11 Plus Exams Forum

My daughter passed her entrance test exceeding pass mark by 5.5 percentage points but we are out of catchment so she is currently 11th on waiting list. She has an elder sister at the school, so we want to appeal on that basis. Should we make a case for her academic ability as well as the emotional disruption she's going through or just concentrate on the 'sibling' case. We know the school has 11 over PAN in our daughter's year (2008 admissions) but not sure how we can find out what happened last year & would that strengthen our case? Your website has been a invaluable source of info so far, thank you

Family5 wrote:My daughter passed her entrance test exceeding pass mark by 5.5 percentage points but we are out of catchment so she is currently 11th on waiting list. She has an elder sister at the school, so we want to appeal on that basis. Should we make a case for her academic ability as well as the emotional disruption she's going through or just concentrate on the 'sibling' case. We know the school has 11 over PAN in our daughter's year (2008 admissions) but not sure how we can find out what happened last year & would that strengthen our case? Your website has been a invaluable source of info so far, thank you

Does the school have a policy of giving priority to siblings in its oversubscription criteria? If so then you need to check that this policy has been properly applied in your case. If not, then you can still use it to support an appeal. You can appeal on any grounds you like - if you think the school will meet your DD's academic needs most closely then that's a valid point but you shouldn't need further academic evidence for oversubscription as she has already passed the entrance test. However, if you have evidence that she excels in an area in which the school specilizes - music, sport, languages etc., it could help your case.

This is an interesting point that Family 5 puts forward.... does the fact that previous years intakes have 11 over the PAN give any weight to the argument that if they did it in the past, why can't they do it in the future? Or are this year's appeals based solely on this year's PAN and cannot be referred back to previous years admissions?

We are in a similar position to Family 5 and I was wondering if you could use that as one of the arguments at appeal? ie if the prejudice to the school has been less than the prejudice to the child in previous years for those extra 11, why can't it be the same this year?

I suppose you could argue that it depends who is appealing and what their circumstances are?

Does anyone have any input on this?

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/11plus ... ers.php#c8

It's quite easy for the school to argue:
• We had no choice in the matter. We've coped because we had to.
• It puts an unacceptable burden on teaching staff
• Our results may appear not to have been affected, but we believe they could have been even better if we had been allowed to keep to our admission number!