Dame Alice Owen's School - sibling policy?

IIRC, most of the schools in the area have a sibling preference, so there’s no reason eleven year old siblings at DAO would feel different than siblings at other schools.

Unless of course it’s made a huge thing of by family. Not saying OP would but kids pick up
on things.

And @GlassMatryoshka, talking about eleven-year-olds living in lifelong ignominy is both slightly offensive and makes it difficult to take you seriously. No eleven year old is disgraced by where they go to school, including the ones who follow an older sibling like a massive number of children do each year. Eleven-year-olds do not "fail to pull their weight" when it comes to school admissions and the vast majority of this country doesn't earn a place at their school at all. There is nothing more or less virtuous or shameful about getting a place based on a sibling criteria, based on where your parents can afford and choose to live, or by doing well on a test.

But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just trying to be deliberately provocative. Why do you (seem to) think that there is something inherently more fair about children being allocated a place based on where their parents buy or rent a home than based on where their older sibling went to school?

You have a lot of thoughts! And you can mull over this until the cows come home, but ultimately, this is their admissions policy, and clearly, it works for them. Despite having a lot of sibling places, their academic results are amongst the best in the country. Some selective schools have a sibling policy, others don't. If you don't agree with their sibling policy, that is understandable, but getting into the nitty gritty of exactly why it doesn't suit your preferences isn't going to change the fact that this is just how it is, and you have the option of going for an academic place regardless or focusing energies elsewhere.

It's of course not lost on us that our eldest has put in the work to get a place at DAO next year and our youngest will get a sibling place, and we have offered extra praise for this. You say that if you were the younger sibling you would feel guilty to gain a place in such a way, but you have that perspective as an emotionally mature adult - its highly unlikely that a younger sibling (aged 9 or younger) would fully understand what an elder sibling gaining an academic place means for them and their future education. Having siblings at the same school is a huge benefit to families with more than one child - I for one hope the policy doesn't change!

For those curious how the allocations have worked out and recent trends, here it is. The number of siblings is trending slightly downward, as are applications.

I didn't include it but the number of students sitting the exams is not dropping. 1131 tried for the 65 academic places in 2025 and 332 for the 10 music places.

The DAO policy has been repeatedly challenged in front of the OSA and the OSA has always upheld that it follows the law. But there are of course routine consultations about the admissions policy that anyone can (and a huge number of people do) submit input on. This is well-trod ground.

But neither the sibling (current) nor the nearest (your hypothetical scenario) child “ousted” the 66th academically inclined child. The fact that there are only 65 aptitude places “ousted” them.

So it’s not clear to me why you see one as a source of grievance but not the other.

Thank you so much - am told movement between streams & sets too so a system that broadly worked well for all abilities.

From that page:

However, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 permitted selection of up to 10% by aptitude for certain subjects for which a school is a specialist college (section 102), and also permitted the retention of partial selection that existed prior to the 1997 entry, provided that the proportion selected was no higher than that in 1997 (section 100)

And:
A late amendment to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 amended the 1998 Act to limit the proportion selected to the lowest level at any time since 1997. This forced four Hertfordshire schools to lower their proportion of academic selection from 35% to 25%

So if DAO was to remove the sibling preference, it could not increase its number of pupils selected for aptitude above the current 32.5% and presumably would then go on distance for all pupils after the first few preference categories.

Meaning, @GlassMatryoshka , that there are 65 aptitude places for which your child is competing, and there would be even if the sibling criteria was removed (in fact, the competition would be higher as presumably all siblings would sit the aptitude test and - whether through genetic ability, past parental experience, good connections with local tutors etc - many would score well.)

@PinkPanther57 looks like it was introduced between 1993 and 1997 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partiallyselectiveschool(England)

And that DAO may have been a tripartite/bilateral (i.e. banded) school before that, from how you describe it.

thanks!

Definitely wasn’t selective pre GCSE in 88/89. Some pupils didn’t do O level at all only CSE. Forms were divided into: D,O,W - upper band & E,N,S - lower band. They apparently reversed this every year to prevent any stigma. Pupils knew of course but good intent.

It seems this has all been forgotten & seems to have been a much fairer system? At least you could be virtually sure of a place if your child wanted to go & attended a local primary whatever their ability. I thought a real shame & unfair those who attended themselves often couldn’t get own kids in apparently.

I know of Goffs School - a comp in Goffs Oak, not far away, was once a Grammar & forced via Govt legislation to change to fully comp in late (?) 70s approx. Poss pre Thatcher Govt. Popular with Local families as still had the reputation & results of a Grammar for a good few years & dined out on that.

I wonder if Owens was forced to go fully comp on relocation to PB & keen to revert back to a Grammar eventually in all but name? If it had stayed fully Comp all these concerns of OP null & void. It was once simply a fab Comp that served its community.

Gary was a bright boy who passed the 11+. By the time Martin joined the school in 1972, it was the first year of comprehensive schooling in most London boroughs, where the school you went to was determined by catchment area

Anyone can comment on an admissions policy - either formally, through consultation, or informally.

Admissions in england are a bit of a mish mash, with church schools being one of the largest "you wouldn't invent them if you had a blank sheet of paper" areas - but education policy is of interest to discuss on a forum aimed largely at parents.

It’s better to have siblings at the same school.
It means there’s more variation between kids - you know like the real world.
I don’t think it’s for you to tell them about their admissions policy OP!

Hi PP57, as DAO was selective in Islington before the move, and you think it wasn't selective in the 80s/early 90s, do you know when it changed? The Ofsted report indicated 90 selective places up until 1999, so presumably it was selective for at least some of the 90s. I have googled but can't find the answer.

If you don't want to "insinuate" anything, you might consider adjusting the words you select... ignominy, obliviousness etc are strong words.

I used to live in the area, my parents considered DAO for me, I have moved away and my kids go otherwhere, close family members have sat the test.

I am interested in admissions generally (AS me on education boards, if you wish) and have read the DAO policy... and have been interested enough to contribute repeatedly to this thread and even to google historic Ofsted reports for DAO.

So I would consider myself pretty well informed and not "oblivious". Cheers for that.

Would I be correct in sensing that you both speak with some degree of obliviousness with regard to the test-based places?

I mean.. that's quite a rude phrase, so I wouldn't agree with it, nope!

@GlassMatryoshka the problem is your basis seems to be that DAO (which I don’t know but looks v similar to a school near me in Sutton (not one of the grammars) has unfair criteria in a world where admissions is fair.

Because the school admissions process is always fundamentally unfair. Those who are advantaged academically, musically and crucially financially are always going to get the schools they want over those that aren’t

DD passed both the grammar and the similar school academic test and was borderline for a musical place but didn’t help DS! That said he went to the school that suited him

and that is the issue isn’t it - not that the policy exists but sometimes parents (and the child themselves) ignore the fact that just because the school works for sibling(s) doesn’t mean it works for them.

DS would have gone to the school he goes to no matter what DD had done and DD would never have gone to the school DS is at because different schools suit them but that is up to parents to realise

DDs good friend did go through on sibling policy on the back of her sister academic prowess and I think she did struggle a little with that but I think she struggled with being in her sisters academic shadow no matter what and the school did suit other elements of their personality

I wonder why it didn’t stay a Grammar school when it moved to PB? Poss not a Herts policy? Maybe if that was always in its DNA over arching objective to shift back that way? Interesting on Gary…

A one point in 80s to 90s (?) you could be almost certain you’d get your child in from 5 miles away & they’d thrive even if no chance of passing a selective school exam. They streamed.

Totally irrelevant to this post but Gary Kemp, founder of Spandau Ballet, went to DAO when it was a state grammar school under the control of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) when the school was still based in the London Borough of Islington

According to the 2002 Ofsted report, the number of academic aptitude places went down from 90 to 65 in 1999.