Schools admission criteria......

If anyone is still not understanding, - although I think most are, having read the replies (and I have found this heartening), I have a few examples.

Kids that are in care, or have been in care spend many of their important, formative years in survival mode.

For example, my son has a photographic (for want of a better word) memory - but that's not because he's ultra smart. It's because it's a survival technique he's learnt from birth. If he can remember stuff, it keeps him safe. If 100 people walk into a room, he will remember their names, the order they walked through the door and the mood they were in. Pretty impressive right? He does this because he saw a lot of really bad stuff. If he can remember these things, then he knows when he has to make himself small, to keep himself from drawing attention, to keep himself from being in the firing line - just imagine how knackering that must be and how much brain power that must take, before he even has to think about learning.

My daughter on the other hand was just left in her cot, to cry, she never got her basic needs met - nappy changes, cuddles, FOOD. On the face of it, she's incredibly independent, she doesn't want to have to rely on anyone. She will do anything for attention though, to be seen, and then when you give her attention, she will push you away, before you push her away, because everyone else has let her down, so why wouldn't you? I loved her so much, but she didn't let me in for the first two years.

All of this on top of expecting them to learn alongside other children that have had their loving parents next to them the whole time.

There just seem to be such a lack of understanding of what these kids have to do - to just survive, and what they have to overcome just be on a level playing field.

Any advantage that they can get, is definitely owed to them and I will fight tooth and nail for that advantage.

I cant believe people like you naturally exist... you are a horrible nasty entitled person.

Shame on you for writing this:

"why children from normal families should be the lowest priority and the most likely to be deprived of decent schooling because they happen to have parents who work."

So how many children in care and children eligible for the pupil premium pass the 11 plus? I wouldn't imagine that there would be many of them. Your issue is the distance you live from the school which is a personal choice that you made.

You sound bitter that disadvantaged children who have managed to pass the 11 plus get priority. Why don't you move house, either nearer to the grammar school or nearer to a non-selective but high performing secondary school?

@LookingforMaryPoppinswas there a sibling priority when your dd1 applied? And yet she still got a place?

If I’ve got this right, your dd1 is either year 11 or year 10- they were the two year groups who did the 11+ on Covid times, the year 12 group having already done it before Covid hit and year 9 weren’t doing the test after gaps in year 5 education. The good news is both year 11 and year 10 are boom years compared to the current year 6s. There are significantly more children born those two years than your dd2’s year. As such, she’s probably got less competition for places than her older sister.

as it’s a grammar that doesn’t factor in how you passed, just that you did, your dd2 has a similar chance of getting in as her sister. If she doesn’t, she’d be close to the top of the waiting list.

Would you prefer a child in care who doesn't have a hard working family to support them to not receive the place at the grammar then, when they have passed the 11+ just like both your DDs have?

My goodness you are coming across very badly on here.

My DS passed the 11+ and also happens to be adopted. His school didn't have this criteria that put him up higher in the admissions process. It would only have come into play if he was tied for the last available place with what you have classified as a child from a "normal" family. Admission criteria was calculated on test score ranking and distance

As for not being disadvantaged. Have you any idea of the trauma that adopted and looked after children are dealing with? Maybe head over to the adoption board and read some of the problems they face. My DS's life story would make you sad enough but my DD's would probably have you sobbing. You wouldn't believe a child could cope with what my poor DD has had to

We are not a financially disadvantaged by family at all but the things that my DC have had to contend with are awful.

Wait until you hear that adopted kids get contextual offers for Uni - I imagine your head would explode with rage at the injustice of it.

This is why ordinary families end up sending kids to independent schools..

I didn’t have a clue about any of it until our child piped up that they wanted to try and get into a grammar school after all the secondary school heads from various schools came to talk to them in year 5.
It’s been quite a learning curve! We put ours in for group tutoring which was the most affordable option for us, we didn’t do the holiday intensive courses. I was a little taken aback by how driven some parents were to get them into the schools and how much money they were able to allocate to help them achieve it.
Not all of them passed despite having the tutoring, it’s quite brutal and not something we would have looked into if ours hadn’t insisted on trying to get in.

Your child is not disadvantaged compared with looked after children. I can reassure you 100% that even if a child in care goes to the good school & your kid is at the bad school, yours will still have a massive advantage. The school entry criteria goes no where near levelling the field between your child & one in care.

The proportion of children in care who pass the 11+ is tiny.

The proportion of pupil premium children passing the 11+ is also well below the rest of the population.

Your attitude is appalling towards children in care and PP children. It is vital that they are given an advantage because they are so disadvantaged. Your sense of entitlement shows how uneducated you are on this.

All children deserve a chance to be successful regardless of the circumstances they are born into. For LAC and PP children that is far more difficult for a wide range of reasons.

OP you have either have no understanding of why extra support for these children is necessary, or you clearly don’t care. I hope it is the former.

I know.

I’ve just helped one of my DD’s friends with her UCAS. She had to get the money for the application from a hardship fund at school because her parents wouldn’t give her the money. When we were doing the personal statement it really hit me that she’s never been anywhere or done anything. No extra curriculars, no going to the theatre.

My dd and I helped her with the personal statement and loan application. Her dad lied on the loan form says he had a job in 23/24 so that she didn’t get the full loan….hopefully we are getting that sorted out though.

Then the day I got back from taking my dd to university I took the friend because there was nobody else to take her. She doesn’t know anyone with a car.

She’s had no help at all, in fact they have actively hindered her and she has no safety net at all.

So if you are in care and have passed the 11+ that is one hell of an achievement. Well done! You deserve to be prioritised for access. The rest of life will be stacked against you and a grammar school could be life changing.

At ours they get extra time and they remove the part of the test that would disadvantage them (the spelling and grammar section). My DS is dyslexic but I think he has been adequately accommodated for by the test.

That criteria sounds good, so those more disadvantaged get bumped up the list. That used to be the point in grammar schools. Many pupil premium kids won't have been tutored to get in like others so will be pure natural ability...

Not sure why unfair to your child. Although I do think extra points should be added for dyslexic children to level the playing field.

Exactly this!!

I will bet the OP tutored her child and/or bought resources to help them pass the 11+. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have done that (I send my autistic child to a private grammar school as we don’t have any state grammars here and our local state comp can’t accommodate her needs so I definitely don’t judge!). But there’s not a chance in hell a child in care will have had the same 11+ support (emotionally or financially). Therefore, any child in care passing the 11+ should IMO take priority. The numbers of kids passing the 11+ in the LAC and PP categories are likely to be sooo small that I don’t think it will make much difference that they’ve changed the admissions criteria.

Equity and Equality are not the same thing OP. Surely you can see that a child in care or in a deprived household (meeting the incredibly low household income point for PP) passing the 11+ have achieved more than a child not in those circumstances?

Granted I do agree that a recognised condition like dyslexia also means the child has achieved more by passing but I’ve never seen any Admissions criteria include that kind of criteria (not even sure if they are legally allowed to).

On the plus side your child isn’t in care or otherwise deprived. So there’s that.

@LookingforMaryPoppins you are being ridiculous.
EVERY school I have looked at, grammar or secondary, prioritises DC in care, 'looked after' those with an EHCP etc.
This group of DC is not huge, they don't take up loads of places.

I would encourage you to look at the school admission criteria again.

My DC has just passed the Bucks 11+. His older sibling already attends the grammar school.
The admissions criteria is:
Pass 11+ with a score of 121+ (slightly less if you receive pupil premium)
DC who are in care /looked after/EHCP
DC of teachers.
DC living in catchment by 1st September BEFORE you take the exam
DC living in catchment with siblings already attending the school
After the above is applied then all further offers are determined by distance.

All the Bucks Grammar schools I have looked at have pretty similar admissions criteria.
Unless the entire year have siblings who live closer than us, my DC should be a shoe-in for the same school his sibling is at

Which Grammar school area are you in?

There won’t be that many children in care/ PP. Unless it’s a really small school. If you are in catchment then you should be fine. You can look on the council website to see if it is your catchment school- if it is and you meet the criteria then you’re in. If you are out of catchment then it is less likely.

Does the fact she has a sibling at the school not put her up the list, before they consider distance don’t they consider siblings?

Every child deserves excellent education, disadvantaged or not.

School places should NOT be a postcode lottery.

Reason why every year we see threads like this is because of the difference in standard of quality of schools for children.

Naturally as a parent you would want your child the best education.

The job of the DfE is to ensure all school provide this but they are failing because of they are not meeting the needs of the children through lack of funding. Their lack of funding means that schools are suffering and parents are being more selective because they want to give their children the best start in life. And now with private education is out of reach of many people because of the VAT- thanks Rachel Reeves, the competition for grammar schools has become wild. Although she wants to shut them down tho.

Do not blame the parents, go and complain to your MP because the decline of education is happening in front us and no one is complaining. The gov is happy to keep shouting out free breakfast clubs, but how is this improving the quality of education? Maybe if they didn’t tax people to bones and having to work from the crack of dawn then there wouldn’t be a need for breakfast clubs in the first place. They need to stop putting patches on the wounds and treat the problem that is causing all this in the first place.

I can’t believe that you think your daughter is on the ‘back foot’ over children in care or those who are, or have been, significantly economically disadvantaged. Think about what you’re saying.
The reason those criteria are in place is because children/ families in that target group are least represented in the application figures. It is to attempt to level the playing field for those children. How can you be angry about that?

Normal families? Working? Do you think looked after children are not 'normal'? FFS they are often the ones who need a bit of a step up.

Grammars are unfair full stop.

OP check yourself…there will be very, very few children in care (probably none) and very very few pupil premium pupils who have achieved well enough to attend the school. It is a very sad statistic that these children don’t achieve as well as their peers.

if it’s anything like my local grammar, a few places will be taken by PP children, then the others rank from best to worst 11+ scores within the catchment and they will then be offered places based on that rather than distance.

Siblings absolutely shouldn’t be offered priority within grammars so that they can maintain their standards. That’s the whole point of them.

If the admission rules have been the same for years, accept you should have checked a while ago.