Schools admission criteria......

Of course the non-grammar school is going to have a lower percentage of passes, the most intelligent pupils have all been creamed off by the grammar. What are the progress scores like?That's what is important.

Which school is it?
If you won't say that what percentage of pupils are pupil premium?
If your dd is bright enough for the grammar she will get in. Why do you think your dd should be able to leapfrog over more able girls than her due to having a sibling? Grammars are supposed to be about ability. Maybe your eldest wouldn't have got in If less able siblings had leapfrogged over her

@LookingforMaryPoppins, you are not appearing to complain about the issues state of education as a whole. You are objecting to admissions regarding Grammar School education and child in care and pupil premium education who experience significant disadvantages being prioritised for admissions to a school to try and provide equity and equality of opportunity.

I note you have not had the decency to apologise for your complaints regarding children in care. I am hopeful you had a lovely Sunday with your family resting from your working week. I am one of those undeserving Care Leavers. Who never had an opportunity to access education despite my academic ability. I had to wait for widening participation and equal access to be addressed in my mid-twenties even then it was just for undergraduate education.

I was late thirties before I could realistically financially access postgraduate education. Now in my forties I am spending my Sunday’s studying and working towards my doctorate (self funded) Monday - Friday (in a demanding non-teaching education sector), why I am doing this? Sacrificing my weekends?

Your post today reminded me why. It is due to individuals such as yourself who do state that children in care do not deserve to have equal opportunities to succeed in life. That despite the abhorrent experiences they shall have experienced that resulted in them having corporate parents. They are preventing your daughters who are likely to have stable homes and emotional support to access an education that could provide opportunities they would otherwise be without.

I assure you no matter the long term financial gain and sense of achievement and accomplishment care leavers never forget where they came from and carry those scars permanently. I doubt and certainly hope that your daughters shall never experience the life-long consequences of being a child in care no matter where they access education.

Edited for grammar.

Yes, that's right, just the educational ones. Not holidays.

Right, so just the educational trips then? That's reasonable.

😂😂😂
Ski trip!
I knew someone would say that! No. Just the regular museum/science/Geography trips. They're not excluded from those.

There are Prince Andrew levels of self unawareness here! Look how many people have voted you as unreasonable! The PP budget is used to pay for those students’ extra curricular activities so they will not be increasing the cost to others - although quite rightly they might be taking places from their more advantaged peers because the whole philosophy of PP is based on the idea that these students are less likely to have parents who can provide those kinds of experiences for them. Your daughter is no more entitled to a place at grammar school than anyone else who meets their criteria. It’s a selective system and some will miss out by definition. If your daughter got a place, someone else wouldn’t and their parents may well feel that was unfair. PP students and LAC miss out on so much so you are being unreasonable to complain if they get a slight advantage here.

Right, so people just book their children on the £2k ski trip and just shrug their shoulders at the checkout, do they? Nobody is making it clear that not paying is an option.

That's self exclusion. We make it clear that if you cannot afford it, you do one of the things I have explained to the OP.
I'm just challenging her point that these disadvantaged children have some sort of privilege here.

Yes, you can. Fill in the parental consent online, then don't go to Parent Pay. If you can't do that, contact the school and say that you cannot afford the trip. You could pay at the end of the month, pay in installments, or explain hardship and ask for the school to pay.
They do not exclude children from trips who cannot pay.

It can be area dependent. In our area , siblings can go to the school even if they don’t get high enough scores, they’re automatically in.

What do you mean school trips can only ask for a contribution? This is secondary school in which lots of trips are organised which are above the means of many parents. I can assure you that many parents do self exclude.

Sorry that’s laughable and untrue.

PP kids come with extra funding which has to be spent on them. Parents aren’t subsiding anything.

And as intake of PP kids in most grammars are low, doubling that isn’t going to involve high numbers.

Still not sure why you feel your child is entitled to a place above others. She isn’t. Schools make the admissions criteria and looked after kids come first in every school, there are quite rightly so other measures for pp kids in some schools and unis.

That's not happening with school trips, @LookingforMaryPoppins .
It's a state school, they can only ask for a contribution. All children can go on the trip, obviously, if not enough pay, the trip can't go ahead, but I find it highly unlikely that any child is excluded from any trip because they cannot pay.
I don't know why you think that these disadvantaged children have some sort of privilege with this.

From next year all famies on UC will ve entitled to PP.

Yes it’s a grammar. Of course the sibling still has to pass the 11+ though.

I feel we're talking at cross purposes here, as I suspect I misunderstood your previous post and you seem to have misunderstood mine.

My point wasn't about the threshold for pupil premium, just that a child who is entitled to pupil premium should be getting priority places in a grammar school, because they are at a disadvantage. And this is not directly because they are poor but because of more multi-faceted reasons, which are proximate causes of the low income of their parents. And that their parents being in the house more was likely not much of an advantage.

I think I agree with you that the cutoff for PP seems arbitrary and too low.

It's just awful. I can't imagine anyone, let alone a mother, be so resentful of any support given to a child growing up in care. It beggars belief.

Since passing the 11 plus often means expensive tutoring (yes, I know, not always, but often) how many children in care or pupil premium children do you think are going to be ahead of your child?

And to be honest, considering their early disadvantage in life, I think it’s churlish to resent them this.

However, I do agree siblings should get priority after those categories (like in most schools).

I'm not surprised you're upset
The mention of "normal families" is just horrible.

Is your school a grammar?
I never heard of siblings in a grammar - though I am not familiar with all areas.

Agreed. Really unpleasant.

Disregarding the looked after and pupil premium children having first dibs (because frankly I thought that was the case in all schools and so it should be), I thought sibling rule was still pretty common. It is at my oldest’s school, even siblings of past pupils get priority. Then children of staff, then catchment, then on distance (I think).