Moving to Buckinghamshire for good schools

[Tulip81]

We are thinking about moving to Buckinghamshire for the grammar schools. However my dc's are still too young, for us to tell whether they have the academic ability to pass the 11+. So please can anyone advise which areas of buckinghamshire have best comprehensives as a back up plan, if my dc's do not pass the 11+. Any help would be appreciated.

Yes millymollymama i was referring to the waddesdon admission criteria, yes i agree the catchment area is probably very small, following the trend of other sought after schools.

Also i can understand grammar schools only want the brightest children, that needs to reflect in their exam results. I was reading an old article in one of the bucks local papers, which stated some of the places in the grammar schools were not filled. That says to me that the grammar schools would rather have unfilled places (and i guess less funding), than to take children who did not perform as well in the 11+. Cut throat business!

Actually you could argue that the grammar schools, technically the most sought after schools, are expanding their catchments due to recruitment of out of county children. Waddesdon is very different to other schools because is actively recruits the children of C of E Churchgoers from far afield. It has not shrunk its catchment. It has been minuscule for years and years. The Royal Latin Grammar School is also C of E but sticks to the 11 plus model.

I think the grammar schools fill up after appeals. However some are not full when the initial allocations are made. There is also a problem, such as the one I outlined in Aylesbury Vale, where insufficient children are getting the pass mark. When less pupils get the 11 plus than anticipated it has most impact on the school with less 1st choice applicants. They become vulnerable to having spaces, and less money. However I am not sure if their admission number has been reduced. I suspect it has not.

Not all grammar schools are full.

Certainly Upton Court (Slough) always has places because they cannot take you if you don't pass the 11+. They're not allowed to. It's not a popular school, and not enough people who pass the 11+ apply to go there. (It is close to 3 other more popular grammars)

This thread has made me think. And knowing what I know now, I wish I had moved to Bucks and my DC went to Bucks schools. 2 of them would have gone to a grammar and 1 wouldn't and all 3 of them would be in better schools then they currently are.

So my advice is to go for it! It's a lovely place to live with lots of very good schools. South bucks :)

And yet many people living in Bucks wish they lived in other counties where there are no Grammar schools.

Queenofnothing, when you say upton court arent allowed to take children who dont pass the 11+, who does 'not allow' it?

Upton Court Geammar still has over 1000 pupils though. They are an academy and select by 11 plus. They are not a Buckinghamshire school so I don't know what selection test they use. The same applies to them as applies to Bucks grammars one would imagine. Ie: if you don't get the pass mark you only get in by appeal. So as a grammar school they don't allow all children in. They no doubt let pupils in by appeal who are close to bring selected and I cannot see why they would have loads of spaces as they are Outstanding in their 2014 inspection. Slough grammar schools are not quite the same as many Bucks Grammar schools in that they serve a more diverse community. You can never assume that a few spare places in a grammar school means they will let lower achieving in. They just don't do that even though lots of people think they should.

Their admissions policy does not allow it. They can only admit pupils according to their admissions policy. I've never heard of someone getting in on appeal who was close to the mark, but maybe it does happen. It would certainly be a breach of their admissions policy.

Being 'outstanding' does not mean it's a good school. People aren't choosing it because there are so many better grammar schools near by. There are more grammar school places in the slough area (and in bucks) than are needed.

In fact this document ( www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/3110612/Allocation-of-secondary-places-2nd-round-April-2015.pdf ) tells you about allocations into bucks grammar schools this year.

Wycombe High School was under-subscribed. And all the other schools have a very healthy catchment of between 8 and 21 miles.

So none of them you have to live close to in order to get in.

The admissions policy for Upton Court clearly says they have an appeals mechanism via an independent panel. This will be for the near misses. Obviously the admissions policy says they are a grammar school and select via the 11 plus and candidates must score 111. However appeals are allowed. It is not a breach of the admissions policy and it is mandatory that they have an appeals system. There is an admissions code and they must follow it. Whether appeals are successful or not is another matter. I bet some are.

I don't really understand why it matters if the grammar schools have vacancies or not, or whether there is marginal over provision. It might impact on the neighbouring LAs schools if the better children come into Bucks. It does give parents choice though. Some of the secondary schools have vacancies too. In Bucks there are a few more places than needed and this has not been helped by the establishment of a free school that was not needed. Basically the very best schools don't have vacancies and those who choose Upton Court are maybe rather different from those who choose the Dr Challoners schools in Bucks for example. Slough is different and parents may not want to travel so far to a school in Slough, for various reasons. Aylesbury High school takes 50% out of catchment children. You can live in Hertfordshire or MK and be ok. 15 miles away. They will extend the area as far as they want to fill up and it is illegal not to do so if there are suitable candidates. Would you prefer to see the size of the Bucks grammars reduced so that they make 50% of staff redundant?

I love in bucks
There are a high percentage of private primaries which get the children into the grammars. The state doesn't prep so they are at an automatic disadvantage.
Only a couple of children got into challoners at our primary last year. I don't know too much about the other secondaries though.

Queenofnothing, interesting reading on the attachment thatt you've posted. Catchment is generous for some of the schools.

Millymollymama, i had to check which free school you were referring to, im assuming you mean sir thomas fremantle? I know its a relatively new school, i would be interested to here any views about?

Yes, Sir Thomas Freemantle. It opened because parents were disgruntled about the constant problems at the secondary school in Buckingham. It opened in the old Winslow secondary school buildings about 2 years ago. In 2014 it had 111 pupils. It is expected to get new premises in the future. It depends what you want. It cannot possibly compete with The Royal Latin grammar school in Buckingham, either educationally or for sport, music and anything else really! It just depends if you hate the Buckingham school enough to go with STF and take a flyer. Personally I would live in Waddesdon catchment, but children from Winslow have got into the Cottesloe school in Wing in recent times. You can commute from Wing to Leighton Buzzard for the main line train to Euston. Wing children are catchment for the Aylesbury Grammars.

We did similar with mixed results. DCs hated the villageprimary we sent them to when we first moved but we were able to move to a fantastic prep. Their experience of the grammars have been mixed. Do feel free to PM if you want to know more re grammars / other near Amersham