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?

OPs gone real quiet since their reality check 😂

I live in an area with an entirely comprehensive school system, fwiw. I can still see how this progress has perverse effects on children who are wedged between nice ideas and unfair outcomes.

No. Again. By having parents that value education and have, presumably, spent time and effort supporting them. Who have involved parents. Who CAN afford tutoring. Very few children pass the 11+ without tutoring. I'm not sure you understand how privilege works.

Like it or not schools’ governing bodies are free to write their admissions criteria, and change them.

They have to follow some legal guidelines ie cared for children, SEN children etc

Distance criteria are specified. In the cases of schools close to me it’s as the crow flies.

I’d advise any parent of a y4 child to really study the published criteria and again in y5 and 6.

Why so early - Church attendance/membership criteria can ask for a lengthy record of attendance.
This is the section open to discrepancies. Some Churches will be stricter than others/interpret their part in acknowledging attendance differently.

I think you are so invested on your idea of how privilege works that you cannot see what is plainly obvious.

I grew up on the breadline where there was no money left over at the end of the month for extras but I still had a roof over my head and three decent meals a day, and I watched my parents strong work ethic. All of that goes a long way to fostering a good education.

I imagine many PP children are living off low nutritional value food or food from the food bank and residing in poor quality accommodation.

Enlighten me.

And we aren't necessarily talking about parents who are highly motivated. To tip over pupil premium you could have a single parent who works three, five hour shifts a week.

How many pupil premium kids do you think there are whose parents either value education enough to send them to a grammar school* or have the funds for tutoring to pass the admissions assessments? How many kids in care do you think there are, who aren't dealing with a boatload of trauma and other shit that they are able to attain the required standard to get in? You're looking at a handful of children max. if that, Per intake.

*This isn't judgmental btw. I was a pupil premium kid although my parents wouldn't actually complete any paperwork so I never benefitted from the PP advantages. I also sat exams for a selective independent school, arranged by my primary school, and was offered a full scholarship, but my parents wouldn't let me go on the basis that they couldn't afford the train fare to get me there and back - whilst continuing to smoke and drink daily. Education wasn't a priority for them, other than when they wanted to boast about my academic achievements 🤨

No but anyone who can drop about two grand for the tutoring needed to get into 11+ is very likely to be middle class.
Basically for grammar school it’s all about tutoring. Anyone whose parents can’t afford it is disadvantaged, whether or not they would hypothetically get priority due to pupil premium. Most of the ones with pupil premium probably aren’t even going to be put in for the test in the first place.

You don’t even know whether your second DD has got into the school yet. You’re complaining about a perceived injustice before it’s even happened. As previous posters have said, there will unfortunately be much lower numbers of PP and LAC passing the 11+ and standing in your DD’s way. Why didn’t you wait and see, and start a thread about it if she didn’t get in? Nothing has actually happened yet.

Just out if interest, as I don’t think I read this in any of your posts, did either of your DD’s have tutoring for the 11+?

Also, hard agree with the previous poster who said the local “sink school” wouldn’t be so shit if the gramma school didn’t exist.

Congratulations to your daughters on passing the 11+
Clearly, academic excellence runs in the family!
Next challenge: boosting social awareness and emotional intelligence.
Onwards and upwards!

The whole school system is unfair and everyone should be entitled to a good education. However, the assumption that a child who is in care or pupil premium is not from a hardworking family is also unfair.

Right, so people are convinced that it is a matter of fairness that children from homes which are largely workless should have a better chance of getting into schools that can offer an advantage to bright students?

But if your parents just tip over that very low threshold and obviously don't have £2k going spare, managed to get through the 11+ like their fellow pupil premium counterpart anyway, then they should just chalk up the priority changes to life being unfair and accept that they were always privileged in the first place?

Okay 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have taught in a grammar. Yes we did have a lower points entry requirement for children in care and PP how we the reality is have very few students who are because as another poster said, those children do not apply.

This comment is truly awful. I would have been a PP kid back in the day (I was in care at some points, poverty etc) but I was intelligent. My school did work with primaries with high numbers of PP kids so could try and offer an education to clever pupils who didn’t have “hard working” parents - which translates to “can afford a tutor”.

OP, you seen very judgemental.

You will likely find it’s about maximum of about 15, and that in practice it’s around 2-3 children.

I don’t believe any state schools should have entry tests. The grammar system is totally outdated and should be scrapped

Are you sure that’s not the order used purely if there are too many applicants that passed the 11 plus?
We’re going through the same at the moment, when we looked around both the grammars available. they both said that if more children ‘pass’ the 11 plus then the over subscription criteria is applied. One of them does put pupil premium/children in care next on the list of priorities but that is only implemented if there are too many children that scored about 75%or above on the exam.
If there are 200 placed at the grammar school and only 200 children pass the exam then the next criteria’s ie pupil premium are not relevant.
Your daughter is only at a disadvantage if too many children who are ‘of standard’ apply for the same grammar then there are places, which is when they will look into other things to work out how to allocate places.
The other grammar we looked around literally take the top third in exam scores and that’s it, no other criteria comes into play.
If you have an academic child, they will do well wherever they go, the grammar schools we looked at aren’t in our city, our child would have to travel an hour each way, but it’s the route they want to go down. Their sibling attends a standard secondary school and is doing really well, it won’t be the end of the world for your younger child if she doesn’t get into the grammar.

I'm sorry but your attitude makes me angry. The disadvantage categories are there for a reason. My son is adopted and was born to the most terrible conditions imaginable. He would never pass an 11 plus (severe adhd most likely caused by his mum taking ilegal drugs while she was pregnant), but deserves priority at other schools because he is at much greater risk of failing in all areas. The financial threshold is incredibly high for pupil premium free school meals, so we are talking about severe poverty. Yes those children deserve a head start. I'm sorry that the alternative is a sink school, but your daughter is still likely to do better than most of the disadvantaged kids that get priority, regardless of what school she goes to.

I thought that was always the criteria. Mine have now moved to uni but I'm sure I was told this when we were waiting for their places.

I teach in a selective school. We have 15 (out of 150) places per year prioritised for PP eligible children who have scored 10 pts lower in the 11+ than the standard passing score. Out of 750 children in the school, years 7 to 11, there are only 32 children who are eligible for PP. That should give you some perspective - your daughter is not going to be pushed out by PP. We ask for a lower score because we recognise that they are likely not to have benefited from tutoring and may also have been to less ‘advantaged’ primary schools, and we actively do outreach to encourage children from more disadvantaged bacngrounds, and we still don’t get more than a few children in each year group (it’s creeping up because of this work, but we’ve still only got 5 PP eligible children in the current year 7). As for Looked After Children (LAC) and Previously Looked After Children (PLAC), who again have priority and lower entry requirements, we have 2 LAC and 3 PLAC children in the whole school. Both of the LAC are cared for through a private fostering arrangement (typically an extended family member). LAC in local authority care are extremely unlikely to be applying to a grammar school, sadly. Schools should absolutely be doing everything they can to open access to selective education so that it benefits more than just the pointy-elbowed middle classes who can afford houses close to the school and pay for tutoring. Otherwise, it’s incredibly hard to justify state-funded selective education.

Out of interest i looked at the PP numbers for four random Grammar schools:
7%, 7%, 8% and 23%. (The 8% and 23% were the boys and girls schools in the same town- so does one prioritise PP?). National average is 29%.

100% this^ . Gently @LookingforMaryPoppins - giving you the benefit of the doubt as you do seem genuinely worried about your daughter - it does seem strange that you’re happy for other people to be “bottom of the pile” because they don’t have a sibling at the school but fuming that your daughter maybe the “bottom of the pile” because she has been afforded privileges that many of the children “ahead of her” haven’t been. It would make more sense if you were arguing that it should be purely based on the 11 plus score but that’s not what you’re suggesting. As many other people have already stated numbers of children who are looked after / pay premium will be quite low and certainly looked after children is the first criteria for multiple schools.

I hope your daughter does get into the grammar school she wants to. It is a tough time for kids that age as often this is the first big disappointment they have. My sister lives in a big grammar school area and has 3 kids all in 3 different schools (all took 11 plus only 1 passed for the closest catchment area) - it is a pain but the eldest went to an academy just did their GCSEs and did exceptionally well - once results came out he was almost being headhunted by good 6th forms in the area. I say this to allay your fears about your dc not going to the school her sister goes to. I suspect she will be fine if she works hard and applies herself wherever she goes.

If your daughter has already done and passed the 11+ which for most counties was well before the summer time and we’re now nearly in November surely she’s already been placed in school by now? 👀 or is this post simply a rage bait one ?

Ours had the 11+ exams in September and results came out last week. Applications go in by end of the month but we won’t know school allocation until March.

Wow do you even hear yourself? You think your child who is not in care or pupil premium and all the disadvantages that brings should be above? Do you understand how few children from these backgrounds will pass the 11+.
this criteria has always been there to level the very un level playing field.

if you work hard and are so smart move to an area either closer ir with a better state school.

how is it fair there is a selective school and if you live next door you can’t get in. the reason your sink school is so bad is down to this school. Reap what you sow.

maybe there should be a test for parents too -don’t think you’d pass.