DD has not passed the 11 plus

[Louise353]

DD has not passed the 11 plus. There are 310 places and about 3000 children in our LEA area. Last year, grammar school places were offered up to the child who came 359th, as some people have a grammar school place in another LEA as their first choice so even if they come within the 310, they don't want the place. Beyond that, children who came between 360 and 370 were allowed to apply for reallocation in case further places became available by September.

DD has come 385th, so she won't be allocated a place and will not be able to apply for reallocation. I don't know if I should appeal or not. If I don't appeal, DD will not be able to apply for a grammar place again until year 9. Her brother is at the grammar school. Compared to places like Bucks, it is extremely difficult to get a place through appeal here.

I'd appreciate any advice on whether or not I should appeal.

So about 10% go to grammar school and 90% elsewhere. Looks like your dd will be going elsewhere. Do you have grounds to appeal? Not liking the fact your dd hasn't passed is very hard but not grounds to appeal. She will be with the 90% and will probably do very well. It is common for children at top of comprehensive do better then their friends at bottom of grammar.

What do you think your grounds of appeal might be?

Has she actually failed the test, or has she passed the test but you don't think that at her position she will get a place? Ie if say 100 children preferred a neighbouring LEA school or an independent school, would she therefore get a place, or did she get too low a mark to even be considered?

I appealed, unsuccessfully as it turned out.
DC knew nothing about the appeal but at least I knew in my heart that I had tried everything possible.

I agree with mnistoo - she'll probably do very well being one of the brightest at her local school.

Why would you want to put your daughter through going to a grammer if she failed her 11+, she will do better being on of the brighter ones at comp rethare than one of the ones that struggle at grammer. Think how it will effect her confidence.

what do her primary teachers think?

My understanding is unless there is procedural error an appeal is unlikely succeed.

She's 385th and there are 310 places- so 75 kids (nearly 1 in 3, can't do the maths) would have to drop out for her to get a place. It isn't going to happen and it's cruel to your DD to leave her "dangling".

Bit of parental spin doctoring around what I hope you have started already " the exam is to find the best school for YOU " rather than "if you pass 11+ you go to the best school" and she'll be fine.

Whether you think she underperformed on exam day or what ever the "exam has decided" that she will go to the community school and be one of their most able pupils.

I'm a mum of 3 grammar school kids and believe me if my child was borderline on the tests I wouldn't want them in that highly competitive environment - better to be doing well and in the top streams etc feeling good about yourself, than at the bottom stream of a grammar doing equally "well" but feeling a failure because "everyone else is better than you at maths " or what ever.

Coming outside the top 10% is not the same as failing the 11+ - her position still means that she is in the top 20%.
What alternatives are available - independent or comprehensive.
My view is that it really isn't the end of the world that this has happened. My view is that testing of children aged 11 isn't always very reliable. Know of some children labelled as "gifted" at this age who only obtained average GCSE results and vice-versa.

This LEA has 'Review' and 'Appeal' stages. Dd got through at Review because of procedural problems. The primary Head totally supported dd in this. Her friend at another school missed by 1 mark and had no support and did not get through. It's very significant in this LEA. Lots of 'advisors' and 'consultants' and lawyers advertise their services to help with review/appeal. Dd is very happy at the (imo ridiculously pressured) grammar school.
A friends dd in a different LEA just passed 6 A, 6A* GCSE at the local comp, so 11+ is not all that, really.

Forgot to say, 10% get to grammar via review/appeal here

juliascurr

Our local grammars take the top 5% approx- how can 10% get in on appeal? Or do you mean 10% of the grammar places are filled after appeal (still sounds a lot- on an intake of 300 that is a whole class of 30!)

I will try to explain it a bit more clearly...

Our grammar schools have no catchment. The neighbouring LEA has grammars but have a catchment. Many children in the neighbouring LEA will put their local grammar school down as first preference and one of ours down as second preference. This means that many of the children within the 310 highest scoring in our 11 plus will also pass the 11 plus for their local grammar and be offered a place there because it is their first preference. So although there are 310 places, at first allocations in March last year, places were offered at our grammars to 310 children but the lowest ranked child offered was 359, because 49 children who came higher had gotten into their first preference elsewhere.

The LEA then said it was possible for the children ranked 360-370 to go on to a reallocation list for the grammar schools. Some of these children did not wish to be placed on the reallocation list and decided to stay at their local comp instead. Some of these children were offered places by September because other children who had places at the grammar as a first preference took up independent school scholarships between March and July, moved house or decided they rather go to the local comp.

So even though she has come 75 places below the 310, the reality is that she is extremely near to the lowest ranking child who will be offered a place at the school. At appeal, the school would look at her score compared to the lowest ranking child who had got in without reallocation, which could be, for example rank 364 to her rank 385. As most people will decided not to appeal, it could be that she is the highest ranking child to appeal.

Now to come on to the other point, DD doesn't really need to go to a grammar school. If she had answered one more question correctly, she would have got in. But she would always have been borderline for getting in. She would never have gotten an amazingly high score in the 11 plus. For any other child in that situation, I would be thinking that a child who scores that highly would be in the top 15% of children (and DD was not tutored), so once the top 10% of children have gone to grammar school, she should be in the top set at the comp.

But that is not going to happen with DD. For French, Geography, History etc, she should be in top set because they are based on her CAT scores which will be similar to the 11plus. For Maths, Science and English, she will be in low sets because her predicted SATs results are low. Now, I know that 11plus maths and VR measure a different thing to the SATs, but I don't think the difference between the two should be such a gulf. So am I left with a choice between appealing for the grammar (where she will be one of the least able) or sending her to the comp where she will be in low sets for half her academic subjects. In some of her national curriculum sub levels she made no progress at all between end of year 4 and end of year 5.

So I can teach her at home how to do the Maths (although I don't understand what the problem actually is as she did well in the 11 plus Maths) and the reading test, but her Science and writing will be based on teacher judgement, and she has the same teacher as she did last year.

So rather than appeal, I'd rather resolve why there is such a big difference between her 11 plus result and her national curriculum levels with either the primary school or the comprehensive school she is going to, but I'm not really sure how to go about that. But I certainly don't have the choice between bottom of the grammar and top of the comp.

Thanks to anyone who has bothered to read all of that.

By the way Theas, I have told DD that she is definitely going to the comp, and even in the unlikely event that I do decide to appeal, I would not tell DD that I was doing so.

Comprehensives know that SATs are a very poor measure to use as the basis of setting. We always did our own assessments but moves students around a lot at first to get them in the correct place. Her low sats results which may be better than predicted will not definitely put her in low sets.

All secondary schools take SATS with a huge pinch of salt. All the ones I hve contact with through work do there own assessments (the kids schools teach whole class till GCSE and then set for maths and english).

SATS are such a broad brush assessment and both being "taught to test" and the teachers assessments can really skew things plus the ceiling of level 5 hides many degrees of "doing better than expected for age"

the latter - 10% of grammar places. Presumably, to allow for 'off' days and referral to past performance

That ^ referred to Theas at 16:13

Thanks Thea and Addictive. The school does set straight away in the 3 main subjects based on SATs results, but it would be a rare school if there wasn't much opportunity to move between sets later on, especially as they will be doing CAT tests for the other subjects.

I think it is really the right thing for her to go to the comp, and if I'm still worried I could speak to them about it. I think I'm worrying far too much and trying to predict eventualities based on very little!

Louise - you should google the eleven plus forum. They have a section on each county that does the eleven plus (all different) and also have a section offering advice on appeals. You might find some advice more specific to your situation there.

For what it's worth, I would ignore those who say that someone who just scrapes into a grammar school would be better off in a non-selective school. I have 3 kids at grammar. The one who just got in by a couple of marks is doing far far better than the other two, both of whom got very high scores. The difference is that he is a grafter and the other two are not.

I'd vote for the comp. From a teacher's perspective a comp teacher has to be able to teach children from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of abilities.

She might start in low ability groups but her teachers will do their best to get her into higher sets and gether GCSEs

When you say her predicted sats results are low, what do you mean? I think you have a different standard to the rest of us as I certainly wouldn't think my dd had failed when she was in the top % of people taking the test and only didn't get in by 1 mark (though i can understand your disappointment). Our secondary doesn't set for English early on - check with your school what is set and what isn't. For example something like humanities isn't set but science and maths are.

(ah sorry saw you clarified the set stuff)

I am just interested in what you think is a low sats score as I have a dd (yr7) who had a monumental gulf between those cat type tests and her sats results early on but it closed by yr6

Aren't there always a fair few children using these grammar school places as back up to their first choice independent? Anyone going private at 11 is only just now sitting the entrance exams for their school and won't know the result until after the applications for state schools are closed.

Is it worth hanging on in there on the waiting list.

Fox, DD's teacher has predicted her 4b in everything but reading, which is a 5 (he didn't state the sublevel). I am most concerned about the Science, because even if I teach her the Science at home, there is no national test for it for her to get a national curriculum level from. So he can presumably base her Science grade on his judgement rather than on a test.

4b would be very low in Science. I know teachers say it is the average, but as nearly half of all children nationally get a 5 in Science, and then quite a lot must get a 4a, a 4b is actually below average and would presumably put her in the bottom or next to bottom Science set in terms of the catchment for our comp.

I think what I should really do is write to the Primary head and explain the situation to him, and ask if she can be tested in Science at the end of year 6, and a lot of weight be put on that test.

I think you have a slightly unusual situation here in that your DD scored well on the grammar school criteria but isn't doing as well using the "normal" school criteria. I think I would be concerned as to why this is happening and is this going to be an ongoing problem whichever school she goes to.