Catchment areas
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BlimeyG'vnor
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:11 pm
How come the High Wycombe Grammar schools only give places to in-catchment children and up to a distance of about 5 miles, where-as the Aylesbury schools go up to about 20 miles out of catchment. How about more places for in catchment children please ? They might "catch" a few more of those naturally very bright children that have just not been tutored like mad that just miss the boat every year. I know of one Aylesbury school that had about 25% of its pupils from out of catchment for last year's Year 7. Probably going to make a few people cross with this statement, but think that there are more people that are a little fed up with so many coming from so far.
The short answer is that it's the same qualifying mark throughout Bucks and the RGS, Challoner's etc are more oversubscribed with those reaching qualifying scores than some of the other grammars in the county. It seem implausible that there's significantly more tutoring in one part of the county than another, it's just that the places are in the "wrong" place.
I guess the only solutions would be variable qualifying mark (confusing, as most apply to more than one grammar), or else reducing the number of places in Aylesbury and increasing them at RGS, DCGS etc - but they're huge already, so that would't work either.
I guess the only solutions would be variable qualifying mark (confusing, as most apply to more than one grammar), or else reducing the number of places in Aylesbury and increasing them at RGS, DCGS etc - but they're huge already, so that would't work either.
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Sally-Anne
- Posts: 9235
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
- Location: Buckinghamshire
Hi BG
This is one of the "endless arguments" that occasionally turn up on this Forum. There is no need for anyone to get cross about it - it is down to demographics.
In some years the Aylesbury schools are over-subscribed, and in others it is Wycombe. The usual huge pressure point is South Bucks, so if you are not in South Bucks, consider yourself lucky!
The grammar schools are cemented in to specific locations. No one can move them. Some are close to the County boundary, and therefore they tend to pick up more OoC applications. Others are more "central" in the County, and therefore they are over-subscribed.
The only change each year is where the children are applying from, and then qualifying for the 11+. No one can predict that.
SAlly-Anne
This is one of the "endless arguments" that occasionally turn up on this Forum. There is no need for anyone to get cross about it - it is down to demographics.
In some years the Aylesbury schools are over-subscribed, and in others it is Wycombe. The usual huge pressure point is South Bucks, so if you are not in South Bucks, consider yourself lucky!
The grammar schools are cemented in to specific locations. No one can move them. Some are close to the County boundary, and therefore they tend to pick up more OoC applications. Others are more "central" in the County, and therefore they are over-subscribed.
The only change each year is where the children are applying from, and then qualifying for the 11+. No one can predict that.
SAlly-Anne
one could probably write a piece of software which annually calculated the ideal location of every Bucks grammar school according to current demographics.
