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?

OP, putting "normal" in quote marks does not make it any more acceptable.

I still don't understand how the lack of sibling criteria is bringing about disadvantage to "hard-working families"? Consider two families who live next door to each other, essentially identical when it comes to employment, backgrounds etc. and both families "hard-working". Each family is has two children. Only difference is the eldest of one family, child A, is the same age as the youngest of the other family, child B. Both these children score highly but there is only one place left at the school of choice. Should child A be disadvantaged, purely as they had the misfortune to be born a younger child?

I am not say sibling priority criteria shouldn't exist - there always has to some way to assign that final place - but I fail to see how not having it disadvantages a certain type of family?

Edited for formatting.

@LookingforMaryPoppins

In terms of my son’s EHCP - the school don’t ‘want’ him there and will use any trick in the book to off-roll. The school will be trying to preserve their ‘selectiveness’.

They know the LA are under resourced and will use reasons such as ‘we can’t fund’ or ‘we are at capacity of % of children with needs’.
It’s whether that parents fight/can be bothered to fight/uphold the law - and I expect most won’t.

I think your DD will stand a better chance, despite what the criteria states.

Will you feel better OP if I tell you my youngest didn't initially get into the eldest's non selective (sink) secondary school, as siblings weren't part of the admissions criteria?

It's extremely common.

If you'd asked about that, you would have had sympathy.

You didn't.

You have made yourself look extremely entitled and happy to trample on some of the most vulnerable in society.

How does having 2 children at different secondaries disadvantage you? They are secondary age, can travel alone, no school runs. If attending the same seondary school is of such utmost importance you, then you could have opted for the local seondary.

@LookingforMaryPoppins

Plus the shift in ‘ethos’ in the UK (St George’s flags everywhere/Reform UK/exclusions at an all time high/individualism) is very much filtering through into the education system.
You’ll be fine. My DS will not be fine.

@Bushmillsbabe why is it ridiculous?
Bucks have a minimum qualifying score system, they are not super selective.
The admissions criteria is clear that you have to score a minimum of 121, after that schools' admission policies applies.
As Bucks schools always prioritize catchment and when you moved there, why wouldn't they have a sibling criteria? It's perfectly normal and common. It's usually the one above distance

If you wanted super selective - Reading and Slough are nearby. Potentially some London grammars

The other way to see this is that any child in care or on pupil premium is on the back foot in life, and the school system selection is attempting to level that out.

They're literally classed as 'disadvantaged children'. They are on the ones on the back foot.

You say that you have a "disadvantage" by being a "normal" family.
What does that even mean?
You chose to have a selective education for your daughters, assuming that selection would work in their favour.

If a ‘sink school’ isn’t good enough for your child, it shouldn’t be good enough for any child. Why is it unfair? Because you are middle class?

She claims, upthread, that such children are "dragging down" education. Which many of us found to be an extraordinary claim, but one that she has doubled down on, it would appear.

But sibling criteria would do nothing to prioritize normal families. Those abnormal families might have younger siblings too.

Some schools have sibling criteria, but I can see why grammars would be less likely to. Their catchment areas are larger and it would really highlight when younger siblings are unable to teach the 11+ pass mark.

You're pissed off because you think DD might not get in to your preferred school. But trying to justify it is not going well.

I havent RTFT but I think what is missing from the OP’s post is that places are allocated using the criteria selected plus the score the child attained in the test. If a child gets a massive score - if the school hasn’t applied a rigorous catchment area - then a child will get in. But if a school has absolutely 1000s of applications, passing the 11+ doesn’t guarantee a place.
OP, look, I am in the same situation as you.
i have an older child who got into the girl‘s grammar school. My son has just received his 11+ results. He passed his 11+ very comfortably, but his score is unlikely to get him into the extremely competitive grammar school to which he applied. I suspect this is the situation doubting yourself in.
It‘s a painful and very disappointing experience - I totally get that. It’s a complete blow and a worry if your local state schools are not good (we are in this position too.) But it’s absolutely not fair to begrudge looked after and pp premium kids the opportunity. Compared to them, your child is already advantahed - if those pp and looked after kids got in in their circumstances, then they deserve their place. I was a very bright pp kid and it’s only now as an adult I realise how unusual my situation was and how up against it I was.
You don’t know if your child will be granted a place or not until offer day - keep your head and still put the grammar as number 1. Your child may yet get in via waiting list. Give yourself some time and let your feelings settle. I was gutted on results day, but rolling with it more now. Don’t forget to keep congratulating your child on trying something hard. These experiences are never wasted.
Good luck.

You gave up the likelihood and argument of siblings in the same school when you decided as a parent to put your child on a train to a grammar that is out of catchment and not her feeder school.

Being a sibling doesn’t give you a right to a place in any school. Many kids have to wait until places become available when they move to new areas and 1 sibling gets a place but another doesn’t.

It was your choice.

In my area, its normal for siblings to come below catchment for places. So you can live a mile away from the school your sibling goes to, but not get in as an eldest child who lives 6 miles away but within the catchment area got the last place (as the catc6areas aren't circles... but its clear in the admissions criteria if you read them. Chose an out if catchment school, no guarantee the younger siblings will get in (or you move out of the catchment area).

Your child is in exactly the same position your older child is in. She will get inon her own merit, or she won't. Those who get in will likely either live closer than you or score higher .

You persist in the fiction that being a 'normal' family is a disadvantage when trying to get a grammar school place. Siblings at the same school in a non-selective school is a reasonable ask. In most selective schools, it isn't.

You keep doubling down on your belief that Looked After Children and children who receive the Pupil Premium are stealing the places that should rightly go to your daughter. As other posters and parents of LAC have confirmed, those numbers are extremely small because very often the disadvantages that these children experience from birth onwards are normally incompatable with high educational achievement. A few lucky ones are adopted or fostered by people like some of the amazing posters on this thread.

Your contined use of the word 'normal' to describe your own family is insulting to the families that you deem 'abnormal' and undeserving.

Why are you so insistent that your perfectly "normal" child is being disadvantaged over children who have dead parents, parents who are drug addicts, parents who can't afford t feed them properly and children who have severe learning difficulties?

What disadvantage will she suffer from going to the comp?

The lack of support from her loving family?
Not having enough food to eat?
Will she have to go home and care for her mother?
Will she have to go home wondering if a new child has moved in and if they're violent?
Will she not have a warm and comfortable quiet space to work at?
Will het parents not take any interest in her learning?
Will she not be able to join any extra clubs because you have no money?
Will she struggle e sleep at night because there's people constantly coming in and out of the house?

@LookingforMaryPoppins wow. You’re really doubling down on this. Claiming that PP kids aren’t poor?? Can you even hear yourself?

these are normal kids from normal families who have done well enough to pass the 11+ test despite a tougher (‘abnormal’?) start to life than your dd.

just stop whinging. They won’t take all the places. There will be plenty left for the middle class (“normal”) kids.

It's funny how people are all for selective state schools until the criteria go against them. OP is basically saying she thinks her child should be top of the list. Classics sharp-elbowed grammar mum!

There is a (fairly new) sibling policy at my children’s grammar and the criteria is ordered as:

1. Pass the 11+
2. PP and LAC childrem
3. Siblings and children of staff
4. Remaining applicants ranked in score order starting at top and going down until all places filled

Personally I think this is far more unfair because all the sibling has to do is pass the test and, even with a score only 1 point above the pass, is prioritised over a non-sibling with a much higher score, which makes a bit of a mockery of it being truly selective.

OP. You are right that every child deserves to go to a good school. I don't think anyone would disagree with you on that. (However that isn't what your original post was about.)

Can you tell us more about the non grammar option(s)?

I have only seen the headline maths & English figure. Is that for passing both at 5+ or at 4+?
Much more importantly what is the progress 8 figure for the previous higher attainers?
What is the Ofsted rating?

Are there other non grammar schools with better results you could apply for?

@LookingforMaryPoppins why are you fixating on LAC and PP for taking grammar school places from 'normal' families? They are a tiny cohort who absolutely need every bit of help they can get.
Why no ire for private school families who want grammar for their DC?
Why did you decide to live in a grammar school area if you can't deal with the very real possibility that not all your DC will pass or go to the same school?

I agree. I'm not sure why OP wants her dd to leapfrog over dc with a higher score because she has a sister there.

This is, in my opinion as someone who works in education, just one of the many ‘problems’ with the grammar school system. Have you considered looking at schools ‘across the border’ in an authority close by which does not have the grammar school system? This may give your daughter a ‘proper’ comprehensive school experience with a mix of children from a wide range of different demographics, backgrounds, life experiences etc. Just a thought…

I don’t think OP’s criteria included a ranking by score, just a priority list once a threshold is passed.