Tiffin Schools Admission Arrangements

[tiffinboys]

Tiffin Schools (Boys & Girls) have issued their Determined Admission Arrangements for 2013-14. Boths Schools have decided to ignore pleas from the local community and opted to continue with Open Selection.

Though most of the grammar schools have catchment/proximity rules, some even going to the extent of denying applications to sit for their entrance test in breach of Grenwich ruling, Tiffins would continue open selection policies. Only handful of children from Kingston & surrounding areas get places in Tiffins. Most of the places go to the children living at very very far away places, eg. Harrow, Southall, Greenford.

Grammar schools from Bromley (St. Olave & Newstead Wood), Redbridge (Woodford County & Ilford County) or Barnet/Herts (DAO & Latymer) or Slough (Langley) would not allow out-of-catchment children to even apply for admission tests. Other schools like Kent grammars would only give places to children living near to the School. Some schools have most of the places for catchment area (Nonsuch, Wallington etc.).

This year, Reading grammars (Kendrik & Reading) and Chelmsford grammars (both boys & girls) have changed their over-subscription criteria from 100% open selection to 100% catchment and 80% catchment respectively.

It is high time that children from Kingston and surrounding areas also get level playing field. Until all grammar schools are 100% open selection, it is fair that some priority is restored for these children.

We have therefore proposed that Tiffins give 80% places on the basis of proximity to the Schools (or such other Centre point in the Borough, as previously proposed by the LA) to those children who pass the entrance tests. Other 20% may be given on open selection.

This proposal complies with Greenwich/Rotherham rulings. We are aware that it would take lot of persuation for the Governors of these school to accept this proposal. We call upon all parents from Kingston & Surrounding areas t write to the Tiffin Schools in support of this proposal and copy these to your local MPs and Councillors.

I wonder how many families do not contribute to the Tiffin school fund.

Zoffany51, I really don't think you can blame the precarious finances of Tiffin Boys on the fact that some boys come from far and wide. I don't think locality makes people more or less inclined to pay the voluntary contribution.

I thought the finance problem surfaced a few years ago and was the reason the previous head left - there were rumours of mismanagement.

By the way my daughter goes to the girls' school and there are regular appeals to build new facilities and people are encouraged to donate, but I have never experienced begging for money at a parents evening or anything like that. Sounds like the school equivalent of chugging to be honest.

I don't live in the local area but probably have more to do with TGS in various ways than at my other child's school which is in my "community" - at least it is fairly local at about a mile and in my home borough (my nearest community school though 2 church schools are nearer). The local school do not encourage parental involvement in any shape or form, though I make a voluntary donation of the same amount I contribute to TGS each month.

Tiffin boys perform very well at GCSE and A Level. Certainly better than a 'local' grammar school.

@FillyPutty - this is to entirely miss the point. I have a child in tears today, who simply wants to join his brother at his nearest state secondary, and cannot understand why this is not possible. Most parents in KoT would gladly accept 'local' grammar school standards - whatever it is you are inferring, if it meant their families were not cleaved in half by this superselective nonsense.
However, at 220+ catchment, i strongly suspect that standards would rise, rather than fall, as the local primaries are more than capable of turning out high performing pupils. Having to attain 97+ percentile to gain access to your local secondary school is just plain ridiculous.

@Mrsrobertduvall - i wonder how many families do not contribute to the Tiffin school fund. Well i don't for one - i have no intention of donating to educate children from miles away, many of whom have nowadays been put through preps. If TS is floundering financially, they might like to revise their admissions criteria and add catchment. As i said previously, that is the only way the situation is ever likely to get resolved. Messrs J+T Tiffin did not found the school to educate all and sundry, it was founded for the benefit of local children, and it is for the benefit of local children that the school should be returned. tlc.

...the school place we have been offered is non-selective, but subject to a narrow catchment area of less than 2km, so why are children allowed to attend Tiffin from 10+ miles away? We now have to take a place from a pupil who would really want to go to this school, incidentally our third choice - in order that our DC can travel past his preferred school in order to get to it. Somewhere he doesn't want to go. It's total insanity.

But the only reason you want to go to Tiffin is because it is selective. Most children do not have access to selective schools in this country. You have stated that your son has a place at another local school. If that school were the selective one and Tiffin was not, you would prefer that school. When you chose Tiffin for your first son, you presumably rejected your local non-selective school where both could have been educated together.

You appear to be in favour of selection, but only if your children pass the exams.

Rather hypocritical I feel.

@FillyPutty - this is simply not true.
How would you know my reasons for wanting my children to go to Tiffin?
Tiffin is a Kingston school, our nearest state secondary (as i stated we live within 1km from the school gates) - that is my reason. Proximity, not selection (or superselection either for that matter).
We had to sit DCs for the test because it is selective entry; personally, i would rather it wasn't and that it catered for the needs of the local community. (Which at present, it most certainly does not.)
All of the the Kingston parents with children at the school feel pretty much the same; i know this for a fact.
'The only reason you want to go to Tiffin is because it is selective' is a perfect statement that applies to all those parebts who apply on behalf of their children and who live outside of the borough - it does not apply equally to those who live within.
After all, what child who lives say 20 miles away from these schools, in all honesty gets up one morning and says to his/her parents - mum/dad i really want to go to Tiffin? I find that rather hytpocritical to be honest.

...but insofar as it is selective, priority should go to local families; 80/20 - catchment vs. open selection would be about right. (btw @FillyPutty - what do you suggest i tell my second son; that i am a hypocrite?)

Does anyone have any idea how the consultation is going?

Hmm, you said your child goes to an outstanding primary in Richmond, and now you want an outstanding secondary in Kingston. I am not convinced by your arguments of fairness. Do people in Hounslow not deserve access to outstanding schools?

Nobody ever clamoured to get into their local failing school.

Good schools are a scarce resource. Everyone will claim they have a right to a good school on different grounds, localism, religion, ability, and so on.

None of these reasons are fair. If you have access to an Outstanding primary in Richmond you are very fortunate, not just in terms of education, but probably housing too.

As a parent the only thing you can do is work with the rules to get the best school you can find. It can never be fair that there are so many shit schools in this country that children are sent to. I don't sense that you are particularly interested in that though, you've just got spurious arguments about why your child should get in to one of the best schools in the country.

We applied to a top Catholic school and a top comprehensive, neither let DS in, because we didn't meet the criteria. That's what it is, and I could no doubt come up with admissions criteria that would have earned my DS a place, but then there are thousands of parents who would like to do the same.

Localism is NOT a fair means of allocating school places, since it is highly correlated with parental wealth, and indeed in London family houses in the catchments of good schools can cost over a million. So unless you are a millionaire it's very hard to get in. Competitive entry is much more egalitarian.

In our case, at 220 - DS2 failed to qualify by est. 3 questions; if you consider the likely final entry cutoff will be 228 again (based on historic: first allocation is at 231), effectively he achieved 96.5% of qualifying score.
At level 6, yes we want Tiffin also so his levels can be maintained; state secondary non-selective schools so called 'fast-stream' will put him back two years - where is the motivation supposed to come from if he is not being developed or stretched?
We want DCs to be able to progress at their ability level, to be educated together (anyone would ant that), and to have the benefit of like minded peers.
As a level 6 i do consider DS2 is definitely of selective calibre.
By comparison, DS1 did not finish Tiffin papers and left some questions even 'unguessed' - scored 244.
By our recknoning (and his), that means he got practically every question he did correct; 100%.
Yet in terms of real ability, there is nothing between them. DS2 stronger in maths; DS1 stronger in literacy, but normal family variation. Their levels are comparable; DS2, marginally higher i would say.
So it pretty much is a lottery; the difference in style and application typifies the difference in approach, which in turn is characterised by birth position in the family.
We know of so many families locally where this has been the case; similar story.
@FillyPutty - re: housing, no not everyone in KoT lives in a $million property round here. If you look at KT postcodes there are plenty of areas that are comparatively poor.
We basically had to go over the river to RoT, since all of the local schools in KoT were oversubscribed for DS1 as a millenium child. We were fortunate enough to get in as the school allocation expanded two to three form; but certainly it is in a $million catchment yes, and would never get into the school nowadays. We were very lucky i have to admit.
I think this argument will soon be resolved, as i gather from good authority that one of the Tiffins is now actively considering catchment.
Point i was making is that we would have sent our DCs to Tiffin as our local - nearest state secondary, irrespective of whether it was selective or not.

DS2 sta Slough as practise, but we were never intending to send him there. Similarly Sutton (we didn't sit); he said, not going there, that's miles away. So there you have it, maybe KoT children are a bit different from others in that it is they too that want to be educated locally. Is not merely parental wishes.

@FillyPutty Localism is NOT a fair means of allocating school places, since it is highly correlated with parental wealth, and indeed in London family houses in the catchments of good schools can cost over a million. So unless you are a millionaire it's very hard to get in. Competitive entry is much more egalitarian.
I find this very niaive i have to say; some at DS2 tutor group had been tutored 2 years, including 5 days a week for the six months prior to sitting test for TS. How is it you think that doesn't come down to money? £25 a session. Do the math! Everything comes down to money in this country - egalitarian; just a stupid word.

...since it is not borne out in practice; there are a good many wealthy parents at Tiffin i can say, irrespective of where they come from. Prep scholls, performance Italian cars, home swimming pools, etc. One way or another, it all boils down to money in the end. Sad but true.

There are wealthy parents at comps too.

The indisputable fact is that while you can tutor your children for a few quid worth of Bond books, or perhaps a few hundred in fees to a tutor, a school in the catchment of a good London school will costs hundreds of thousands of pounds more than in a bad school's catchment.

@FillyPutty - but if you look at the postcode allocation for Tiffins, taking one pupil from KTx, another couple from GUy, etc is hardly making an impact on the opportunities of those in any particular 'bad school catchment', either individually or collectively is it. Yet collectively, the numbers add up to deny those living within close prximity of TS/TGS -where we actually have no other options. Many parents in KoT are now out of catchment full stop, and would have to travel 5+ miles to get to the 'bad school'. How is that fair?

No it's not impacting on any particular bad school catchment, it's impacting on lots of them

'Competitive entry is much more egalitarian.'

It isn't - it concentrates resources and subject choice into a small number of schools and reduces options for the majority in other schools. And that affects pupils from deprived families or localities disproportionately. Look at Kent - half as many 'high attainers' in the non-grammars are entered for Ebacc subjects as those in the grammars. Only 1% at Tiffin Girls are disadvantaged but 16.1% in the local authority. Only the Catholic schools come close and they select, in a different way, from a wider catchment area but are not open to all.

The fairest admissions are equal banding across a whole area (as suggested here). But that can also fall down if it's applied only partially. So localism is the next fairest criteria but not combined with selection in the same school.

My understanding is the grammar schools are given less resources than failing schools.

Localism is unfair, but it suits affluent parents who can buy a house in catchment and then not have to worry.

I don't mean money - it costs more to send a child to a juvenile detention centre than Eton! I mean time, critical mass of a whole class of pupils, even two if set by ability and still enabling the timeabling of a subject option (e.g. between languages). Then each child can sit exams for subjects they chose, that are appropriate to their level, at 16 years old - without being herded into different schools at 11. You need at least 60 high attainers in a cohort of 200 to do that , which is a top set of 30% - and very few comps or sec mods in Kent have that. The figures are actually worse than I thought - three times as many of those in the grammars who only achieved Level 4 prior to getting into the school (because they were tutored within an inch if their life - 15% of the total) were entered for all Ebacc subjects compared to those in Kent non-grammars who had gained Level 5.

Kingston isn't anywhere near as bad as Kent because the Tiffins are super selective and I hope it stays that way.

Indeed, the more selective a school is, the less of a brain drain there is from surrounding schools.

I'd agree with that. I don't like selective schools at all, but it's hard to get rid of them now, and in SW London the parents most actively chasing those places are likely to go private if they don't get in - so the brain drain isn't so obvious. London does have better schools than the rest of the country and they get much better results in more deprived areas now too.

But it's hard for any parent if your only option is a local school that performs less well.

@muminlondon - 'three times as many of those in the grammars who only achieved Level 4 prior to getting into the school (because they were tutored within an inch if their life - 15% of the total) were entered for all Ebacc subjects compared to those in Kent non-grammars who had gained Level 5.'
Therein lies the problem - where do you send a child like ours, DS2 who is level 5a literacy, level 6 maths if the local grammar won't take him? where is he to go? Yet we know of a child at Tiffin, who by yr8 - did not know what a vase was! Not exactly wide read is he. You are right, overtutoring is creating a cohort of one trick wonders; only thing they are actually good at is vr/nvr entrance tests, or at least disproportionately so.