secondary admissions 2013

[gloo]

Anyone know when the booklets etc will come out for this application round?

Anyone know if the admissions criteria are generally expected to be the same (I know local areas vary, but just wondered if there's any big sweeping national policy change that will affect all areas that I should know about!!)

Went to visit a school tonight and it was very nice. It is our nearest one, but it happens to be a Catholic school and well, my ds isn't even christened so not sure if we will stand a chance :o

Have another one to visit on saturday so we will see how that goes. I'm not looking forward to this process, we had to go to appeal with my dd four years ago and I can see the whole thing happening again. Ho hum.

It's doing my head in. Went to local school Open Evening last night & some of it seemed fine, good even, but one of the show classrooms was in shocking state: filthy carpet, beat up walls, damaged ceiling, the work on the walls looked primary level at a glance. This was in my first degree subject so especially disappointing.

Next door was the history teacher who came across as lovely (DD fave subject = history). I deliberately avoided looking at carpet or walls. I am under impression this school forces kids to choose either history or [my subject] at GCSE (damn, should have asked about that, but somehow there wasn't enough time for anything).

Meanwhile DD clings to the idea of attending posh expensive girl's school 1 hour's travel away with lots of homework (sigh). I am going to push the idea on DH that she could go for Yr9 entry there, when she can more maturely judge what the sacrifices (for her especially) would mean.

I am resorting to explaining to DD what the different academic standards & results mean, how the scenarios play out for her various options (she is ambitious). It seems unfair to expect her to assess the options fairly, but I think I can't feel satisfied with final decisions without a huge amount of input from her.

2 more tours before we submit applications.

Nail biting for the 2 week wait for 11+ results. Not holding out too much hope tbh, as DS1 didn't sit the main sitting, he sat the alternate sitting, and he was STILL ill when he sat it.

But I need to know if he has any chance of getting in to the Grammar before I fill in my application form. Grrrr.

I know his results are due on the 15th October. Until then, we BOTH have knots in our tummy.

DS1 wants to attend the Grammar FAR more than I want him there! I fear he will be disappointed. Though he enjoyed the your of what would be our second choice school, I was impressed far more by what would have been my 3rd choice school under their new HT. It has changed massively for the better, and is definitely a school on the way up.

Given the expansion plans for the second choice school, and adding in an extra site separate to the current one, I fear that this will cause issues. And it will open the second site (under same HT) when DS1 starts Y11. Not good timing IMO.

Aaagggghhh! Such a complicated decision.

Yes it is isn't it. I am far more stressed this time around! The school my dd goes to doesn't have a sixth form so am looking at a move for both her and my son. Ideally I'd like fir them to be at the same school (ages meant this hasn't happened before) but I have to be realistic.

Bugger, it seems that the open evening for our local high school was last night and I missed it. The open morning was on tuesday and I couldn't have made it anyway. Oh well. He'd be going there regardless, as it's basically the same school he already attends (on a different campus: same HT, same policies, same uniform, same teachers who circulate between the middle and high school) and it's at the bottom of our road.

I applied and felt obliged to put down three out of four choices. DS1 is guaranteed to get into our first choice school because they operate a feeder system as priority 2 (1 beng looked after children) and there aren't enough children in the feeder schools to fill all the available places.

Now I have to look into first schools for DS2, which won't be as straightforward. We've got a choice of 5 different schools that we can get into (based on the published admissions information for all previous years), so we have to visit them and make actual choices.

I went to the open evening for the new school, it was very impressive, Mac's everywhere, kids wandering round with Ipads, everything shiny and new, DS loved it all, especially the sports hall.

They were touting the overall GCSE results as being 88%, but did not publish anywhere what the results for 5 GCSEs including Maths and English. When pushed they said it had not been properly collated yet , which is strange given how all the other secondary schools in the area have done so. After some prodding an English teacher said it was somewhere between 40-50%.

So as much as I would like DS to go to school in lovely modern surroundings, I think the older school is going to be first choice.

One of our local state secondaries has a VA score of 1026; all the others around 992 (including the school DS1 is at). Rather stark contrast.
(But I don't know if it means a thing for DD).

The last league tables show the boys school having a VA of 1020, and the new build school a VA of 973.2.

I've just done the application and put the old fashioned boys school as first choice, and the new build as second. Now I just have to wait til 1st March.

I am getting antsy that I can't put in my application until after the 15th.

The best achieving comp has a value added of 989.9. Not great, especially as I know that their low strainers actually make FAR more progress than they should, as I have seen it first hand with my DD there.

Which only means that it's their high achievers like DS1 that they are failing. Which cheers me no end...

Not low strainers FFS. I bloody hate Autocorrect. Low ATTAINERS.

DD started Y7 working towards NC lvl 1 (really, she has SN's). She is in Y10, and may well get C/D in some of her GCSE's. which just shouldn't be possible, in truth!

So I can't see that it's the lower sets they have issues with.

The super selective Grammar has a VA score of 1000.

Couthy, are you in Gloucestershire, or have I invented that? Just wondering, if you are, which schools you've looked at (nosy Glos mum of Yr 2s)

Nope, am in North Essex. Am looking at the superselective Boys Grammar in my town as option one, closest local school and second closest school keep chopping and changing for options two and three. Options 4,5 &6 are schools that we have absolutely no chance of getting into, due to distance, but I have to put 6 on the form. Only the Grammar, closest school and second closest school are accessible to us by public transport (don't drive due to disabilities).

We only have one Grammar here, and it takes just 96 boys from 800+ applicants from a very wide area of Essex.

Wow. Good luck to your DS.

Admissions application deadline is passed, no going back now.

Roll on the 1st March.

I know Manky. I was logging on last night just to check that our application was still showing as "submitted" as I was paranoid. Thankfully it was

I keep checking too.

.

We had to apply on paper, for complicated reasons, so not being able to check that we are "in the system" is driving me nuts!

I did do "signed for" delivery though, and know it was delivered. oh no not over thinking this at all [hgrin]

I thought i'd feel relieved when the deadline was up. No going back and all that, put it out of your head till March.
I'm not though. Keeps popping into my head. Bloody worrying.

I will probably panic once the league tables are out in December too...

Feel super stressed about the looooong wait till March, despite knowing that he has a guaranteed sibling place (siblings are second priority, only after looked after children) at my third choice, and we are only 0.3 miles away, that I will be fine with if he doesn't get into the Grammar.

Though if he doesn't get into the Grammar, I will be appealing.

And my options had changed just before I submitted - my DS pleaded for me to add the superselective Grammar in the next town over as our second choice.

Though he is out of catchment, and hasn't made the OOC pass mark, he said that if you need to appeal the first choice on the basis of academic ability and illness on the test day, then surely you can do the same for the second choice too.

I couldn't argue with his logic.

So choice 1 is the school he most wants to attend. And I most want him to attend., the local superselective GS.

Choice 2 is the superselective GS one town over that has a catchment, which we are not in, so he WILL need to appeal for to stand any chance of entry.

Choice 3 is our guaranteed, sibling linked, practically on our doorstep, local comp.

Choice 4 is the next closest comp, that I was surprisingly pleased with.

Choice 5 is the partially selective comp bloody miles away that DS stands NO chance of getting into because he didn't sit the selective test, and we are too far away.

Choice 6 is the almost crap comp more than bloody miles away, that is only on the form because I need 6 on there. And it is far better than the other two comps that he would attend over my dead body!

Six months is such a looooong time. Will we all find our way back here on 1st March?

I'm only bumping this to tell Couthy that we had your Spicy Sticky mince the other night and it was a resounding success

(sorry for hijack)

I'm glad you liked it. It was born out of one of those "Oh, bum, I don't know what to cook" moments, and I just shoved a bit if this and a bit of that in the pan and it turned out so nice it became a family favourite!!

Oo, could I have the recipe please Couthy? Even the name of it sounds edible :)

I've already started fretting about how he'll cope at secondary school (he has Asperger syndrome, but isn't statemented), the school bus is very noisy and it takes an hour or more to get there by bus.