N Yorks Catchment

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andy from embsay
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N Yorks Catchment

Post by andy from embsay »

Here in N Yorks we get our results 4 weeks after 11+, in mid-October. If they pass they get in to the GS as typically there's a 2:1 ratio of out of catchment children to in catchment here - so whilst your letter says "this is not an offer of a place" it is really.

The people who have the long wait are the OOC people who have to wait until March to see where the line falls - if anywhere. This year less children have passed in total than there are places, but then there are selection appeals in January. With the way the numbers have come out this year, every successful selection appeal means one OOC child doesn't get in - but this whole out of catchment thing is pretty contentious here anyway given the relatively high numbers of children whose parents don't pay their council tax to N Yorks.
hermanmunster
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Re: Tutor has gone on holiday!

Post by hermanmunster »

Not sure if it is that contentious in North Yorks, most of school funding comes from central taxation rather than local taxation anyway, so our income tax pays for the Skipton GS just as much as any parent. The catchment is quite artificial - many North Yorks parents who really live quite close are excluded.

I suspect that the number will work out fine this year - some of the OOC kids will decide they would rather go elsewhere anyway and a few will get in on non qualification appeal and then there will be some allocation appeals ... number will probably end up at 114 or so.
andy from embsay
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Re: Tutor has gone on holiday!

Post by andy from embsay »

It's certainly bloomin' contentious where i live! Lots of grumbling about the proportion of out of catchment children. I think partly that's driven by the fact that lots of the areas kids come from have really good schools (Ilkley, Bingley, South Craven etc) yet children from Skipton who don't get into GS pretty much have to go to Aireville, which has had its moments of having a pretty ropey reputation, as the possibility of getting into these other schools is pretty much nil.

Not terribly up on schools funding so that's interesting re the proportion of education funding from central govt rather than local, which i guess counters the argument about council tax. And i also didnt realise that there are closeish bits of N Yorks that aren't in catchment - i guess you'rr talking about going eastwards towards Harrogate and west beyond Gargrave? Although all catchment areas are "artificial" by definition, aren't they? Maybe they should just make the catchment area bigger!

I know when i went to GS you couldn't go outside your county - so at my school (Lancaster Grammar) we had boys from all over Lancs, including the bit I'm from which is now Cumbria, but none from other counties - whereas now there's hardly any of the hordes of east lancs lads there were in my day because they're all at Ermysteads!
hermanmunster
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by hermanmunster »

actually referring to Carleton IN and Cononley OUT - also Kildwick and Farnhill.. hardly seem tohave got into 4th gear before going past them, boundary very close to Skipton on South side and 18 miles at least on the North side.

yes loads of education funding is from central government - just comes down to the LEA as to how they use it. EGS and SGHS did increase their year size a few years back and got some grief from South Craven, Ilkley Grammar et al as they would be taking the brighter kids from their areas....
mitasol
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by mitasol »

I'm afraid that the catchment area issue can be pretty contentious everywhere. Some areas would consider you quite lucky to have a catchment area, as some GS select entirely by rank score order, without any reference to a catchment area.

The schools and the LEA consult on the admissions arrangements by March 1st and this gives parents the opportunity to make objections where they feel that the schools are in breach of the admissions code.

If you want to know more about school admissions then the School Admissions Code is a good place to start. :D

I've sent you a PM.
andy from embsay
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by andy from embsay »

Didn't the Skippy schools lose some adjudication or other a few years ago when they were told their pass mark should be the same as Ripon then they got a different opinion from another adjudicator?

It doesn't really make any odds to us (for a couple of years til the next one anyway...) as DD got through reasonably comfortably, but we do have several schoolfriends who've missed by 1 or 2 marks (and therefore would be 8 or 9 marks over the Ripon mark) who are grumpy about it. Their feeling is even though OOC children don't actually directly influence the pass mark there's still a suspicion that it gets pushed up in Skipton because there's so much tutoring, and that in turn seems to happen because people feel they're in competition with the kids from private primaries out of the area who do a lot more preparation for 11+. Unless it's the water...?

I'm sure I read on here that the difference with the Ripon passmark is one of those things one doesn't mention at appeals for Ermies of SGHS though?
hermanmunster
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by hermanmunster »

No Skipton / Ripon deffo not to be mentioned at appeals!

Interesting about the private primaries.. there reallay aren't many and TBH most of the kids at them don't take the Skipton exams.

Reckon most likely the water .... or the commuter routes?

PS - education budget for schools in England is £39bn from central government
andy from embsay
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by andy from embsay »

I don't think it really matters whether there really are private primaries cramming kids to death in Ilkley (although friends from there say there's a fair bit of it) - if people's (incorrect) perception is that their children are competing against children who are, then they will tend to respond by trying to "keep up", and once everyone's at it then it snowballs.

Don't know what the incidence of tutoring is in Ripon but in our daughter's primary class we only know of a couple of girls out of 15 who didn't have almost a year of weekly tutoring (and one has a parent who teaches at a GS) and one of my Ilkley mates reckons that tutoring from Year 4 isn't unusual amongst their friends, and some of them go twice a week.

Did i read somewhere that the adjudicator reckoned that one of the reasons for higher marks in Skipton was the increased incidence of private tutors? Must say my wet-liberal principles abhor the fact that if you can afford it you can get your kids a head start - then promptly sent them off for extra tutoring! I'm just like Diane Abbott, me... :D
hermanmunster
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by hermanmunster »

I have fairly good experience of the private primaries in Ilkley :wink: and can honestly say that they were far more interested in the Indie exams than the state GS exams! I think they felt that the GS exams were not so influenced by coaching. Very few actually took it anyway.

I was really not surprised by which kids passed and did not pass the exams for the GS.
mitasol
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Re: N Yorks Catchment

Post by mitasol »

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 86#p107786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
At the heart of the complaints was a difference in the test marks needed for a child to be considered for a Grammar School place in Skipton and in Ripon. The mark was set at the mark achieved by the 28th percentile score of the children living in the respective, selective areas and was higher in Skipton than in Ripon. The Ombudsman did not find that either the County Council or the Schools had acted with maladministration or had caused an injustice to the parents who complained.
The ombudsman drew attention to the need for parents to inspect the arrangements that were proposed and highlighted the differences between complaints to the adjudicator and those considered by the ombudsman.
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