To think my DS is completely stuffed

[logincard]

my DS has 5 grade 7s and 4 6's at GCSE.

he missed out on acceptance to his grammar school for A level ( by one point) and we now have no place for him to study A levels.

He had a conditional offer from another school. He has the grades, but I found out yesterday that he never actually accepted this offer ….

I have contacted every state and private school in the borough and close by and no one has a space, we have appealed a grade at his grammar school. (But I hold out little hope for that)

What can we do? He has. No space for A levels . And no one has to help us, he’s just on his own ….

OP I'm so pleased he's hopefully got a place lined up. You do sound like you've had an incredibly stressful few days, I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. Hopefully his current school do accept your appeal and if not, that he does brilliantly at Richmond.

I’d be over the moon with a set of grades like this for my son.
Ring the independent schools who are further afield . Many have transport links or offer weekly boarding .

OP. Glad you found a place and hopefully will be accepted.
All the best to your son - this will hopefully be a learning point for him.

And in spite of the digs and unkindness you got a good outcome from this thread! Breath!

Oh OP, I feel for you. I swear my 18 year old is half teenager and half toddler! Well done, you have (hopefully) sorted this out and hopefully your son has learnt a lesson. Treading the fine line between guiding our young adults and bloody well shoving them when they need it is so tricky at times. You have done your bit now, you have saved him when he needed you. Feet up now, gin and tonic and giant slab of cake!

There's always some movement before the start of term with children moving areas or deciding to do go to a different sixth form, so there is still hope! But have you considered boarding (either state or independent) which would open up the schools available to you?

@Sonarl yes yes Nescot.

My child applied to a state grammar and they would not communicate with parents at all: she made the application (was 15yo at that date), we were not invited to the open evening, the offer letter and all chasing comms were to her without us even being copied in. So, OP, I commiserate.

@LIZS

Not all "grammar" schools are state-funded.

They are if they're called Grammar. You get lots of private selective and super-selective schools, of course, but they're not Grammar Schools. Grammar schools are the only state schools which can select on ability.

Some private schools like Reigate retained the name grammar from when they used to be state grammars but it's not really a true grammar school which is state funded

@logincard I know how mentally and physically draining it is to look after children/teenagers all on your own and how easy it is to feel it’s never good enough. I’ve not read back through the thread for your latest updates but I do wish your son well, and you! Whatever happens things will be okay - it feels all-encompassing now but life does usually eventually work itself out.

HunkyPink- some private schools are called X Grammar eg Kingston Grammar www.kgs.org.uk

Op - hope you are ok. I haven't read the whole thread but just wanted to come on to say if you are considering independents have you tried St James in Ashford? I can definitely recommend it. Good luck.

where we live, the colleges do not provide A level courses as all the schools have 6th forms.

I find that extremely difficult to believe.

Further Education colleges don't just deal with A levels for 16 to 18 yr olds

All over UK, FE colleges provide full-time and day-release and evening courses at multiple levels for adults of any age.

I would say the Grammar School he was at, has a moral responsibility to accept him. There have been no proper exams so they have effectively dropped his grade 1 point. Do they always 'manage out' their established students like this?

@LIZS

And not "grammar" schools are state funded.

Lots of schools call themselves "grammar".

Some private schools,
Some state selective schools,
Some state non selective schools.

It's a pretty meaningless term. People need to look beyond what a school calls itself and look at it's entry requirements etc instead.

@Comefromaway All paperwork/emails go to them and they have to either sign the form or turn up on enrolment day. Parents don’t really get involved with post 16 places. of course they do! And many parents put their own email address down regardless of if which address it actually asks for.

It's a dog eat dog world with the London super-selective grammars, unfortunately.

Sorry to hear you're in this predicament OP. Perhaps you could put together a well-thought-through argument as to what your DS would bring to his grammar school sixth form?

Did he underperform in his GCSEs from your perspective (and was there a reason for this?)?

If they know he is capable of better than his results would suggest (although they are a good set!), argue that point. He could commit to only doing three A Levels rather than starting with four? Is he good at sport, have good leadership qualities you can flag up?

This happened to DS a few years ago. He was fortunate that his was a year group in which a fair few of the cohort didn't quite meet the exacting entry requirements for the grammar's sixth form. It was a close call for him (and we had a week on pause, although he did have a place at a well respected comprehensive too) but in the end, he was allowed to stay on. He got very solid A Level results (getting a better set of grades overall than some of his much higher-achieving at GCSE same school friends) and proved himself worthy of the HT's 'risk' with him.

You would be reliant on your child putting your email address down. My son filled in the application form online, all resulting correspondence went to him.

That's a great set of results !! Well done to your son. There will be places that have spaces, it will just be a case of keep trying. Does UCAS have a sort of clearing system for 16 year olds, ?

Does UCAS have a sort of clearing system for 16 year olds, ?

Might be worth you giving them a ring to check @Babyroobs

Did he underperform in his GCSEs from your perspective (and was there a reason for this?)?

She has explained this at length @NewModelArmyMayhem18

Hope this is now sorted for you OP. I must say that this new idea of dealing only with the kid and not the parents is absolutely stupid. It didn't happen with my eldest but did happen with my youngest. With eldest the parents and pupils both received the emails. With youngest just the pupil did. There's some weird fiction that 16 year olds are running their own lives at this point... errrm, not really!

Similarly my 16 year old DD recently missed a hospital appointment because all the correspondence had gone to her not me... yes she is on the way to adulthood but she's not there yet.

Good luck OP and DS and ignore all the know-it-alls.

@Babyroobs

That's a great set of results !! Well done to your son. There will be places that have spaces, it will just be a case of keep trying. Does UCAS have a sort of clearing system for 16 year olds, ?

Each individual school or college manages their own admissions. There is no centralised system.

YH lots of schools are called Grammar but are not state selective schools.

Where I live there are at grammar schools that are simply the local comprehensive that MN loves so much (grammar being a title from Elizabethan times) and also the local boys' private school calls itself a boys' grammar school. Again, maybe at one time it was a state selective but it isn't now.

Anyway. As you were.

I do despair of threads like this. People are so wilfully it seems ignorant of the reality of those in differing situations to themselves.

"Contact some schools that offer boarding"
The OP says she has four children, and 90% of the country cannot afford bog standard fees, let alone boarding. I'm sure she's well aware these schools exist, and has dismissed the possibility because she knows her own budget.

"Some schools are so precious about space"
No understanding whatsoever of the reality for inner city schools. Our school was built to admit 100 pupils per year, and we're up to 150, on a tiny site. We literally cannot fit any more pupils into classrooms. We had one way systems even before covid, because it's dangerous to pass on stairs with the volume of pupils.

"His current school have to keep him"
No they don't, they have specific published entrance criteria in the event of more applicants than places and need to stick to those or (rightly) those not getting a place can appeal.

My school could fill the 6th form three times over with those that meet the criteria. When places have gone, they're gone. You can't just ring the head and explain the situation. We can't just accept an extra pupil and split the class- we've no spare classrooms, and no spare teachers.
We had parents yelling and remonstrating with the HT on the street outside school last week at enrolment when staff went out and told the queue of waiting children and parents that we were full.

"Most people would be so pleased to have those results"
Yes, of course they're good results...but if a child is capable of 10x 9 at GCSE, and gets a mixture of 7s and 6s, then no, they're not good. Conversely if a child was expected to get 5x 3s and managed a mix of 4s and 5s, they'd have done brilliantly and as their parent I would be so proud of them for exceeding expectations. Context is everything. For all we know this child, while capable of 10x 8 grades may have lost his father six months before his exams, be a young carer, have a sibling with autism whose been on "home learning" for the past 15 months, etc etc etc.

But, I know this is AIBU, so par for the course.