Bucks Appeal

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SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

We only discovered this forum when our DS failed to qualify on Friday. In the preparation he was consistently scoring 70 -75 and finishing well within the time. In the three practice papers the school does across September in exam conditions he scored 69 in every paper.

We had 114 and 116 in the real thing. His eldest sister scored 141 and middle sister 131. We thought he was there or there abouts.

We have the support of the head teacher and she has told us to appeal. I have put a confidential submission in with some further details regarding bullying.

He is predicted level 5s but has only really started to perform well in the last term or so. We feel we have let him down as looking back we have excellent KS1 results but since moving school it has not been as good.

We are little tired of the 'he is just a boy' response and will just be slower to mature!


(On a note he does not wish to go to the same school as his sisters. They do baby him!)
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by Sally-Anne »

Hi SadDad

Thank you for the emails to the AppealsBox. Could you please tell us his month of birth? It would also be helpful if you could send a further email to the AppealsBox with the name of the school, and also how long the Head has been in place. I would like to check their track record on the 11+ if I am able to.

The mitigating circumstances will undoubtedly have much more impact if the Head herself confirms them in writing, and makes her professional assessment of the impact on your son's education in Y5. I suggest that a separate one page letter (no more) would be appropriate, because it gives her more space than is available on the summary sheet itself.

That will have far more credibility than an assertion from you, the parent, that his education was disrupted for a period of time. It might also help to compensate for the predicted SATs scores, which are probably not going to be strong enough to support your case on the scores he achieved.

Are his school reports good, i.e. do they talk about ability? Has the Head explained why she gave the recommendation she did? You will need to assemble every scrap of academic evidence and positive information if you are going to have a chance of success.

Sally-Anne
SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

We are dredging up evidence and are trying to put things together but this whole appeal proceedure looks quite tricky.

We were not prepared for an appeal at all!

It is good to know that we are not alone and, I guess as parents, to feel a little of the stress the children may have been feeling. We still plan to submit an appeal but are feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment.

Edit - We are think of writing the letter and then submitting all the evidence at a later date. We will not have all the evidence in place by the time we submit the letter so thought we would be better to submit it all together rather than in parts. What do you think?
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by Sally-Anne »

SadDad wrote:Edit - We are think of writing the letter and then submitting all the evidence at a later date. We will not have all the evidence in place by the time we submit the letter so thought we would be better to submit it all together rather than in parts. What do you think?
The only evidence that you have to submit with the appeal form is the Head's summary sheet (where one is being provided). You can then simply write on the form that the rest of your evidence will follow.

If you feel that you need more time to prepare for the appeal you can mark yourself as unavailable for the early part of January. That would guarantee an appeal after term has started, giving you a second opportunity to gather evidence from the school.

Altrenatively, because appeals are allocated on a "first come, first served" basis, so you can simply buy more time by submitting the form nearer to the deadline.
SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

Thank you for your help. The school is being extremely helpful and offering advice and support and really we could not ask for more.

We have good evidence in support of our mitigating circumstance from the school, GP and hopefully an unexpected 'third party'.

We plan to submit the yellow form, our letter and school form and then submit everything else together, probably in a couple of weeks.

We are struggling with the academic evidence but the mitigating circumstance can also explain that to a degree. DS does not have a bevy of 5s under his belt, so the KS1 3s are less impressive.

We were so unprepared for the appeal!

We have decided to get the paper remarked and analysed and see where he went wrong, as although it may well not alter the marks if we do end up going to 12+ at least we have an idea of strengths and weaknesses under exam conditions!

Best of luck to all other applicants in the appeals process!
SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

SadDad wrote:
We have decided to get the paper remarked and analysed and see where he went wrong, as although it may well not alter the marks if we do end up going to 12+ at least we have an idea of strengths and weaknesses under exam conditions!
We presume this can do no harm? We realise we are unlikely to see a massive hike in marks with the computer being wrong and an extra 10 marks applied......
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by Sally-Anne »

SadDad wrote:We presume this can do no harm?
No, none that I ever known. Please do be aware that the panel will see a copy of it though.
We realise we are unlikely to see a massive hike in marks with the computer being wrong and an extra 10 marks applied......
A healthy and pragmatic approach! :D
SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

Request for remark has gone in, appeal dispatched. Now we wait and see.

We have a couple of pieces of evidence that we are going to submit but the majority is there. What a week!

We were warned that an appeal was going to be stressful and it seems that it will be. DS just getting on with life.

We have told him we are appealing but other than that we are trying to keep everything away from him.
khanj010
Posts: 239
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 12:01 am

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by khanj010 »

hi saddad i have done exactly the same thing as i was told it was the deadline today. I have also kept my ds out of this appeal process as he was very upset about the results so now its me who will have to do the convincing. Good luck and i hope all goes well!
SadDad
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 1:41 pm

Re: Bucks Appeal

Post by SadDad »

This question may have been answered elsewhere but I have not picked up on it.

We are writing our speach and plan to just read from it, probably as a double act, and have had it suggested that we may like to submit it with our further evidence.

Good plan or not?
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