Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

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surreydad2010
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Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:21 pm

Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by surreydad2010 »

Copied verbatim..
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Admissions Criteria
The school is currently consulting on some changes to our admissions criteria for 2012. These can be found on our website. The Governors would welcome written responses to this consultation by 25th February.
Parents will be aware that the school was recently subject to an adjudication on our admissions criteria. We were pleased that the objections were dismissed and that the adjudicator considered our admissions criteria entirely lawful and proper. However, the Governors have given due consideration to some of the concerns that were raised, and wish to address them in a way that we consider to be fair and in accordance with the school’s principles.
We remain committed to a selection process based on rank order because we are convinced that this is the fairest way of allocating places. Places will therefore continue to be offered on the basis of performance in the entrance test. However, we propose to make a change to the way in which we apply this criterion. This change will help us to ensure that, within the rank order process, there is greater scope for candidates living in the London Borough of Sutton to be offered a place at Wilson’s.
Under our current system, candidates’ test papers are marked, the scores are standardised and aggregated, and the rank order is finely differentiated by up to five decimal places. This means that ties between candidates are rare, even though a number of candidates may share the same rounded score. For admissions in September 2012 and beyond, we propose grouping candidates in bands of marks, so that, for example, candidates who have marks of say 145, 146 and 147 – and who can be considered to have, for all intents and purposes, the same academic ability - will be placed in a band together. Places will then be offered on the basis of the bands.
For the vast majority of candidates this will have no effect: all of the candidates in those bands that come entirely within the total number of places to be offered will be offered a place, irrespective of where they live. We anticipate that this will account for approximately 90% of the places offered (or around 135 of the 150 places available).
The change will affect those candidates in the band within which the last place is to be offered. Within this final band:
“places will be allocated in the following order: firstly to candidates whose home address is within the London Borough of Sutton in the order of the distance of their home address measured in a straight line from the main front door of Wilson’s School; secondly to those candidates who live elsewhere in the order of the distance of their home address measured in a straight line from the main front door of Wilson’s School”.
Entrance Test
The Governors have also decided to change the form of our entrance test.
Currently, candidates are tested in English, Mathematics and Verbal Reasoning. We have decided to remove the Verbal Reasoning test, so that from September 2011 candidates will only be tested in English and Mathematics. This is in order to ensure that the entrance test playing field is as level as possible for all candidates, regardless of any social advantage or disadvantage they may have.
Although we discourage coaching for the entrance test, we are aware that many candidates are coached. We have therefore come to the view that our test should include only elements that are familiar to all candidates. Candidates whose parents cannot afford or do not wish to provide for coaching may be in the position of never having seen a Verbal Reasoning paper before the test, and are arguably at a disadvantage, whereas all candidates are regularly taught and assessed in English and Mathematics in their primary school.
Our English and Mathematics papers will also be in a form that is as close as is practicable to that familiar to candidates from their Key Stage 2 experience. The content of the tests will continue to be based on the content of the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum for English and Mathematics.
999 mum
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Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by 999 mum »

surreydad2010 wrote:The change will affect those candidates in the band within which the last place is to be offered. Within this final band:
“places will be allocated in the following order: firstly to candidates whose home address is within the London Borough of Sutton in the order of the distance of their home address measured in a straight line from the main front door of Wilson’s School; secondly to those candidates who live elsewhere in the order of the distance of their home address measured in a straight line from the main front door of Wilson’s School”.
Won't this be against "The Greenwich Ruling"?
Mummyto3
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Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:23 pm
Location: Croydon

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by Mummyto3 »

Surreydad2010

Thaks a lot for this; where exactly is this on the Wilson's site?

Will be interesting to see if Wallington also change their exam paper.
surreydad2010
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:21 pm

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by surreydad2010 »

Hi, not sure if it's on the website yet - this came from the newsletter for my sons year (he's in Wilsons year 10)
mitasol
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Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by mitasol »

Mummyto3 wrote:where exactly is this on the Wilson's site?
http://www.wilsonsschool.sutton.sch.uk/ ... teria.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
wilsonsschool wrote:ADMISSION CRITERIA
For entry to the school in September 2012

Please note that these admission criteria have been agreed by the Governing Body and are subject to a statutory consultation which is current.
The newsletter quoted by surreydad2010 can be located here http://www.wilsonsschool.sutton.sch.uk/ ... n-2011.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sally-Anne
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Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by Sally-Anne »

999 mum wrote:Won't this be against "The Greenwich Ruling"?
No, because the subsequent "Rotheram Judgement" allowed Admission Authorities to define catchment areas. Both judgements are described very briefly here: http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/school ... ions-terms" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WP
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Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by WP »

999 mum wrote:Won't this be against "The Greenwich Ruling"?
The Greenwich Judgement says they can't discriminate against children just because they live in another LA. That implies they need a different justification for the boundaries of their catchment area. It would seem difficult to justify using a borough boundary that runs within a few hundred metres of the school, a point raised by the adjudicator last year. However recent adjudication decisions (in Warwickshire and Poole) have been tended to give less weight to the GJ when grammar schools are involved, and relatively few candidates are affected here.
Mummyto3
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Location: Croydon

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by Mummyto3 »

Thanks for posting the links.
Giulio
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Location: London

Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by Giulio »

to me this means that the waiting list will go by distance, in practice

I also think it is a clear and small infringement of the Greenwich judgement, I read about the Rotherham one, difficult to find details, I don't think it can be applied to justify the LB of Sutton criteria.

not going to do much of an effect, unless the bands are huge

on the other hand, scrapping the VR test will be good for privately educated children,
it will be bad for the really heavily tutured (not so sure tutoring makes a huge difference though)
and bad for state school poorer children with actual good potential

the point of VR and NVR over other tests is they show potential, rather then education level
loopylou
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Re: Change to admissions arrangements Wilsons

Post by loopylou »

In practice the number of children affected by this change will be small. Any child who passes convincingly will be offered a place regardless of where they live. Where the last few places are tied between candidates whose scores range from say 145.89761 and 145. 27613, the child who lives in Sutton rather than the child with a score 0.001 higher will get the place.

The focus on maths and English may on one hand be seen as overlooking a measure of true potential but it will also eliminate some of the "over tutored children beating naturally able children" debate. All children study maths and English. Untutored children almost never come across a VR or a NVR question in their entire primary school education and regardles of their use in measuring natural ability, much of this is mitigated by the amount of accuracy and speed training tutored children do to pass these tests well.
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