Could he get into Tiffin School?

[LuckyMumOf1]

My son really wants to apply for Tiffin. He has all 9s predicted for subjects he wants to do at A-level (Bio, Chem and History) and 8s and 9s for everything else (except one 5)

He does lots of extracurricular stuff - participated in all his drama plays, does public speaking competitions, HPQ and DOFE.

I would be quite grateful if anyone who had a child in a similar position was able to get into Tiffin and what are the tips for applying?

Thank you!

P.S We are in the priority area

Presumably you mean for sixth form? So long as he has mostly 9s and 8s predicted for 8 subjects that are on the list in the admissions policy he stands a good chance. The more 9s the better as applicants are ranked by the total of their best 8 predicted grades and there will be many applicants who are predicted straight 9s.

Have you read their admissions policy? The extra-curricular stuff isn't relevant (or at least shouldn't be).

He wont get in if he doesnt apply for sure .
Apply but have a back up option

So they won't factor in his French? Since his best 8 subjects are all 9s? I have read the admission policy but I would have assumed in things like interviews, extra-curricular activities plays a role like for all other schools we've applied for.

If you read the policy you'll see that his best 8 predicted grades will influence whether or not he gets a conditional offer (clauses 17.1ii and 17.1iii). Once he has the conditional offer in his hand, he needs to meet the conditions which are set out in section 18. For French he will need to achieve a grade 7 in August.

https://www.tiffinschool.co.uk/_docs/admissions/Admissions%2520Policy%25202024.pdf

If you read the National Admissions Code (which you can find online) you'll see that state schools are not allowed to "interview" candidates or ask applicants for information that isn't relevant to their oversubscription criteria. Tiffin sixth form flouts the rules because their sixth form application form does ask for information on hobbies, interests, motivations. They invite their highest ranking applicants for a "meeting" with a member of the senior leadership team, which can feel like an interview (they do ask about hobbies, interests, motivations) but is quite relaxed. At the end of the meeting they tell the applicant that they will be getting an offer in the post. As far as I know, everyone who is invited to a meeting gets an offer, but I suppose they just want to meet them first to make sure everything they say is consistent with the info on the form.

The conditional offer letter does imply the offer can be withdrawn if Tiffin later get negative information reports from your current school, but I don't think that would be legal (unless perhaps it was serious enough to warrant expulsion).

By the way, Tiffin's policy of ranking and issuing conditional offers to applicants based on their predicted grades, is also against the Admission Code rules, because predicted grades aren't objective. A recent ruling by the Schools Adjudicator against Twyford CE School's similar admissions policy confirmed it to be a breach of the rules. Nobody has referred Tiffin's policy to the adjudicator yet, but in the meantime, any rejected applicant whose confirmed grades are significantly higher than their predictions may have strong grounds for appeal, citing the Twyford case.

Tiffin don't send rejection letters to waitlisted applicants until late August/early September, and they don't include information about how to appeal (which is also a breach of the code in itself), but you can ask about the procedure and, if you're lucky, they may just prefer to send you a last minute offer rather than risk an appeal going ahead.

What would they then use to consider if not predicted grades?

Y11 mocks, Y10 summer exam, school report?
It does seem fair though seeing schools do tend to inflate predicted grades, but at the same time using the summer exam results isn't fair on someone who's come back performing far better in Y11.

I guess they may need to re-rank everyone based on their actual grades in August, before confirming offers.

But it's up to them how they resolve it, so long as they follow the Admissions Code.

Following thread, as DD in similar situation. Good luck! 😀

Fyi, the "meetings" are usually late Feb/ early March.

That's annoying as we've applied to other colleges where we need to let them know our decision by December at latest. So we either take them or put full faith into Tiffin!

You mean the others are private sector and you need to pay a deposit?

You can accept as many state offers as you like, and should have at least one contingency option lined up, because all offers will be conditional.

Yes, the others are in the private sector.

Predicted grades at GCSE are completely different to UCAS predicted grades. There's no incentive for schools to inflate them - if they have their own sixth form, why would they want to help their Year 11 students get into another school?

In any case, the Tiffin policy says the ranking is "based upon our assessment of their estimated grades", which means they take contextual information into account, such as recent reports with mock grades. (Again, all this breaches the National Admissions Code which says reports from current schools can't be requested, and, although contextualisation may seem wise, it is subjective not objective).

If students are being predicted straight 9s it's because, based on their track record and work ethic, they're capable of achieving them. In reality, they're likely to have a bad day on some of their papers and get some 8's in the mix, but nobody can predict which subjects that will happen in, and it's not fair to randomly include a few predicted 8's just for statistical reasons (that's what Ofcom's Covid algorithm tried to do in 2020, with disastrous consequences).

I’ll trust they ask for his Y11 mock grades as well? Problem is he didn’t do the best on his Y10 summer exam but he drastically improved for these mocks because he just revised more.

I just hope they take that into account

You can send them more contextual info and a narrative to back it up for their 'assessment'. If they don't take it into account, and your son later gets better grades than predicted, then it is extra evidence for what would already be a strong appeal case.