🏫Is there such a thing as A (singular) secondary school?
As you start to think about secondary school for your child, it is important to understand the big differences between primary and secondary school.
Let’s take a closer look…
🏫Secondary schools are very different organisations compared to primary schools. The average secondary school has around three times as many students as the average primary school. This means that there are also many more staff - there may be as many teachers in your child’s secondary school as there were pupils in their primary school!
📚Secondary schools can be broken down into two strands - curriculum and pastoral.
The curriculum aspect is led by subject heads of department.
The pastoral aspect is led by heads of year (or heads of house). These ‘middle-leaders’ are often the driving force behind a school.
🌟This can mean there is a large variation within the school in two main aspects…
Outlook and values. Although all secondary school headteachers will want their school to follow a standardised approach, they will rely on their middle leaders to implement them. The head of Science may not follow the behaviour or homework policy. The pastoral team may believe in a ‘zero tolerance’ approach while the individual class teacher in History may be a complete rebel! The pastoral and curriculum team may not get along at all.
Quality. The Music department may have been led by a pioneer in the field with 25 years of experience. The Maths department might have high staff turnover and have no one who has been teaching for more than three years. The morale in the geography department might be really high, but the PE department may be made up of one teacher who is going through a tricky divorce.
In other words, your child will not experience a singular, unified secondary school - rather they will experience a range of individual teachers and departments under the umbrella of secondary school.
📊This is why it is worth not relying solely on exam outcomes (there are many more reasons not to just rely on this data!). The best way to describe this is to think about university league tables. If you search ‘best university UK’ the usual suspects will appear. However, if you search ‘best university to study marine engineering’ you will get a completely different list. You can’t do this for secondary schools (easily - there are ways to find this out…) So the umbrella Progress-8 (P8) score you see on the league tables, will hide the huge variety of results at a departmental level.
🤝 Navigating Complexity as a Parent
As a parent, the complexity of secondary schools offers both advantages and challenges. On one hand, it diversifies experiences - spreading both risk and opportunity. However, inconsistencies in procedures and communication can be frustrating. Remember, you're not dealing with a singular entity but a multitude of individuals organised into various departments.
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