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?

Oh wow, this post is something else!

The outcomes for children in care, or previously in care are generally pretty poor.

My two children were taken into care at the age of 14 months and just over 2 years old.

By the age of 2 and a half and three and a half, they had a brand new mum and dad and a boat load of trauma to deal with. I'm surprised they are still standing quite frankly.

But they are, and they are meeting expectations. They bloody amaze me..every day.

I wouldn't put them through the 11+, because I would feel it would be just too much for them. They are still standing and doing ok - that's quite a feat after what they have been through.

Children who are in care or who were previously in care, do get first priority on school selection. It is literally one of the very few benefits they get.

Imagine getting a brand new mum and dad at that age (and not all of them even get that), having to deal with all the shit that life's already piled on you, and then someone else getting pissy because, for once, you were allowed at the front of the queue.

BTW - they only get to the front of the queue, not because everyone cares so much, but because they get extra funding for the school - for the school, not for them personally.

This.

Those are the top categories for any state school. Very, very few kids who pass the 11+ will be on pupil premium or in care. For a grammar they want the top X highest 11+ scores irrespective of whether or not you have a sibling. I’m amazed you’ve only just realised grammars have no sibling priority.

Why do you assume that children in care don't have hardworking parents who cherish education? Ditto, PP?

I have to very patiently explain equity to my students every year when they complain about our PP students going on an extra school trip. I get it, they're teenagers and all they see is a group of children getting something they aren't. And I hear their parents' voices in it all. They ask "how come my parents work hard and I get nothing?" What they don't see is the reality of life for the people sitting around them who are quietly dying from shame because the people next to them are claiming disadvantage when they really don't have the first idea what it means to be disadvantaged.

You aren't at the bottom of a pile. A small number of LAC and PP students are rightly having the field leveled for them. You have no idea the advantages your dd already has over them and will continue to have.

Your reaction to this is astonishing OP. You seem to really resent a very small handful of very disadvantaged kids from having the leg-up that they need. They still have to pass the 11+. I would be amazed if this wasn’t also the criteria when your other daughter got a place. All state schools prioritise pupil premium and looked after kids. It’s the right thing to do.

I live in Scotland so there isn’t this level of choice. But I can’t work out why prioritising siblings for almost anything would be fair. So all the pressure is on the eldest?

I also hope that children in care are always prioritised. Society has failed them and society should work hard to help them too. What a horrible thing to worry about.

@LookingforMaryPoppins

My DS is ‘supposed’ to have the advantage of top of the admission criteria because he has an EHCP. We are a very hard working family, he is doing well academically and is extremely quiet at school and doesn’t self advocate.
We get to select a parental preference school and go through the admissions process first.
Shall I tell you what happens in reality?
Schools see ‘EHCP’ and come with any excuse they can to state ‘cannot meet needs’. No one at the LA is particularly competent, or knows SEND law, or even if they do - they decide to break it.
Schools know this and off roll where they can.
So that leaves me in a situation where I don’t know if my DS will even have a school place - let alone a proper choice of school.
I’m fully preparing to end my career and having to home school.
I think if your selective school sees an enrolment of your daughter as giving them better results than enrolling someone with an EHCP - they’ll off-roll the EHCP child unlawfully - in the hope that the family know fighting the law takes possibly a year with no school place - or may not even bother to apply in the first place.
For far too many EHCP parents, just having a school place is a struggle - let alone a proper choice of school.

Absolutely this.

OP, your entitlement and unpleasantness is plain to see by your posts. Your judgment of children in care and disadvantaged backgrounds reflects poorly on you. You’re also clearly rather ignorant yourself as I’d bet my house that the allocation criteria for your preferred school hasn’t changed since your first child got her place - children in care and PP get priority at all schools - so why this is news to you now is beyond me. And as to why you are so outraged by that, that’s a whole different issue.

Wanting the very best for your child is natural and something we all strive for. Achieving that at the expense of others, particularly those much less privileged than your own, is where your morals have taken a nosedive

The majority already didn't have a choice.

It is right fhat children in care are at the top of the list!

Look at ‘get information about school’ website in respect of the grammar school and see how low the percentage of pupil premium children in the school is, compared to the ‘sink’ school. Then you will realise you have nothing to worry about and the money you had for tutoring paid off. Then maybe spare a thought about the children in the ‘sink’ school.

Brilliantly said. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Are you sure the criteria have changed since you applied for your older dd? Around here that criteria has been in place for at least five years. Very few children in that category are admitted each year. Is this the first year of the change? To give you a different concern I think that you should be more concerned about the impact of VAT on school fees for independent schools than the small number of children who might be admitted on the basis of living in care/ pupil premium. How far out did the catchment go before? If she doesn't get a place you can still appeal for a place.

The 'sink' School might become better because it will mean that more of her peers who would have attended the grammar go there. In my experience a 'sink' School in a grammar area can still have decent, dare I say, better teachers because they need to engage the children more and they might have more dyslexia support. My child who didn't pass the 11 plus is now at Oxbridge having attended a non grammar school in a grammar school area. Have you been to look at the school?

Schools consult with parents/community about changes to their admissions policy. You say it has changed how, and what has COVID got to do with it?

there are barely any children in care in the grand scheme of things they will hardly affect your child’s chances of getting in.
Seems very harsh to begrudge kids in care tbh.

if you’d omitted that from your post and just mentioned pupil premium or distance you might of gotten a more sympathetic response

The grammar I've just applied to for my daughter does have sibling priority, siblings come before distance (assuming 11+ pass).

My dd is adopted OP so she is classed as looked after and therefore has priority choice over schools. We are both a 'normal' and 'hardworking' family. Kids who are adopted statistically gain much lower grades in school than their peers. I work like crazy to make sure my daughter isn't a statistic and give her the same chance in life as any other kid. Sorry but I'd take that stinking grammar school place for her if she needed it without a second thought for who she was taking it from. She's already been dealt a shit hand in life and this is our government's way of levelling the playing field a bit. I resent that you resent this.

We are a ‘hard working family’ and we also get pupil premium as my two children were removed from their birth parents, put in to foster care and then adopted. And whilst I can say they have had all the love and care possible since being adopted, they had a terrible start in life and one in particular also had neglect in foster care

Being able to be guaranteed a school place is one of the few things that can be given to them to try to give them help for their education, the least I would say that could be offered given what they’ve been through. Even the pupil premium funding doesn’t go them solely, it’s given to the school to purchase resources that can benefit the whole school. So your other child who is at that school will be benefitting from resources purchased by the pp funding

Do you know how difficult it is to break the care cycle? And the statistics of children in care who when they grow up as adults suffer with addiction, turn to crime, end up in prison etc often because they have faced such trauma in their childhoods and then go through life without any caring family ?

So are you really begrudging children in care and pp a priority ? Really ?

I don’t often post on here but I am genuinely shocked by your level of entitlement and lack of empathy towards a group of children who have had such a traumatic start in life

I live in an area with no grammars. I also live in a town where the nearest secondary is miles below the others in the wider area. Think 43% pass A-C versus 72%.

We sent our children to a very good, undersubscribed village school about 5 miles away age 4 so they could get into a very good junior school 9 miles away aged 7 and with the hope of a very good secondary school 7 miles away aged 11.

There is a chance that they won't get into the secondary. My older two were the last of the big year groups in this area and there's a chance they won't get in. It is frustrating, I will be devastated if they don't get in but we've done what we can and the rules have to be followed.

it is absolutely fair that others have priority above us. Especially those in care.

One of my children has an EHCP. But like someone said above, some schools just say they can't meet need and that is an added worry. There's one near by that doesn't reject at year 7 but makes life so difficult that most children with SEN have left by the end of year 8 due to mental health.

Anyway OP. If Reform UK get in - they will 100% be backing your ‘ethos’.

Which will leave me home schooling, no school place and without a job.

Absolutely! This thread has upset me a bit more than I thought it would. I can't believe that adults would resent LAC or previously LAC like this. I'm trying very hard to the generous and think they naively just have no idea of what our kids have been through.

There will be smaller amounts of children in care going to a selective school. And yes they should be ahead of your child.

You may not like it but care experienced young children have to overcome so much just to get to your daughters starting position. If they can do as well as her academically then they deserve their place first and more.

For pupil premium. this is additional government funding given to schools in England to support disadvantaged pupils and help close the attainment gap between them and their peers.

Yes a disadvantaged child again needs to have a good school space where they pass the 11+ - to do as well as your daughter they’d have had to overcome significant difficulties in home life and other disadvantages.

This is about young children aged 11. It’s not about their families. Educators have said in this batch of kids the ones who are suffering or in unstable situations get to the front of the queue. It’s equity as it brings them a little closer to your daughters starting place, but they are and will be disadvantaged compared to her in all settings. She has an engaged and loving mother supporting her all the way. It’s a powerful thing. Use that power to propel her - not diminish others.

Thank you.

haven’t heard of this can you explain

I think it’s very harsh to begrudge kids in care they’re a tiny percentage of the population anyway unlikely to affect ops child’s chances.

should of just mentioned pupil premium and distance (I say that as someone who’s child gets free meals and we live multiple counties away from any grammar schools) would of gotten a more sympathetic response even from me.

but moaning about kids in care that’s some very nasty stuff

What is shit is that any child has yo go the substandard school. Your DD still has a chance to escape it.

Sibling priority seems to be one of the least fair criteria. What should a bright child not get into a school because somebody has a brother or sister there? Makes less sense to me than a child in care getting in.