Specialist College Status & admissions

[HilaryM]

What is the point of specialist college status?

Our two closest schools are
1 technology and ICT specialist school
2 performing arts specialist school

The 3rd closest is maths and computing.

DS1 (who is only in y3) has been on the G&T register for numeracy since yr 1. Is there ANY ammunition here for an appeal if he fails to get into school 3? (ie that it's our closest maths specialist college) There is nothing in the admissions criteria for school 3 to favour him.

Sorry if it's a daft question. I just don't understand the point of having these specialities if talented children can't benefit from them.

There are some schools who do select partially on the basis of aptitude for a discipline and that is in the admission criteria but the vast majority of schools do not and their specialisation has no bearing on admissions
You need to understand the background to being a specialist school. In essence something like 80% of secondary schools had a specialism of one sort or another and by having gained that "award" they got a nice big pot of funding. That specific funding now no longer exists and therefore there is actually no need for schools to have specialisations.
Having said that many schools really did have and still have significant expertise in the area that they chose, so it could benefit your child if you got a place in the school.

Thanks admissions.

We're not in a great position re secondary schools but I'm willing to play the system and try anything that might give us the edge if it came to an appeal situation!