Dame Alice Owen's School - sibling policy?

[GlassMatryoshka]

Dame Alice Owen's School (DAO) is very much an anomaly in many respects. Amongst other things, it seems quite odd to me that a secondary school with such a competitive intake, with a good number of students commuting in from some distance away, would also have a sibling policy.

So if I could have the temerity to ask: Should DAO rethink its sibling policy?

Before responding, may I please ask that you put yourself in the mind of someone responsible for high-level policy making decisions and NOT from the point of view of someone with a vested interest, i.e. a parent with multiple DCs. Of course parents with more than one child would say it needs to be kept for a host of individual reasons - this should be patently obvious.

If I could ask that this question is considered in the broadest possible terms - both for the longer term view and in the greater scheme of things.

First things first, what is your role in this? Your stake? Are you a member of staff at the school? Form the council? DoE? A parent in the local area?

Before responding, may I please ask that you put yourself in the mind of someone responsible for high-level policy making decisions and NOT from the point of view of someone with a vested interest, i.e. a parent with multiple DCs. Of course parents with more than one child would say it needs to be kept for a host of individual reasons - this should be patently obvious.

I am a very experienced policy writer. As such, asking all stakeholders views is pretty standard. Different stakeholder will have different priorities, they all need to be considered in the process. So stakeholders have naturally vested interest, as they should, interest will vary.

My dc go to a different school in a different area but your question stood out to me and asking for only one set of views will only help confirm your bias, so would be unhelpful for policy development.

Separately, it is understood that in semi selective schools, it is usual the calibre of families that make all the difference. Usually families with one high achieving child have other children that are also highly aspirational albeit perhaps not as highly academic and, as we know in the selective system, some peeak sooner than others. The diversity of sibling academic ability semi selective schools have is generally seen as a positive. Less pressure more opportunity to grow as an individual.

HTH.

I am a parent with a DC, prospectively considering the school.

My apologies for my amateurishness and if I may have put more spin on it than intended.

I'm really just curious what others think on a holistic level.

If this might be stirring the pot too much, I can take it down.

DAO is in Potters Bar. Herts doesn't have a grammar system only a handful of semi selective schools. Or are you suggesting to turn DAO into an ordinary neighbourhood comprehensive?

Why would this be 'stirring the pot'? It's perfectly ok to ask what people think but you mentioned policy and in policy development you ask the views of a diversity of stakeholders.

You can post anything you like as long as you abide by forum rules.

However, if I understand you correctly, you are a local parent and worried your dc may not get a place as the intake is competitive?

It's highly doubtful DAO will be changing their admissions policy in a radical way, although one never knows.

@rainoldcar I don't expect DAO to change their admission policies. And this is not meant to be the beginning of some kind of movement to get them to do so. Just armchair speculation with the benefit of anonymity for all.

I'm happy to share more about my circumstance, but I would also say it doesn't matter in the context of my post. My question is more broadly to do with how equitable the system is, however people may define that. My DCs case is just a drop in the water by comparison.

If it is ok with you, I'd like to wait for others to chime in so it is not just a dialogue between us. Particularly parents of DAO DCs, both present and past, as well as parents of prospective applicants?

No skin in the game here...but I do think it's a bit of a strange policy tbh. I can see that it's really appealing for parents - get one kid in, any further siblings also get to go...no need to manically tutor subsequent children!

Also, having all your children at one school is quite a nice thing in terms of parental logistics (particularly in quite a challenging location like DAO) and the sense of community it brings. My kids all go to the same school and there are quite a lot of other 'entire families' through the school, despite there being a strict no sibling policy. It's lovely because kids get to know each other across years and in a household, siblings can discuss which teachers and parts of the curriculum they like (or don't!)

However, it does seem quite odd that siblings at DAO are automatically able to go, when it's so competitive for so many others. I think it's a bit of a quirk, just as the 'we must take X number of kids from Islington' thing. I suppose, on an administrative level, it minimises the number of kids they have to consider from the entrance exam and catchment.

According to Google, DAO school was founded in 1613 on land in Islington, where it remained for centuries before relocating to its site in Potters Bar, in the 1970s.Hertfordshire doesn't operate a grammar school system but as a relocation compromise and due to its historical foundations the school retained partial selection. It is a bit of a quirk but the alternative would have been turning DAO into a fully comprehensive school. It will never be a full grammar.

Editing to add that its history in islington is why they have a small % of students coming in from there.

Hopefully other posters, perhaps local ones, will have more helpful things to contribute.

Best of luck with your school choice OP.

No, I think the sibling policy makes sense. DAO is a school with a minority of its intake spots based on aptitude, not a grammar school.

In a PAN of 200 a maximum of 75 places are chosen based on aptitude (65 academic, 10 music). Almost two-thirds of its intake is deliberately non-aptitude based. In fact, all LAC, siblings and the 22 closest applicants have priority before any academic or music aptitude places are allocated. And sitting the aptitude exams still requires applicants live in certain boundaries, so even those aren't purely aptitude-based places.

The school deliberately has a wider intake than just the aptitude places. It's not a grammar under a different name.

To add:

Because the aptitude places are limited in number but come just behind siblings in the oversubscription criteria, it's actually very-nearby students who don't have siblings and don't meet the aptitude hurdle that have a reasonable argument for being disadvantaged by the atypical oversubscription-criteria; that's the admissions criteria that gets squeezed each year. But what's atypical about DAO's oversubscription-criteria is those 75 places based on aptitude... offering sibling priority at a non-grammar is exceptionally common.

It just seems unnecessarily over-complicated to me. Why not make it like a grammar entirely with a wider catchment (like Latymer or Henrietta Barnett, say)…or like a comp with a catchment and a sibling policy?

The entire English school preference system is arguably unnecessarily complex, but within that the DAO system/criteria aren't exactly arcane.

DAO has had immense success as a partially-selective school. Having a partially selective intake where a large portion of each cohort is made up of families that pursue academically-selective education and students who are academically high-performing and yet also having a wider intake than true grammars is a core part of what has made it such a strong school and so popular. Why change that? And it's hard to argue on evidence that Herts' approach of having true comprehensives along with multiple partially-selective options like DAO (and the Watford Grammars among others) rather than running a separate grammar system isn't working well overall.

It's common practice for musical/sport aptitude places to work like this. If you have a musical older sibling, you can often get into good schools by hanging onto their coat tails on a sibling place.

It’s a way of increasing selectivity by stealth.

@GravyBoatWars 75/200 qualify each year on aptitude places. How many do you think qualify as siblings of those who gained aptitude places? I think it's typically about 40 (out of 70 siblings in total), many of whom likely would have gained aptitude places had that criterion come first. At any rate more than half of the students come from selected families. It's debatable whether the school is closer to a comprehensive or a grammar. "Partially-selective" is an apt, if unsatisfying, description.

Because DAO is in Herts and Herts does not run a grammar system.

If people want to put their kids through a grammar system they might consider moving to Beds, Essex, Kent, London.

@CheerfulMuddler - exactly. Personally I think it's a bit odd. I wouldn't like to be the younger sibling hanging on the coattails of an older one, and equally I wouldn't like to be an older child pressured to get into a school in order to benefit the family. I guess parents might keep the sibling advantage quiet when the eldest child is going through the admissions process - but the families I know with kids at DAO all really, really pushed their eldest kids on academic or musical tuition.

@rainoldcar - but selecting on aptitude from an entrance exam IS essentially a grammar-like system in part, isn't it? Yes the sibling/music/catchment places might make for a more varied cohort academically, but it's not exactly a comp...

You are right, DAO is not a comp, it is a partially selective school and Herefordshire seems to have a handful of partially selective schools, for example Watford Grammar, which used to be a full grammar school until the 70s and has retained a partially selective intake (and its name). Herts does not run a state grammar school system. The only way you could transform the intake policy for DAO is to turn it into a neighbourhood comp. I don't know if that would be popular in the community?

You either have a sibling policy or you don’t. Can’t imagine a two tier sibling policy aka only the siblings of the 22. Some superselective grammars dont have a sibling policy other grammars have a sibling policy as long as you pass first. Most partially selective schools that have a sibling policy, have it for everyone.

I'm not saying anything is right or wrong tbh. But personally for me, and what I know of the school admissions process from families that have been through it, it all seems massively overcomplicated. You've got catchment places and various levels of restrictiveness around that (looked after kids, SEN needs etc), sibling places, music places, academic places - and then the Islington places!

@rainoldcar

I don't know if that would be popular in the community?

Define "the community". I suspect the family who lives 23rd furthest away in distance would be all in favor.

Sure, that one parent would feel differently for their own child in that one year.

But if you turned DAO into a pure comp then in 10 years will it still the same DAO everyone has scrambled to get their DC into? Or have you just stripped away an integral part of what makes the school so desirable?

Policymaking has to take into account the perspectives of individual stakeholders like that 23rd parent, but it needs to fit those individual perspectives into a far more complex picture.

Agree with this - DAO is clearly an excellent school and I don’t think they should be forced to change the sibling policy, but nor should they be able to claim ‘comprehensive’ status when it suits them (for example, heralded as ‘Top Comprehensive in the South East’ in some league tables). Same goes for the other Herts partially selective schools - it’s disingenuous given how cherry-picked most of their intake is.

This is very much my experience too - one family I know put all their eggs in the ‘academic older sibling’ basket, to the point of even moving house into DAO’s catchment just to enable him to take the test. Thankfully it all worked out in that case, as the pressure on the poor child was enormous; he spent most weekends in the year beforehand being driven around various practice test centres to hone his exam technique.

Reductio ad absurdum, policymaking about local schools doesn't take into account the perspectives of people in other countries. My point is: who should be considered valid stakeholders and how much importance should be attached to their perspectives? What's magical about Islington (yes, I know the history, but if we're talking about theoretical changes...)? What's so special about the postcodes in the official catchment area? They're a good description neither of all the homes within a specified distance nor of all the homes within a specified commute time.

Those people who live within a short distance of the school would likely take the perspective that they'd prefer strictly distance criteria. A school with more selection might be a more "special" place, but it doesn't benefit them if they can't get a place there even if they live only 10 minutes walk from it.

Those people who live an hour commute away, the ones who care, would likely take the perspective that they'd prefer fully selective on exam scores. Again, a school with some non-selective intake might be a more "special" place, but it doesn't benefit them if they can't get a place there.

Who is the school supposed to benefit?

DAOS is a comprehensive in the same way that Marie Antoinette was a shepherdess. 😇