Young Carer - Grammar School admission

[busySunflower]

My elder son who is a young carer has qualified for grammar school, the admission criteria says:
"Children who have exceptional medical or social needs (e.g. registered young carers), which can be met only at this school, supported by written evidence from a doctor, social worker, educational welfare officer or other appropriate person. "
Can some here guide me how do we mention that this school can only met the needs ?
Has anyone been through this journey, do we need to fill EMSAR ? EMSAR considers only one grammar school and it has to be top preference, our 3rd preference specifically prioratise young carer but we realised this very late.

This is for Bucks

@busySunflower I would be asking what your DS thinks of your worries? Does he want to be defined as a carer, or just a standard DS? You can appraise the school of your home situation but how many carer dc do you realistically think are in Bucks grammars? Very few I would think. What school does he like? ONS is co Ed and one is boys? You haven’t mentioned SHF either. My DDs had strong preferences for schools.

I am RLS alumni. It’s a great school. I would speak to DS and do what he thinks is best for him. Most people love these schools and you must know they are way better than the alternatives other than Waddesdon but that might need church attendance depending upon where you live. I would never ever pick pastoral care and a caring club as a criteria over a grammar though and no, you won’t know exactly how good they are, but you do know both the grammars you can get to are top schools - so just pick the catchment one. Most people would bite your hand off for these schools.

I do t know anything about RLS but I do know the AGS is very academic and I’ve seen it criticised for not being a particularly caring school pastorally generally. I don’t know if it would be different for young carers though. AGS would be my preference for my academically capable young carers though but in terms of support all she needs is acknowledgment from me what she lives with and a break from her disabled sibling. But I e been met with comments on their lack of pastoral care when I’ve looked into it.

have you found young carers bucks? They put in a half termly group for the kids.

ignore the comments you have had about how a child that age should not be a carer. Until you live with it you cannot understand how unavoidable it is. Even without caring responsibility they are still impacted!!

I wish you well with it. Such a hard choice

Do you realise that it is a long journey to AGS from where you live OP? Probably leaving around 7.30am and back at 4.45pm and you have to pay for the private bus. More home work at grammar schools from my experience than a comprehensive. Surely a local school would be better with shorter hours and so more time for caring and relaxing for your DS?

Has he had a young carer assessment? I think it might help you prove he has caring responsibilities if he has one. He should be entitled to one. Having a sibling with autism does qualify.

@Burntt You do know Rgs is a grammar school do you? Of course it’s academic! There’s an assumption the DS needs special care at school. Has anyone asked him how he feels? Might be happy to be normal like everyone else at school.

@WendoverParent Where does op live? If neared RLS that’s first class.

i agree with others that DSs needs come first. Not caring duties. Did he prefer RLS or AGS? What he thinks matters but his needs a paramount. His sibling will get needs met elsewhere when it’s his turn,

@OhDear111 OP deleted the post where she/he said where they live. Definitely not in catchment for the grammars otherwise their DC would get a place without needing to mention caring.

MY child is most certainly NOT any kind of ‘young carer!’ 😆 I don’t need caring for in any way shape or form. Don’t you dare talk about my child whom you have never met! You have been reported for your ableist post! How dare you?!

@busySunflowerI think you need to speak to social services about this entire scenario, OP. You need to be extremely careful that you’re not seen as parentifying your son here. Also, your son’s ‘caring’ should not have any impact on your choice of school for your son. Let him go to the school he qualifies for based on his own merit, not what special treatment you can secure for him and I mean that respectfully. He won’t thank you in the future, if his adolescence and his education, is impacted by his deemed ‘responsibility’ to his brother. Rightly or wrongly, he may well blame you.

Please get your DD registered as a young carer, because regardless of how much you try, if you have a severe disability she will be a carer. It can open up funding and support.

So many people not reading posts properly.

As I read it, the ds has qualified for grammar, but does not live near enough to any grammar schools to gain admission. Bucks has a category for exceptional social need and OP would like to use his carer status (which Bucks give as an example) to move him higher up the criteria. Only one school can be cited for exceptional need though and OP is uncertain how to identify the right one.

In the absence of any other information, I would look at after school clubs and subjects - ‘Bigly Grammar school has a chess club which none of the other schools offer, and Max is a keen chess player. However his sibling’s disabilities mean it is not possible for Max to join the Saturday morning classes in the county so attending Bigly Grammar would be the only way he could maintain this skill.’ Or something….

However shouldn’t the form have gone in at the end of October?

I think you need to ask in SEND specific groups as most people on this thread don’t understand.

My ds is a young carer, because his sister is autistic . He doesn’t care or parent her in anyway, it’s a recognition of the impact it has had on him. Much less now, but when dd was younger there were full violent meltdowns, we were limited to where we could go, our lives had to revolve around her needs.

One example of where I intervened with school was when a meltdown resulted in some of his school books being destroyed.

He definitely has emotional needs that need to be taken into consideration and his form tutor has always been great at providing opportunities for him to offload. A few times I have intervened too over things like forgetting small things. Because sometimes our house has been utter chaos, and it’s not surprising.

Most groups for young carers are for children and young people who have a family member with needs, even if they don’t care for them. It’s a space they talk about what it’s like and not feel different.

DS2 is a carer for DS1. He’s in Y13 and has just submitted his ucas form. There’s a box to tick on the form to state if you’re a young carer - not because the young person will be caring for someone when they’re at university, but because being a carer impacts your whole life whether you provide hands-on care or not. Some posters on this thread seem to not quite ‘get’ this.

Would your child want to be identified as a young carer at school? That means potentially more attention and being asked lots of questions / chatting within school etc.

Mine point blank want a more "regular" life if that's possible and not be singled out within school - not to carry all the baggage that they sometimes feel. They wanted to exist as "everyone" else so I never followed it up as I was following the lead as the siblings as sometimes they get a harder life being in a sen family 100%.

Are you too late to move house / rent to get within a closer catchment area?

"Can some here guide me how do we mention that this school can only met the needs ?"

@busySunflower being a young carer is not particularly exceptional, and if you can't think of a reason why this is the only school that meets his needs then certainly nobody else will. You need to face facts that he doesn't qualify for the EC criterion and not waste your time or the school's time by pursuing it.

The EC criterion is usually only awarded to 1 or 2 children max per school per year and usually for very unique circumstances.

And yet Bucks specifically give being a young carer as an example of what counts as EC 🤷‍♀️

No, it's a category under which you can theoretically show why there is an exceptional need for that particular person as a young carer to attend. Being a young carer isn't enough.

@WendoverParent So this is about an angle to jump the queue to get into a grammar? So the distance criteria is not the deciding factor? Trying to cheat then.

You may be able to find advice on this website or post in their forum section.

https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/

Well, having a sibling with autism / additional needs IS potentially very demanding for a child and this is recognised under the definition of a young carer. So it's not necessarily about gaming the system. Being a young carer is hard. I have a daughter a learning disability and epilepsy and her sister was hugely impacted. And unless you know what life is like for the people in this family and how going to a grammar school might help, we can't really comment.

Do you think the same about looked after children who also ‘jump the queue’?

This just demonstrates why being a young carer is not enough, on its own, to qualify for exceptional circumstances. There are probably many dozens of young carers applying to grammar schools in Bucks. On its own, it isn't an exceptional need, only when combined with other factors which should be obvious to the op. If they are not obvious, then the need is obviously not there.

I sit on a committee that considers exceptional circumstances applications for a school and unfortunately it is a very misunderstood criterion. I often wish that the common application form would pop-up the full criterion wording (including notes on required evidence) for parents to read before they tick the box because most never look at the policy. The vast majority of EC applications are rejected, either because the need is not exceptional, or because there is no evidence to corroborate that ours is the only school that can meet the need.

People do sometimes ask for examples of circumstances that would qualify but each case is unique, to the extent that describing it in enough detail to explain the rationale would probably identify the individuals involved and be a breach of GDPR.

I would look at the data of children going on to university and good careers from a grammar vs state, for a young carer vs a non young carer and shape the argument around the need to ensure where possible that they aren’t more disadvantaged than their qualifying peers (so attending a grammar for a hopefully stronger future vs state)

This is more appropriate to an appeal (which considers the balance of arguments) than for an exceptional circumstances application (which needs to be decided on the basis of evidence from a professional that this is the only school that could meet the exceptional need).

A statistical argument would, at most, provide (weak) evidence for why young carers in general might be prioritised at a particular school. It will not persuade the panel that this child has an exceptional need that only one school can meet.