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.

And what VR has got to do with this?

I wonder if lower band earner could take out £15k for independent school fee and have some left for food, even if housing is provided by Council?

And VR is has to do with reasoning, I suppose.

If you want to include private school fees in the overall family income then £30K per annum is way too low. However, many families, such as ours, have two incomes. One can be spent on living expenses and the other on school fees.

VR has nothing to do with reasoning in this sense - it's about the logic of words and word patterns. But I suppose you should know that, judging by your nickname, so I was puzzled to find reference to it in this discussion.

word problem? e.g. how much to earn to pay £15k school fee and meet other expenses.

@tiffinboys - since your DS is now installed at Tiffin School (and as I recall gained entry 'comfortably' re: the test); moreover, his year (current yr7) will have come from all over everywhere, as usual - and this yr group cohort would not be impacted in any way by a change in admission policy henceforth - am found wondering where is your motivation for this crusade - DS2?
I fail to see how you would benefit by changing the admissions criteria at TS now, as your son was successful in gaining entrance - so the current criteria presented no bar to you?
Perhaps you would be kind enough to clarify/explain? Why all the fuss? Why does this particular issue bother you so much?
As an aside, what has the cost of indie education got to do with anything - or other peoples personal choices with how they dispose of their income for that matter? They have earned it after all, and are subsidizing for state sector, in addition to not taking up a place...
Presumably, you must also harbor resentment against all those children who inhabit KGS across the road from Tiffin?
Since you have effectively secured a place in 7th most oversubscribed school in England; I do wonder why this is not enough? Most parents in your position would be counting their blessings.
Challenging the admissions criteria as an insider might not serve you well - it will make you deeply unpopular at the school with Tiffin 'powers that be' - wouldn't wish to be in your shoes if indeed you do decide to take them on!!! Good luck with that one...

FWIW, I would kist love not to have to pay for my DC's education - but saw a massive difference after moving DS from outstanding primary to mildly selective prep. If grammar schools weren't so rare and hence so sompetitive I would aim for them but, being realistic, I can only see a comparable level of education at a selective indie. So will have to pay. It is a choice but a forced one.

@PrettyBelle. I'm afraid logic here does not make sense - if grammar schools were not so rare, and entry not so competitive - then necessarily, standards would not be high enough at them to meet your needs - effectively they would be 'as bad' as the outstanding primary that you moved your DS from. Grammars would be more like comprehensives 'top set'; from what i gather, that is not what parents want. Parents seem to want to gain access for their DCs most to the mythical 'superselectives'. Tiffins for one (or two for that matter).

Indies rely heavily upon social selection for their successes - ability of parents to pay - which is why a 'mildly selective prep' works well for you - academic considerations not being the overarching consideration... A 'mildly selective grammar' simply would not work in the same way - academic standard would presumably be lower, since candidates would be drawn from a far wider spectrum of socio-economic strata. Again, most parents who opt for grammars do not want this - they may say they do on bulletin boards, but in reality it is about exclusivity - supply & demand - of having effectively 'made the mark'. Must be something satisfying in this.

zoffany51, admittedly I don't have first-hand experience with senior schools yet but if some comprehensives provided the "top set education" in all subjects and for free then I would be more than happy. As things are, my local comp has a 300 pupil intake each year. I am not sure how much you can expect from that. My son is not a genious but he is bright and capable however he needs to be organised and encouraged. At his primary he only started moving up the sets when DH and I started giving him homework and generally pushing (his school had a no-homework policy). So my worry is that he would be "lost" at a huge comp school. That's why I am looking for either grammar or selective indie.

With regards to grammar schools, I understand that they are picking the best of the best of the best due to the sheer number of applicants and the limited places. That means that there are hundreds of capable students which are grammar material but had to give way to even brighter ones. If there were more grammar schools such boys would be catered for.

'Massive difference' you observe is doubtless because your outstanding primary is catering to pupils of all ability groups - working across the board - we have first hand experience of this and the difficulties it presents - frankly i salute them; to be outstanding in a comprehensive setting is not easy. if parents of more able children then opt out, it becomes more difficult still - so i think they have done a really good job.

zoffany51, in my DS's school academic consideration is overarching, big time. It's a prep school and, since the only local senior school is one of the top ones in the country, it cannot afford not being academic. When I said mildly selective I meant that their exams at 7+ are not as complex as for another boys prep school so they take a wider range of anilities, but by the time they reach the 11+ stage the expectations are very high.

FWIW; Tiffins do not set much homework - well cerrtainly not the boys - DS spends more time on the i-pad. So if 'industry' or to be seen to be working is a big factor in your decision then TS is probably not the way to go.

...school thinks that too much homework makes the boys boring.

I believe homework is crucial at the time of preparation for exams. But once they've got in their chosen schools it can become much less, I have no problem with it. :)

@PrettyBelle. in actual fact it is the sheer number of applicants that is doing the job for these schools - it is the parents, not the schools, they are not really inviting it - off-record: TS would rather fewer boys sat the test, since the vast majority have little or no chance of gaining access to the school or the education it provides.

last year applications dipped a bit at 1644, but this was due to the change in dates - early sitting - if as has been reported for the next intake 2000 will sit for TS then the situation will certainly get worse - i am surprised that at some point parents don't just say 'not worth it' - we have now done this, despite having DS at the school - it is not really that difficult. Our last will transfer from Ofsted Outstanding primary to Outstanding comprehensive without the trauma of VR/NVR. We are much relieved for this - none of the boys like the selection process, or prosper much from it.

zoffany51, we do have 2 oustanding compehensives nearby - one is a church school and since this criteria we also also meet, we stand a good chance of getting a place in either of them. Maybe this will be a fall-back option in the end. As I said, apart from the local super-competitive indie, other boys school do not seem worth the huge fees - not to me. So it may well turn out that for DS it's either TS, or that indie, or one of the local comps. That's why he is definitely sitting the exam at Tiffin.

and I had thought that I will not look at this thread today.

@zoffany51

thanks for raising your concerns about 'the powers that be'. Actually, they are not that bad. Their motivation perhaps is an annual rise in league tables and good press, without working too hard to get to these levels. Their attitude has hardened over the years and change looks like defeat to the HT and some Governors.

My motivation has always been our local children and fair play for them. I would be very happy to see more local children in Tiffins and the Tiffins gaining its local character back, which has been lost due to inefficient and laid back LA and Councillors. I was never too bothered with my DCs alone as I was/am happy with their progress.

In fact, I am more than happy that my DC would not benefit from any change in TS admission arrangements now. I too could have kept quite as most of the Kingston parents have been doing, if we believe that very few respond to the Schools consultations. In fact, some parents take this matter up with the schools and give up as soon as the admission process is over for their children. So Schools know that all campaigns will fizzle out after some months. Only if we keep writing and communicating with 'the powers that be' that eventually, there will be some change.

When we raise this matter, we were bluntly told that catchments are illegal. Perhaps, LA was not aware of Rotherham judgement or didn't understand its implications.

Then I and some other parents at our local school, did some research and found that most grammars do have catchment or distance policies and that many grammars would not even allow to sit for entrance tests if one is out-of-catchment.

We were then told that Tiffins' open selection is due to a court judgement. When we asked for copy of that judgement, we were told by the Council Member for Education (current Council Leader) that LA does not even have a copy on record. I suspect this was not true.

We had to engage a Solicitor to get the copy of this judgement and we found to our utter surprise that High Court had actually held that Tiffins' policy of distance was legal and allowed it. Despite this judgement, Tiffins and LA chose to change its admission policy from 1993 and adopted open selection.

In my view, the LA agrees to whatever is suggested by the Schools or LA lacks sufficient knowledge about the changes which happened after the Greenwich judgement. After TS became foundation and its own admission authority, there was no reason that TGS admission arrangements could not have been changed. But proposals by the Kingston School Admission forum (2006) were thwarted by TS, and LA gave up believing that both schools must have same arrangements, although TGS at the time was LA maintained school and remained so till April 2012.

Last year's fiasco of multiple late entrance tests is another example of LA's and Schools' knowledge of the Admission rules. How many other selective schools conducted late tests? Is Tiffin itself carrying out late tests this year in mass?

No, never against the independent schools or pupil there. My light-hearted replies to 'prettybelle' were in the context that 'if indies don't have catchment, so Tiffins should not have any catchment as well'. Well, wake up. No connection, my Ladies.

in terms of number of places and such like - that's a tough one - DS2 sat Tiffin and was unsuccessful - his secondary transfer school has PAN of 240; whereas TS was 100 lower at 140 (though set to increase to 150 for next intake, and 180 at some future point beyond this). where would you put the cut-off i numbers? if TS PAN = 240, then DS2 would have gone up to join his brother this year. but i don't think parents would welcome the increase in numbers either - there has been considerable resistance to this - as i said before it is precisely the exclusivity / 'superselectivity' that is so sought after - so there-in lies the dilemma. if you want something that is so scarce then you just have to go for it and accept the risks concomitant with it. Good luck in any event - whatever you decide.

All fair points I suppose, but there are NO grammar schools in our area at all. None. Tiffin is the nearest and it's 25-30 min by car. And surely the right to high quality education applies to children from our area too?

I think I explained already why I do see connection between grammars and selective indies in terms of catchment. Both are supposed to provide a higher level education and parents often consider both equally when making a choice. The only difference is, at grammar schools you get it for free.

@tiffinboys thx 4taking time to reply - i agree, 'character' of TS is an issue that could be addressed; i have found the School bluntly resilient to any suggestion of change - i do not see how it is in their interest - since ever increasing numbers on open application is bound to push up qualifying score by a massing effect - which in turn 'guarantees' in their eyes continued success in exams and league tables. Oversubscription is appealing to them - they thrive on it - proof that 'we must be doing something right'. If you can effect change, then it will be a miracle i think.

Thank you zoffany51!

TGS became Academy in April 2011 (not 2012). typo.

@zoffany

I think that change will come, but it can come earlier if more and more of local parents from Kingston/Richmond regularly write to both Tiffin Schools. Best time to write in now - before draft admission arrangements are circulated.

@tiffinboys

I think to overthrow open selection that has been in force now for two decades you would be lucky. Only way i could see anything happening is if TGS does something, as they appear to be more progressive - and draw more clear water academically from TS - then it might change - perhaps, just maybe, but still i would doubt it. most parents are concerned mainly with their own DCs plight i feel, so the fizzling out of campaigns is somewhat inevitable - fueling the status quo. our boys are no longer interested in the place - their choice - they don't see it as a kingston school, and they do want to be with their peers locally - so for us, has pretty much lost its appeal and shine. i know there are many locals who have been through ordeal by Tiffins and who feel the same. paradoxixally Tiffins are a better deal if you come from far away, after all then you have nothing to lose. win, win.