CSG - What do the cut off distances mean this year?

[GreenAndSpringy]

I’ve been following the Banded cut off distances for Camden School for Girls (CSG) with interest for some years now.

2020
A 0.46
B 0.77
C 0.47
D 0.40
2019
A 0.82
B 0.49
C 0.31
D 0.54
2018
A 0.80
B 0.58
C 0.88
D 0.35

But the latest have really thrown a curve ball:
2021
A 1.32
B 0.81
C 0.42
D 0.30

I’d like to get my head around what this disproportionate A Band distance is actually telling us.

I guess it’s possible that many of the girls who sat the Banding test and received the higher scores asked to be removed from the Council’s list before the 1st March if they received an Indy offer before then (or moved from Town). This kind of fits in with the narrative that more children are taking up private options this year. This isn’t my preferred theory.

I suspect that it’s more likely that a larger cohort than usual of academically very-able girls took the test and weren’t dissuaded by the historical cut off points. This theory suggests the A band is made up mostly of girls who would ordinarily score amongst the highest 10% of a CAT and thus are distributed amongst the population accordingly - hence the longer offer distances. It also suggests that most of the sibling offers weren’t in the higher bands this year.

Furthermore, if the trend to go private this year is real (at least locally), my guess is that the unpublished Waiting List offer distances for Band A (and to an extent Band B) would extend rather further still.

Am wondering if anybody else has been struck by the unusual cut off distances this year and has any comment, or come up with their own ideas/theories. One final data point is that Band D is 0.3 miles and there are at least 10 girls waiting who live no more than 0.1 mile past that point - it is a VERY squashed band.

Hope your DD gets into CSG!

I can't chip in on the bands but would be interested to know why you think there's a trend to go private this year?

@thesunday

Hope your DD gets into CSG!

I can't chip in on the bands but would be interested to know why you think there's a trend to go private this year?

I’ve read quite a few anecdotal comments within this forum of more kids going private, the reasoning is that the private schools have been offering (or are seen to be offering) a better online learning experience.

All the girls in my kid’s class (State school) who had CSG as their first choice have been accepted. That includes us, but thank you!

Obviously, the standard means of communication and data sharing - school gates - has been severely curtailed this year. It has been a very unusual year, and the more I (hopefully we) understand the implications of this unusualness, the better.

Yes, it is unusual. Had my DD been Band A she would have got a place. As it happens she's Band B. It was her 2nd choice school, Parli being top. I'm waiting to hear back on her waiting list places (more so for Parli).

I'm gobsmacked by how far this distance is. Does it mean that a lot of the band A girls didn't even apply? I wonder if a lot of them are just doing it for practice.

Both mine got offers from a not dissimilar distance but a few months after offers day (we didn't take them in the end). They were band A and I was very surprised, even a bit annoyed as had we known we might have made different decisions about applying to private schools in the first place.

Both were good at tests - got 120 or 119 in SATs etc but I did see that girls just a short rung down (but still in top 10% of so nationally) were band b or c. It's not at all representative of national averages.

It feels a bit dodgy - getting into band A becomes like a grammar school test that if you pass, you're much more likely of a place. Although I guess it varies every year.

Sorry not very clear - our offers were for two and four years ago.

@ExiledinIslington

Yes, it is unusual. Had my DD been Band A she would have got a place. As it happens she's Band B. It was her 2nd choice school, Parli being top. I'm waiting to hear back on her waiting list places (more so for Parli).

I will keep my fingers crossed (I remembered your posts and hoped your dd would be successful). Still, the anecdata about an upturn in Indy acceptances may make this possibility a little more likely. We are on the “wrong” side of CSG so Parly would have meant certain waitlisting had we gone for it as our top choice. And there was so little in it, it is such a lovely school, we luckily decided to visit in 2019. We were really impressed with EGA also, each of those three schools are a potential ideal fit depending on the personality of the dd.

I've just got her places-17th for CSG, we're 1.2 miles away. Parli, I think, is really no chance.

“One final data point is that Band D is 0.3 miles and there are at least 10 girls waiting who live no more than 0.1 mile past that point“

This is what riles me about the banding test. A group of children, girls, who can’t go to their local school. I’m assuming some girls from the local primaries, Torianno, Brecknock or KT didn’t get places. Although maybe I’m wrong in that all this that wanted them from your DDs primary, got places.

It doesn’t really matter, to them, what band younger sisters are in. Or where they live. Band D? Live In Kent? Older sister in school. In you come.

Sorry to derail. Back to the point. Do you know these band A girls are academically very able? There aren’t any actual scores for this or last years entrants but there are for 2017/18/19. I don’t know enough about CATs, or care enough, to work out if the A band girls in those years are bright in regards to the general population. Here are the “anonymised” banding tests for 2017,2018 and 2019. I say “anonymised” as some children are easily identifiable by their DOB.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/anonymised_test_results_and_band#incoming-1400988

@PatienceVirtue
I think the list reflects the expectations of the candidates, and it may become a self-fulfilling expression of those expectations.

I guess, potentially, if folks were attracted to a similarly Banded school because of the help it gave to those who struggled academically, the offer distances would lean askew towards the other direction.

The Banding test was useful for us. I let my dd work through 3 non-verbal reasoning tests I picked up online as she hadn’t seen them before. The 3rd time I timed her and put her in a unfamiliar room. Her Banding “result” helped us determine which order to put down our preferred schools. No SATs this year and Indy kids get to know their CAT scores, just having this bit of a guideline is useful for knowing as a parent where to (and where not to) push her - or rather “nudge”.

@Camdenish
I do think it’s deeply unfair that one band extends as far as Archway whilst we (had dd been in another band) wouldn’t have got into our closest school.

I did comb through those test results you linked to and, peering through the small hole of evidence and examples I have, the banding was applied just as I would have expected (taking 2019 data as a model). But that self-selection I mentioned unthread was at work in our local school, all the kids who wanted to go to CSG were placed in higher bands. I already mentioned that we might have changed (or rearranged) our choice had we been given a different banding group so we ourselves took part in the self-selection.

I don’t want to point fingers, I see it just as much being about the perception of the school as the school itself that skews the intake. Taking in what has happened is an important step to addressing it that becomes necessary.

Oh yes, I agree about the self selection. I’m sure it starts earlier than the results of the banding tests. Some children’s parents don’t apply for the tests in the first place.

I’d love to know the reasons for the disparity in the banding distances over the years. Last years seems to be the anomaly to me. Last year band A was quite small where as it’s usually larger. Also last year the waiting lists at either end of the bands didn’t move much, or went in the “wrong” direction. This is all anecdote though.

When the applications went in for schools in October were parents basing their choice on CSG original
Lockdown offering, or the new improved second lockdown offer? Maybe it was easier to get into indi schools this year?

@Camdenish “ When the applications went in for schools in October were parents basing their choice on CSG original Lockdown offering, or the new improved second lockdown offer? ”
I don’t think I understand what that means.

Am not well plugged into the school gates chat at the best of times and felt very removed from the usual fonts of information this past year. You and a few others on this mumsnet forum became vital as sources of data for our decisions. As a long term lurker, thank you!

I don't know much about the area or schools involved, but OP I just wanted to make sure that you knew that schools don't prioritise children who put them first in their preferences list, and you should always list the schools in your genuine order of preference? I may have misinterpreted your posts (apologies if that is the case) but I read them as implying that you ordered the schools based on your DDs chances of getting a place, which isn't how it works. I'm glad it worked out for you anyway as it sounds like you did get the school that was your genuine top choice

@ChildOfFriday Thanks, but I understood preference has no bearing on how kids are prioritised. We made our own “sorting hat” decision based solely on which schools we thought our dd would be best suited for and the Banding result helped us feel more confident about those choices (it helped that the result confirmed what I had suspected).
And that’s what happened, CSG was our first choice, which meant she was automatically removed from all other waiting lists.
Had we put Parli in first choice in position 2, she would have been accepted at CSG and a place would have been maintained for her on the Parli waitlist.

We thought long and hard about the realistic options available to us (hence all the studying and lurking) and made up our list accordingly.

Correction:
Had we put Parli in first choice and CSG in position 2

Great Apologies.

@ChildOfFriday No need! 👍 I think I had to explain the concept about 3 times to DH before he finally got it :)

@GreenAndSpringy ha, glad to be of help. I’m not always very good at working out what data means but I do love that it’s available!

I don’t understand your post about waiting lists, but you’ve a place so I guess it doesn’t matter!

The word was that provision during the first lockdown was poor. Who knows the reality? I thought the National Curriculum had been suspended. I’m just wondering if that had a bearing on applications? The provision during second lockdown has supposedly been great. However no one applying by 31 October would have known this future knowledge!

@Camdenish - thanks for explaining what was meant by “first lockdown” and “second lockdown”.

To be honest, without a massive white board and coloured pens and graphs and charts with long proddy pointers it is really hard to get some of the ideas I want to express onto paper, particularly as I only vaguely grasp what it is I’m trying to communicate!

We’re hoping a close friend of my dd’s can still make it into CSG, so we’ll continue to follow the waitlist movement over the coming weeks/months. Anything seems possible this year!

@ExiledinIslington

I've just got her places-17th for CSG, we're 1.2 miles away. Parli, I think, is really no chance.

Exiled, remember Parli has no banding and a larger intake, so you never know.... What number are you for Parli? (and good luck!)

71.....

@ExiledinIslington - Oof! Not the best number to see written down, but it is still feasible 🤞.
And I did wonder what we’d be seeing if we’d put Parli down as a higher choice as we’re 1.4 miles away. I appreciate the info.

We're 1.5 miles from Parli. I know the cut off increased to 1.58 in July 2019 but not that high last year. I do know someone above DD in the list who is going private so that's one less! Her offer is at Highbury Fields which is perfectly fine and we're happy with it but Parli just seems the better fit. Oh well.
Apologies for derailing the thread!

@ExiledinIslington

We're 1.5 miles from Parli. I know the cut off increased to 1.58 in July 2019 but not that high last year. I do know someone above DD in the list who is going private so that's one less! Her offer is at Highbury Fields which is perfectly fine and we're happy with it but Parli just seems the better fit. Oh well. Apologies for derailing the thread!

@ExiledInIslington, I misread your post and mixed up the distances, thanks for clarifying. To be honest, I don’t see this as a de-rail at all. The offer distances for CSG only really make sense in the context of the other schools. It’s all connected!

We didn’t think we’d have a chance in getting Acland Burghley (AB) and it’s closer than Parli. I wouldn’t be surprised if AB was the most sought after secondary school in Camden.

LSU was not a consideration for us (I went to a RC school and have intense views) but I suspect it is undersubscribed this year. This may have had an impact on Parli’s intake. That could mean the silliness of a dozen girls (silliness that made last year’s headlines) has had this knock on effect on you and others.

I have no data at all on EGA except that the cut off distance usually hovers around the 0.9mile mark. It’s one of those places that might seem intimidating unless you actually visit. We did so in 2019 but I don’t believe it was possible in 2020, DH had hoped to see EGA for himself but was thwarted by COVID restrictions.

From what I gather the waiting list at Acland Burghley doesn't move so much. It seemed to be the top choice for a lot of the boys and a few girls in DD's year. I think only one got in.
LSU wasn't on our radar being atheists and we are too far from EGA, plus at some open days, I saw 2 girls looking to leave there which put me off.
Unfortunately, DD never actually saw Highbury Fields!