Silverdale, High Storrs, City Council Determined to Destroy Sheffield's Best State Schools
Local / Sheffield Apr 13, 2016 - 02:57 PM GMTBy: N_Walayat
An analysis of Sheffield's school league tables reveals a bleak picture of virtually all of Sheffield's best state schools on a downwards trend trajectory where the only school to buck the trend being Tapton, whilst Sheffield's best ranked state school (Silverdale) also shows a marginal decline. However, further down the league tables the downwards spiral in performance accelerates with King Ecgbert, Bradfield and High Storrs leading the way.
As expected the the top two rankings are taken by Independent schools, with the third by the Catholic faith school. Whilst Silverdale continues to rank as as Sheffield's best state school in terms of consistency of trend, closely followed by Tapton Academy in 4th place despite scoring higher than Silverdale for 2015 (82 against 75) due to higher volatility.
The next state school, King Ecgbert ranks 7th in this list, and along with Bradfield and High Storrs appear to be undergoing a significant decline by suffering very significant drops in performance, and apart from Meadowhead which registered a small improvement, the next 4 secondary schools also recorded a drop in performance levels, a sharp reversal of their performance improvements of 2014. Which leaves Firvale Academy just managing to register on this table in 15th place. Whilst the rest of Sheffield's secondary schools scored below 50% for achieving 5+ GCSE A-C grade passes, with Al-Mahad-Al-Islami 28% and Chaucer 26% towards the bottom.
The primary reason why many of Sheffield's best or better schools are suffering a sustained drop in performance is probably due to the initial stages of the consequences of taking an increasing intake of out of catchment area children in each year, which implies to expect a persistent trend of worsening results for several years to come as the parents of children of less affluent areas are seeking to and succeeding in sending their children to Sheffield's better ranked schools under the misguided impression that, that is all they need to do without understanding what fundamentally turns any school into a good school.
In reality average state schools can only become good state schools because the PARENTS of the children go out of their way to educate their children far beyond the capability of what the schools teach. Therefore it is the middle class 'pushy' parents who through extracurricular activities and actively pushing the state schools to outperform through a myriad of suggested activities and financial contributions that turns an ordinary state school into a good state school. Conversely populating a good state school with children of parents who do not do the same is just going to eventually result in that good state school becoming just another bottom ranking school.
This has already happened several times before in Sheffield, for instance the Labour City council had a Baldrick-esk cunning plan to open up one of Sheffield's best state schools at the time (early 1990's), Abbeydale Grange to out of catchment children, that given its high league table standing was soon swamped that subsequently resulted in the school going from being one of the best ranked schools in the city to literally the worst all within a few years, where it got to the point that NO parent wanted to send their child to Abbeydale Grange which ultimately resulted in the school being closed down some 4 years ago (now demolished). That's what happens to good state schools when they are opened up to outside of catchment or continue to allow rampant fraud in school place applications that blights Sheffield's affluent area schools due to lack of any real consequences.
Abbeydale Grange School Current State
Furthermore Abbeydale Grange illustrates one of the major issues at the heart of the matter which is that despite far less funding, affluent area schools are consistently able to rank towards the top of Sheffield's school league tables because of the fundamental fact that it is NOT the teachers that determine whether a state school performs well but rather it is the PARENTS! As the teachers are of virtually the same caliber right across all state schools.
The most recent developments for Sheffield's schools include plans for expanding Sheffield's best secondary school, Silverdale by 60 places or about 30% for several years until a new secondary school situated in Millhouses is built, again it should be noted that the area already did have a nearby secondary school that was demolished barely 2 years ago! (Abbeydale Grange) because parents did not want to send their children to the then bottom ranking school. As well as further proposals to expand a whole host of infants and junior schools such as Ecclesall Infant School and Dobcroft Juniors that parents and teachers have desperately fought to prevent the expansion of.
Against this ivory tower academics periodically produce studies that the mainstream press eagerly regurgitate that literally state that affluent parents tend to hog places at Sheffield's best schools, studies that are clearly devoid of the commonsense to realise that it is the affluent parents who are responsible for the existence of the good state schools in the first place, for if it were a question of funding then the school league tables would be in reverse order as on average affluent schools tend to receive about 30% less per pupil than the schools in less affluent areas. Instead what academics recommend is a recipe for disaster, one of of turning ALL of Sheffield schools into bottom ranking schools, ALL under performing, forcing affluent parents to ultimately take the leap into private schooling, leaving behind literally a city wide waste of schools that no parents want to send their children to!
The Star - Pupils from posh suburbs hog Sheffield’s best school, report reveals
Furthermore even Sheffield's best school, Silverdale is no longer immune to making it into the mainstream press for all the bad reasons as the Daily Mail recent report of a gang of Somalian girls attacking a white girl because she posted something on a social network about their area.
A school has come under fire after a girl gang allegedly attacked two teenagers within a fortnight, leaving one with broken ribs.
Mother Natasha Green claims her daughter Leah, 16, was a victim of racial bullying by a group of Somalian girls, who took issue with Leah spending the day in a Somalian part of town.
She claims her daughter was set upon by the girl gang in the school canteen after a row broke out over a Snapchat post showing the day out she'd had.
Therefore Silverdale School is definitely on trend trajectory of worsening results with each passing year, and who knows a decade from now it may too suffer the fate of Abbeydale Grange if it sinks towards the bottom end of the league tables as is very possible!
And for what actually prompted me to write was my experience earlier today whilst on a walk to the local post office, past a bus stop with 4 black High Storrs youths standing there, one of whom SWORE at me for NO REASON (f-ing....) . Which given their ages of approx 14-16 years I had no choice but to ignore rather than confront and make matters worse, and so I silently continued walking on. Unfortunately these High Storrs' out of catchment area delinquents will likely be emboldened by being ignored by people whom they verbally abuse and thus the verbally abusive behaviour will become more casual or worse as their parents have clearly taught them nothing better!
High Storrs School Delinquents Swearing at Passers by (blurred)
The bottom line is that Sheffield city council appears determined to destroy all of Sheffield's best schools, one of of turning ALL of Sheffield schools into bottom ranking schools, ALL under performing, increasingly forcing affluent parents to ultimately take the leap into private schooling, leaving behind literally a city wide wasteland of schools that no parents want to send their children to!
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By Nadeem Walayat
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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.
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