11 Plus Exams Forum

My son is applying for a place at a Grammar school in Gloucester. He has passed with a score of 215. To get a place last year he would have had to score 220.

Academic evidence is not under dispute because he has passed but as his y5 CATs scores put him in the top 1% I did not expect to be in this position. He is hitting level 5's in SATs already at a school were this is far from the norm.

My real problem is that his brother is currently at the school which is 19 miles away and I have two other children in the local primary. From January my DH will be working away during the week making me affectively a single parent during school hours.

The school is a CC school therefore not allowed to apply the sibling criterea in it's admission code. Does that also apply when you go to appeal and if not do appeal panels look more favourably on the need to have siblings in the same school? The basis of my appeal will be that due to logistics I need both older boys at the same school. Ironically the other Grammar in Gloucester does have a sibling policy but because DS2 was always the stronger prospect once DS1 got his place I assumed DS2 would get in too.

To sum up if I can't get DS2 into the school I will have to move DS1 which will be hugely disruptive for all of us.

Hello, Tolstoy

Appeal panels are not bound by the admission criteria. They are free to consider any arguments a parent puts forward as to why a place is needed at a particular school.

Thanks Etienne that is what I hoped .

p.s In regards to the distance this is our closest Grammar school and our local comprehensive does not have a 6th form.

Just to add to Etienne's reply, we were relieved to find that appeal panels can and do take any arguments into account, including ones that are based on good old common sense! Our panel was very sympathetic to the sibling issue, the fact that different schools in the same authority applied different rules depending on whether or not they had foundation status, and the logistical nightmare of having children dotted around various locations!

If you present your case as clearly and sensibly as you can, having researched all the possible options (e.g. bus timetables showing lack of alternative transport, breakdown times/locations of dropoffs and pickups for the various children etc.) and - if possible - some evidence that your DH will be working away, then hopefully your panel will be as sympathetic and as reasonable as ours was! Obviously there are no guarantees as the school's case might still be stronger, but if you present all the information at least you'll have done all you can.