Judd 2016 Admissions Consultation

[frangipani]

Looks like Judd's admission criteria will change next year.
If it goes ahead it should make local parents (especially in Sevenoaks) very happy!

http://frog.judd.kent.sch.uk/index.phtml?d=275278" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[chimera-ma]

Gosh, that IS good news for those of us with boys in Sevenoaks - and its environs. Thanks, frangipani.

Looks like KCC is working on providing boys' alternatives to the Sevenoaks annexe now that the annexe seems likely to be for WoK girls only. Kent's updated Commissioning Plan for Education called for six new grammar forms of entry by 2016: the Sevenoaks annexe provides three for girls and now we know one for boys will be at Judd.

I wonder if Skinners' will follow Judd's lead with an extra class of entry and a majority ring-fenced West Kent intake? Skinners' recently committed to a permanent extra class (can't remember if from 2014 or 2015) but they may be able to take on still more once their new building is constructed (replacing the Old Gym), particularly if there is generous funding for the extra places as the Judd link suggests.

The new Skinners' building is to support Sixth Form provision and to house the English Department and a new library. Tunbridge Wells Council signed off on planning permission a month ago. I saw the plans at one of the school's Open Mornings in October and they were impressive.

[mystery]

Oh, wow! That's quite some change of direction from a search for the holy grail of super selection multiple choice tests to a double - pronged approach to hoovering up as many west kent boys as possible while retaining the admission by score approach. Sorry about so many mixed metaphors.

If skinners followed suit, there would probably not be anything superselective about judd or skinners.

[salsa]

Does anyone know what this reference mean? Do they currently have mostly "out of county" pupils? How many?
What happened since 2013?

"This increases our PAN to 155; however we should ensure that the historic (pre September 2013) number of “out of county” students joining Judd does not increase (20 at most)."

[mystery]

There were not many ooc pupils in the past - maybe 20 per year at the very most. They are saying they don't want the new admission policy to lead to this increasing. With an "inner area" that only contains some small areas out of county, and a low limit on the number of boys from "outer-area" which includes the rest of kent as well as the uk -15 - it is unlikely they would reach anywhere near 20 ooc boys in a year group.

In the past, theoretically all the places could have gone to out of county boys if enough of them had come higher in the rankings, but in reality there was not that kind of bias in both demand and performance.

This new policy represents a shift along a spectrum - at one end of the spectrum is a school for the 'brightest" boys ( as measured by an inevitably flawed test) irrespective of home address so long as they are willing to travel there. At the other end of the spectrum is a grammar school with a catchment area for west kent boys who have passed the kcc test giving priority to those who live closest.

Interesting.

[salsa]

Thank you Mystery. What I am puzzled about is the quote to the "pre 2013" levels. It makes me think that something happened after 2013. Did it? Did they suddenly have lots of OOC children, if so, how many?

About the brightest or higher scorers, Dartford Grammar was targeted by children from South London as it is easy to get to by train. Those children needed higher scores than the one needed for Judd. I wonder what will happen this year when Dartford increases their intake to 180 making 90 spaces available for the children from zone A and 90 for children from out of that area. Every one will be ranked, so, you could live next to the school and not get in with a pass. I don't know why they have changed this. Maybe because due to the amount of people who moved to zone A when their children passed and then moved back to where they were after they get a place?

With a second child hoping to go to Dartford Grammar in 2016, I don't know if these changes will favour him or not.

[frangipani]

I think I have read elsewhere that the ooc intake has increased each year and was at around 36 boys in 2014. So I expect 2015 intake will include at least 40 ooc's.
Also there are other boys from within Kent, some who travel quite far but won't be able to anymore. For instance my DS is hoping for Judd this year and we live in Maidstone. I've seen quite a few Judd boys at the station but it looks like this will change in the future. Some boys I believe also come from Ashford, Dartford and other areas.
The new criteria should free up quite a few spaces for west kent boys. I think it's completely fair and the right thing to do.

[salsa]

Thank you frangipani. So, under the new rules, would your son have been admitted living in Maidstone? Am I reading this correctly? I thought they excluded Maidstone on the basis that there is a more local grammar there?

[frangipani]

No he wouldn't. He scored highly, but not full marks. That's what I'm saying. In the future it will be very rare to get in from our area because there will only be 15 spaces for all out of area applicants, which will mean having to score almost full marks in the new style test and competing directly with ooc's. It is likely that most of those 15 spaces will go to ooc's from high achieving primary's.
But that's a good thing. It will mean a few more spaces available for west kent boys and other grammars will benefit from more high scoring boys choosing a local school. If Judd hadn't been an option for us we never would have considered it and other people I'm sure would have the same opinion. In fact In a way I would have preferred it, less choice would have made our decisions much easier

[mystery]

I had not realised the ooc numbers had gone up so much. Do we have some official data on that? It seems unlikely a third of the intake was ooc?

Under the proposed new rules one could get to Judd from Maidstone if one had a high enough score for one of the 15 outer area places.

The expansion plus the restrictions to mostly west kent children surely have to lower the "selectivity" of Judd and at the same time have some impact on the other boy grammars depending on how they vary their policies over the coming years.

I am not convinced that this news on Judd signals that Weald will definitely go ahead with a three form entry girls annex in Sevenoaks. I think they could really end up scraping the barrel to fill it as the other girl grammars will surely try to stuff in as many girls as they can too without the headache of a second campus miles away.