a little bit rough but those figures are not good.
Reply ID 15549
I would rather move to a smaller house than have to send my Son to Sele. Do they still take all the cast off expelees from they other local schools?
Reply ID 15550
I must say that most of my year was pretty rough and they did tend to take kids on who were expelled from other schools but as I said, I thought it had improved since my day.
Reply ID 15554
quote:Back in the Dark Ages, I told my Mum that if I went to Sele I would play Truant. Ended up in that one for girls on the Hill in the 'other' town!
Originally posted by Victor Meldrew
I would rather move to a smaller house than have to send my Son to Sele. Do they still take all the cast off expelees from they other local schools?
Reply ID 15572
quote:Care to explain!!!
Originally posted by thefair1973 or is it suffering from having Sele Farm as it's main pupil base? Or both?
Reply ID 15573
Well said GillP.
Reply ID 15577
quote:Bengeo is in the catchment area for Sele School too, so it's not just Sele Farm. The poor results must be down to either a rubbish school or rubbish pupils, I would be interested to know which...
Originally posted by GillPquote:Care to explain!!!
Originally posted by thefair1973 or is it suffering from having Sele Farm as it's main pupil base? Or both?
Reply ID 15584
quote:I think it is very unfair to judge a school just on its GCSE results. The real success of a school is measured in how much the kids learn while they are there. It is very easy to take a very clever child from a stable background and teach them to pass 5 GCSEs (and more) It is much harder to take children with a variety of problems including broken families, learning disabilities etc. etc. and get them to pass GCSEs Simon Balle, Richard Hale both have good reputations and can (to a degree) choose who to accept. Sele School is not over-subscribed and therefore has to accept everybody who wants to go there. And dismissing the pupils as "Rubbish" is totally un-called for!
Originally posted by Joby Bengeo is in the catchment area for Sele School too, so it's not just Sele Farm. The poor results must be down to either a rubbish school or rubbish pupils, I would be interested to know which...
Reply ID 15585
[/quote]The poor results must be down to either a rubbish school or rubbish pupils, I would be interested to know which... [/quote] or down to the stuck up population of Hertford refusing to send their kids to a school on the edge of a council estate....god forbid! leaving the school open only to those who get refused else where and therefore not the fault of either the pupils or the teachers. My Dad, Uncle, Auntie and more recently my Brother all went to Sele School and it did them no harm!
Reply ID 15586
School League Tables for Hertford are [url="http://www.hertford.net/education/league.asp"]here[/url]
Reply ID 15587
Mr Admin - perhaps you could include Chauncy as well for Guidance
Reply ID 15588
quote:I think Mr Meldrew illustrated this point in his earlier post.
Originally posted by Nicky
or down to the ... population of Hertford refusing to send their kids to a school on the edge of a council estate....god forbid!
Reply ID 15592
quote:Hi Wrapper, I was there around then too - reveal yourself!
Originally posted by Wrapper
I must say that most of my year was pretty rough and they did tend to take kids on who were expelled from other schools but as I said, I thought it had improved since my day.
Reply ID 15603
quote:Happy to oblige! http://www.hertford.net/education/league.asp
Originally posted by jez_p
Mr Admin - perhaps you could include Chauncy as well for Guidance
Reply ID 15604
In an town of above average attainment in schools, there must be something seriously wrong for a single school to turn in such dramatically poor results. Whatever the reason - be it the intake, quality of education, or the system itself; something clearly needs to be done to address the problems that Sele School has. The first step must be to recognise that there's a problem and to identify the reasons behind it. An Ofsted inspection in March 2005 made the following observations: - the school is much smaller than others with a sixth form - attainment on entry is below average overall - socio-economic census data for local wards are not favourable The overall evaluation states "This effective school provides a good quality education. Teaching and learning are good. Standards are average and achievement is good. Leadership and management are good" The report also notes the following: - Attendance is below average - the standards attained by boys at the end of year 11 are well below those of girls - in some lessons immature behaviour of a minority makes too great demands on teachers' time The full Ofsted report is available [url="http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/index.cfm?fuseaction=summary&id=117535"]here[/url]
Reply ID 15608
As a Father my duty is to ensure my children get the best start in life I can give them. Because of where we live I know there is only one state school my child would go to when she is 11...Sele. I do not consider sending her there to be fulfilling my duty so I have taken her out of an excellent Primary school (Hollybush) bitten the bullet and gone into the private sector. We have done this early to give her the best chance of getting used to the different style of school/education. This is not something easily affordable and we have had to cut back in other areas to make it viable. Yes you can say the school will not get better if people act like us. It is not my job to make the school better. There are enough Muppets in Westminster and County Hall paid 6 figure salaries to do that. If I had my way, people not using the state system would receive tax relief for a service they do not use. It may then focus a few minds on bringing state schools up to a decent standard across the board.
Reply ID 15609
The County Council does have a duty to improve schools, however there is a misconception that there are a load of "muppets" earning over £100,000. Most senior managers earn up to half that amount, significantly less than they would if they were responsible for similar size budgets in the private sector.
Reply ID 15610
However the private sector does not get the nice pension that civil servants do. The main target for my Muppets jibe is Westminster where there are plenty of people earning way in excess of that.
Reply ID 15611
quote:Perhaps, but in the real world - job, college or university applications - they are the only realistic measure of current ability (and don't forget that a GCSE result consists of exam and coursework proportions, and although they are probably still weighted in favour of the exams, they should give a reasonably accurate reflection.) A measure of how much kids learn while at school is all well and good, but virtually impossible to quantify. I'm not even sure it's that useful - employers will still want the best, regardless of whether they have learned more or less than others.
Originally posted by jez_p
I think it is very unfair to judge a school just on its GCSE results. The real success of a school is measured in how much the kids learn while they are there.
quote:Agreed, it was flippant and uncalled for, and I apologise for the remark.
And dismissing the pupils as "Rubbish" is totally un-called for!
Reply ID 15615
quote:Happily. Although Sele Farm isn't the only estate within the catchment area of this school, it is the one where the majority of pupils come from. It is a fact that schools containing local authority estates in their catchment areas generally perform below the levels of schools that don't. This was also shown by my old school in the North East being way down the league table for that area and havign multiple local authority housing areas in it's catchment area. Children on a local authority estate are more likely to come from a social background that doesnt value education as highly as private, more affluent demographic housing areas. I know it's massively stereotyping, but in my opinion, it's true. I know this will obviously offend people living in local authority estates, but I myself do (Campfield Rd Estate) and I still believe it to be true. There are obviously exceptions to this, as I myself value education immensely and this will be drummed in to my kids, and I very much hope that they will see it through to university. Something is causing this school to hugely under-achieve and the fact that it's actually getting worse would be sending huge alarm bells to me if I had children attending it. I would be demanding answers.
Originally posted by GillPquote:Care to explain!!!
Originally posted by thefair1973 or is it suffering from having Sele Farm as it's main pupil base? Or both?
Reply ID 15642
I cannot possibly do so but if you look at my profile and know anything about me, you will know my initials are SP.
Reply ID 15653
I feel sorry for Sele School. I am sure that its reputation is absolutely undeserved. In fact I know people who have gone there and who have been delighted with it, got excellent results and thoroughly enjoyed their time there. It is not that having a council estate in the catchment area does make the school worse, it is that it is the perception of many Hertfordians, so the more pushy middle class parents do everything to get their children into the schools that are seen to be the best. Who can blame them? but it is very rough on the schools in question. Sele School is a vital asset, and everything should be done to build it up. (I do believe however, it may be closing down!!) With the government's proposed white paper, the problem will get considerably worse, and schools like Sele will suffer even more.[:(!]
Reply ID 15665
quote:Closing down? What schools would the children go to? Would it be replaced?
Originally posted by wizkid
(I do believe however, it may be closing down!!)
Reply ID 15668
wouldn't they just send pupils to the other schools in Hertford? If they did, imagine the amount of extr school runs that would be made
Reply ID 15674
The rumours of it closing down are totally without substance. No idea how they started but definitely not true.
Reply ID 15675
quote:That is good news, I will check my source again, because as Ewoowar says, it is definitely needed.
The rumours of it closing down are totally without substance. No idea how they started but definitely not true.
Reply ID 15689
Probably the biggest ever inquiry into the factors which determine pupil educational outcomes was a huge exercise in the US in the mid 1990's called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS). Pupil socio-economic background, household incomes, test scores, teacher pupil-ratio's and every other concievable variable were used to create arguable the biggest ever data set relating to which children do well at school and which ones don't, and why. When the data was interrogated using tried and tested methodologies, the conclusions (which now inform US educational policy) were startling. The headlines were : DNA is probably the single biggest determinent of successful educational outcomes. Households with large numbers of books in them tended to produce children who did well at school (no **** Sherlock!). Choice of school has relatively little bearing on how well your offspring do. If you moved house to be in a better catchment area, then more fool you. Peer pressure can do more to shape your child's decisions - educational or otherwise - than parental influence In a nutshell : It aint what you do, it's who you are
Reply ID 15693
In a nutshell : It aint what you do, it's who you are This cannot serious[:0] Are you honestly saying that children who go to priveliged private schools have no advantage over children who go to poor schools with poor discipline?? I appreciate that the former are more likely to come from homes with books and a learning environment and the latter less likely, but you are virtually saying it makes no difference the type of education you receive its all down to the genes...... By the way, this in no way expresses the way I think about Sele School, as I have said, I am sure it is very good.
Reply ID 15694
'Good schools'. Parents who are able (due to many factors)try to get their kids, ( and who can blame them)into these schools..problem. Who send their kids to a perceived 'poorer' school? thus the less successful school has children who has a significant minority of parents that do not give a toss, it only takes 2 or 3 idiots in a class to disrupt a lesson. Now due to integration Schools cannot refuse to admit a child. The more successful school puts pressure on trouble makers to 'have a fresh start'where do they go..? The School with spare places..and a spiral begins (of course this spiral can be ended with a lot of hard work, support etc.) but the goalposts are different for the two schools. I see the kids coming out of Sele School..try seeing the kids coming out of a similar 'scoring ' school in Haringey. If one of my kids excelled in sport or performing arts I'd send them there.
Reply ID 15695
Doesnt Sele School also have more than average pupils who need some kind of leaning support?? I have heard many good thingd about the speical needs dept at Sele school, so theres scores might not be as good as other schools, but it never shows on legue tables how many pupils have special needs. At least they pay attention to such chidren, whereas in other schools they are left behind.
Reply ID 15697
I was born and brought up on 2 council estates in London. I went to a pretty rough school in London (Holloway) and then to a very good school in Cheshunt (Goffs). It didn't change me. I got 7 out of 8 O levels that I took (my only failure was French - and I still cannot grasp languages). I don't believe that the state of the school influenced how well I did. I am very bright and was willing to learn. I still am, have a good job and well appreicated. Not bad for a council estate boy whose dad was a bus driver and mum worked in a bingo hall. My brother and sister are the same. I believe it is definitely how you are brought up and how you apply yourself.
Reply ID 15700
The point is that Children's learning and Exam Success is a complex issue based on a number of factors (including but not exclusively the quality of the school) The pupil base at Sele School is much wider than some of the "more poular" schools, which take pupils from the slightly more expensive areas of Hertford - coincidently this is where the parents have a higher education base and are more likely to offer the kind of support conducive to school success. I am not saying that this is a genetic factor, just an attitude towards schooling. If a child has parents that believe school is a waste of time, then it will be significantly harder for that child to achieve well at school. Try turning the statistics on theit head and you will realise that in the highest scoring schools there are still 20% of pupils not achieving 5 or more GCSEs
Reply ID 15706
you are always going to get pupils who are less able in the classroom, and that is where the 20% comes from in average schools. It's just that at Sele school, it's more like 70%
Reply ID 15711
I personally think its a mix of your parents attitude towards education and the friends you make at school. If you spend 5 days a week with people who are reasonably well behaved and as into learning and doing their homework as is humanly possible for a teenager! then you are bound to do fairly well. Your peers have a massive influence on you when you are growing up. I loved school and I believe that was down to the people I mixed with.
Reply ID 16122
on a more serious note, it is true. for my sins i went to sele, and i also went to chauncy, lucky me! but the school cannot be blamed for its results. Its not just the cast away kids these schools get but also the cast away teachers. Whilst I was at Chauncy I had no fewer than 8 maths teachers in 2 years. Hardly a recipe for success. I couldn't possibly imagine this happening at Richard Hale or Presdales. To be honest I would struggle to name more than 3 teachers I have come across in these schools as "good" in terms of getting kids to learn and do what they're told. I think it would be a little mis-guided to suggest that having sele farm in your catchment area isn't an issue, it is. Same as having the King George in the catchment area for Chauncy is for them. A large majority of the kids i went to school with who performed badly and caused trouble were from the council estates. This is not snobbery its fact. I also remember whilst I was at sele a large number of students with learning difficulties, It was suggested to me by someone once that this was because the other schools in hertford didn't have the facilities or suitable staff to help them, which I thought to be most convenient(I may be wrong on this, in fact I hope I am). I don't know what the answer is, perhaps some kind of incentive for good teachers to go to bad schools? I'm sure everyone has there own ideas..
Reply ID 17025
I see in today's Murky there is a suggestion that both Simon Balle and Sele could close and be replaced by a new school built on the Sele site. The exodus of posh types from SG13 into Sele Farm would be a sight to behold as the catchment area moves North!
Reply ID 17027
Where wouild everyone go whilst the new school is constructed though? I'd love it if they did merge, as the SG14 stigma would disappear
Reply ID 17035
Can imagine the threads about congestion and rat runs if a merged school opened on the Sele Site.
Reply ID 17042
yeah, the B1000, A414, Thieves Lane and the roads around Hertford North will be even more chaotic than they are already.