Additional South Warks Grammar places from Sept 2013

[Bad Dad]

Letter to AGS parents this evening states that Alcester Grammar will take an additional form in Sept 2013, increasing its year 7 intake from 90 to 120. The letter also says that further announcements will appear in the media shortly that Shottery will take an additional form in 2013. KES is expected to begin admitting girls into the Sixth Form and is also expected to increase its year 7 intake in the near future. There is an expectation of an overall increase in selective intake of 70 in South Warks.

[Warks mum]

At Stratford Grammar yesterday we were told that the form sizes will increase from 25 to 28 in Year 7 from Sept 2013, along with getting the extra form.

We were also told the Alcester Grammar and KES news, with the KES sixth form taking 25% girls from Sept 2013 and considering an extra form from Sept 2014.

[Bad Dad]

Report in Stratford Herald this week:
http://www.stratford-herald.com/local-n ... xpand.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bad Dad]

More details on PAN changes:
http://www.stratfordobserver.co.uk/2011 ... 25460.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Next year could be a good year to be entering a daughter, with 37 more places available to girls than boys. Having already had 2 boys go through the process and now on to my daughter, I couldn't have timed it better!

I am probably way behind, but I hadn't picked up on the announcements that preceded this at all. Wider details on the policy change:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... CMP=twt_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The South Warks Grammars seem to have acted incredibly quickly following recent government policy changes.

[midlandsmum]

This from a letter from the Shottery head explaining why they're adding the extra places

One significant advantage that it will bring to the school is extra revenue funding, since statemaintained
schools are funded on the basis of pupil numbers. This will help us to counter some of the
adverse effects of cuts in government funding, which otherwise would soon begin to threaten the range of
courses we could offer and consequently the quality of staff we could recruit and retain. It allows us to
plan for further curriculum development and expansion, instead of contraction at a time of budget
restrictions. The current government is encouraging good schools to expand, and has passed legislation
to enable such expansion. Shottery governors are keen to seize the opportunity.

[Bad Dad]

Interesting - thanks for posting that, midlandsmum. It does seem an obvious way for the grammars to protect themselves against the cuts, but I don't really get this bit:

The current government is encouraging good schools to expand, and has passed legislation to enable such expansion.

The grammar schools are massively over-subscribed because they offer a unique opportunity for education in a school populated with highly able and motivated children with strongly supportive parents. The schools get good exam results, but so they should! It is not a level playing field and the non-selective schools can't realistically compete for pupils, although they may have equally good teaching and management, because they are not allowed to select on ability. For me personally, it will work out fine if my daughter does perform at the extremely high level required for a place, but otherwise she will be faced with an alternative that has been further undermined and is less academic as a result of this policy.
Maybe the government needed the grammar schools to join the Academies program and this was the carrot to tempt them in. Michael Gove and co. are desperate to show that Academies get better results so they can claim the initiative as a success. Throwing the grammar school results into the mix on the Academy side will deliver the required skew to the statistics.
Oh well, let's hope it all works out for the best...