Hero999 said:
Murphy, who's a geek - and I would have expected to do well in Physics?, got a U (ungraded) in the Physics section - he only scored 13 out of 80. The lowest in the year (don't know who it was) only scored 3 !!!!, there were also a number of students who got scores between those limits as well.
It's really very difficult to say - more effort is spent these days on passing the exam than actually learning the subject. This is why modular GCSE's have started taking over -you are examined in every module you do, and the module results count towards your final grade from the exam. In the past you could pass GCSE without even covering all the syllabus - with many schools only teaching the sections that were going to be in the exam.
The school was on special measures before Melissa went there, from what I can gather the LEA wanted to close the school?, but the government stepped in and placed a 'trouble shooting' headmaster in charge. He's pretty well turned the school round, it's got a nice atmosphere, and disipline is well maintained - for example there's a zero tolerence drugs policy, if anyone is found with drugs the police are called and they are arrested. The student involved is immediately expelled, and is never even allowed on the school grounds again - if they ever attempt to enter the school grounds the police are called to arrest them again.
Because of their past history the school mostly attracts the lower students, with most of the higher ones going to what used to be Grammer Schools, and the school has an excellent reputation for their 'special needs' programme.
However, it does produce fairly confident kids, and kids who leave school and either go straight to a job, or into further education - more so than the 'higher ability' schools.
We can only presume the LEA are still wanting to close the school?, they have just been subjected to an OFSTED inspection, which absolutely slated the school - yet makes very little sense. For example they have won a national award for the healthy food in the school cafeteria, yet the OFSTED inspectors gave them an 'unsatisfactory', apparently because there's a chipshop just down the road from the school?.
At the governers meeting afterwards, the LEA representative said it was the best OFSTED report he's ever seen to be given an unsatisfactory conclusion, and better than the other local schools which had satisfactory on theirs.
Melissa's clever, and would do well at ANY school, but the school have registered her with NAGTY (National Association of Gifted and Talented Youth) in English, Maths and Science, and she has been sent to four different Universities for taster sessions. None of the 'better' schools around do that for their higher students, so we're quite happy with the school.
Their have been problems, but they have all got sorted (eventually!), including getting the music teacher sacked!
BTW, this is a picture of the school I went to!
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