Grammar school appeal advice.

[Picklepops01]

Good morning all, so today is the big day to find out what school my DS will be attending, we are going to go through the appeal process as DS failed on the day he had missed out 13 questions on one 4 on another and attempted his Maths but only scored 104 on it so overall score was 297. As DS missed out so many due to the usual being nervous, worrying about the time and one also being he had just turned 10 at the end of August and he'd not had weekly tutor lesson like his peers. Does anyone have any experience on the same thing and had the appeal be successful, the headteacher and year teacher were both surprised he hadn't passed as he's always been where he should be or working at a greater depth. But the school did not appeal on his behalf obviously due to it being a low mark compared to other children. Any advice would be most helpful.

I think you're missing the fact that they're are two very different appeals processes. One is an appeal on his he performed in the test, which had to be done when results came out in October. I don't know about Kent but I'm pretty sure Bexley had a deadline for this.

The other is appealing the school offer. He didn't meet the criteria to be offered a grammar school place (having not passed) so you don't have grounds for that appeal. Your were offered the school he met criteria for. I don't really understand why you put grammar schools on your just, knowing he hasn't passed and not having appealed then.

I'm fairly sure you've missed the boat here to appeal.

If he has always been on the border line between working at the expected level and working above the expected level then he's perhaps in the top 50% but not the top 25% who go to grammars.

Did the school not put him through for a Headteacher assessment?

Did he do CAT tests in year 5?

Thank you all for you comments I will end this thread now as i was only asking for advice as like u all I don't believe it will be successfulI the reason we are considering it was due to the school saying we should as they are surprised he did not pass and that he would be a perfect grammar school candidate etc...

But like some of you have stated I believe he will thrive in mainstream school which he is happy about anyway but he wanted me to try and I just wanted to carry out his wish.

Have a good Saturday.

Good luck OP, I hope he gets on well with whichever school he ends up attending. Glad to hear you’re both still happy with the offered school.

This isn't actually true - you can still appeal a place at a grammar school even if you haven't passed the Kent test. Very few people are successful but there is a legitimate process for it.

Yes they do .

It’s so difficult when your child underperforms on the day, when you know they were capable of so much more. However that’s the nature of the 11+ system, and it’s brutal. There will be other children who ultimately miss out on a grammar place by absolutely tiny margins - literally one or two marks.

Bearing that in mind I think your boy is too far away from the pass mark to warrant an appeal. Just bear in mind that smart kids will do well wherever they end up.

Where are you in Kent? I live in East Kent where appeals are much more likely to be successful - not least because some grammars are under subscribed. I have seen children go to the grammar schools on appeal with pretty low marks.

That said, your ds marks are low. You do need to manage expectations.

Will his school support him on appeal? They obviously didn’t go down the HT appeal route, but may support now. If they won’t support him, it might be worth waiting for SATS results. If he does get greater depth, or even high expected it will be a good foundation to appeal on. This does mean that realistically he would need to start secondary school at his existing offer.

As the poster above has said, it may depend on the school. My DD goes to a West Kent grammar; it's popular, but not a super selective. She recently told me, (she's yr 10 now), that quite a few of the girls in her form are very open about the fact that they didn't pass the test on the day, but got in on appeal.

By all means appeal if possible .Do bear in mind though that Grammar School is quite different as its a lot more pressure .Will he keep up or will it put more pressure on him? Just things to think about

If you’re still there OP….
I would say it’s very much worth mentioning if there was something significant that was happening in his life at the time that have contributed to his uncharacteristic underperformance on the day.
We’ve had four DDs go through grammar - the youngest did not pass the Kent Test. However, the weekend before the test DH was (literally) rushed in to KCH to undergo surgery for a brain tumour. Our appeal was direct to the schools we were interested in. I would add though DD had been working well above expectation for the years prior and we had evidence and backing for that (and her scores were only very marginally off). We did not mention this at all but her primary Head teacher (who supported the appeal) had mentioned it in his statement. The panel raised this with us (much to our surprise) and we agreed that yes, it possibly had been instrumental affecting her underperformance on the day. Although they did not say, we got the impression that it certainly added to their favourable decision.