Schools admission criteria......

[LookingforMaryPoppins]

So, my youngest has her heart set on the same grammar school as her sister. She has worked hard and successfully passed the 11 plus. Really proud off her, she is dyslexic so no mean feat.... having just checked the admission criteria, having a sibling at the school makes no difference. Passing the 11 plus is the first criteria followed by children in care, pupil premium and then distance - she is bottom of the pile. If she doesn't get a place, which with that criteria is likely., the option is a sink failing school..... how is that fair?

I can't get over this thread. Looked after children have significantly worse educational and health outcomes. If you are a looked after child, you have come from a home full of abuse, neglect, and loss. At best, you may have had a loving but unsafe and chaotic environment. Anyone who seriously thinks looked after children shouldn't be given extra support to overcome the huge barriers they will face need to have words with themselves. And being adopted doesn't change the fact that all adoption is bourne out of trauma and loss from a very young age. Adopted children face barriers other children don't.

And as for pupil premium, low socio-economic status and poverty are amongst the biggest predictors of educational outcome. It's about trying to break cycles of poverty.

The proportion of PP and LAC children who will have the opportunity to attend a selective grammar school will be very low anyway, and you have the audacity to be sat here moaning about it, and the VAT on private schools? Check your damn privilege.

These are grammar school places secured for our prep schools leavers, by year:

• 2025: 7
• 2024: 6
• 2023: 0
• 2022: 1

Previously private parents found secondary fees (particularly with a scholarship) vaguely affordable. If you have more than one child attending prep, and aren’t insanely wealthy, you’re almost certainly hoping for grammar. The numbers for grammar school places for each prep are published on their websites, under leavers destinations.

The fact is the groups at the top of the pile are TINY groups compared to the overall intake. So yes she isn't at the top of the pile, but neither will MOST children who get in. With siblings not counting, your child has exactly the same priority as most children, with the exception of a few highly disadvantaged ones. That seems fair. The reason primaries prioritise siblings is because tiny children can't get themselves to school and parents can't be in two places at once. When the children are at secondary, this doesn't matter because the children travel independently.

So glad I live in Scotland where we don't have this nonsense.

Do you think that any family not getting PP is 'middle class'?

I'd say a family with a parent working 16 hrs per week in a NMW job is potentially 'under privileged' and yet this family wouldn't qualify for PP.

Also, PP eligibility lasts 6 years. I suspect this was why OP referenced COVID as I imagine more families would have qualified for PP status because of this period. They could be earning more now, but still be eligible for PP status.

I'm not saying giving it to PP kids is wrong. I'm saying be sensitive to the notion that families not on PP at the lower income ends are not MC, and may have equivalent income streams to PP families- but sometimes with less time.

So you think your children from a "normal family" should be prioritised over children who are in care?

I'm actually amazed that you're willing to admit publicly just how entitled you are.

I don't need to 'be sensitive' because I'm being realistic.

The rise in the number of kids both entering and passing the test is due to parents who wouldn't otherwise have putting kids through the test to avoid increased school fees.

THAT is what drove criteria changes and they ARE middle class families.

It may have happened sporadically years ago, but my Dad, who is slightly younger than your Parents, said that no one was tutored where he was from. Most of the kids didn’t even know there was going to be an exam. They just came into school one day and were told to take the test.
Tutoring has got out of hand these days.

I'm 64. My brother did have a tutor for a brief time to help with Maths after he'd failed CSE a couple of times. That was unusual. Other than that I knew nobody who had any help outside school unless it came from parents and other family members.

Yes it actually does. It means their household income is below £7400 so I’m sure even you can imagine the challenges they face. We know this group of pupils face huge disadvantage in their education - 69% of all pupils passed KS2 SATs and only 47% of PP children. This won’t be because they are not as ‘clever’ of ‘bright’ , it will be because of the impact of multiple areas of disadvantage.

The fact that only 8% of grammar places are taken by PP when this sits at 28% shows these pupils are not being given an advantage over children like yours. I can’t find the numbers for LAC pupils but it will be minuscule.

Your description of other local schools is horrific - have you even visited them? Perhaps if you really don’t want your daughter attending a ‘sink school’ you should have worked a bit harder to get into a ‘better catchment’ or pay privately as you obviously think your child deserves this over others.

The privilege you feel your child deserves highlights why there shouldn’t be selective schools - it just perpetuates the massive inequality ties that we have in our society where those that ‘have’ get more and those without find it so difficult.

Just want to add that the existence of so-called "sink schools" is not unrelated to the existence of Grammar schools which skim off the top 5%? 10%? which includes those with the pushy driven parents. What message to those kids who don't take or don't pass the 11+? You parents aren't "hard-working"? your parents don't care? YOU are "not good enough"? You are not "smart"?

Our Grammar schools are vastly oversubscribed so only about half the pupils who pass their 11plus get a place. My understanding was the first criteria was how well they did on their 11plus. It's graded so not simply a case of pass or fail.

Am I wrong?

‘Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much’

I’m so sorry a looked-after oik is getting preferential treatment to Dudletta

In some areas / schools places are by score.
But in others like the OP's they are on distance provided you reach the minimum mark.

Ah I see. If that was the case here I would have definitely gone through the process.

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).

Agreed. Really unpleasant.

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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

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

There is a much bigger picture here. The school is in a deprived area, the pupil premium children actually make up a high percentage of the intake - double that of other grammar schools. Whilst I am very pro evening the playing field, this doesn't actually achieve that.

My daughter (at the school) has friends who are not pupil premium who don't get to go on any school trips because their families simply can't afford the cost - these trips prioritise pupil premium both in terms of offering places and that the cost to everyone else is inflated to subsidise them.

The provisions designed to "even" the playing field simply shift deprivation to those who are low income but not sufficiently low as to be pupil premium. This isn't a fair system.

The omission of a sibling policy adds to that pressure -no ability to hand down uniform and no ease of transport.

Surely we should be improving education for all 🤷‍♂️