QEGS Alford

[Caela]

Hi Everyone - been checking out the forum for over a year now but this is my first post.

I have a child currently at QEGS Alford. My other child passed the 11+ in Oct with a score of 227. We live out of the catchment area - 15 miles away

When I contacted the school I was told having a sibling at the school did not give a place and the score was too low. The only way the existing child might help would be during an appeal.

Can anyone give me an indication of how many children who passed the 11+ got into this school on appeal over the last few years, or even if children who did not pass the 11+ got in on appeal.

I know it's not long to wait now but would be very interested to find out this info so I know where I stand. I am assuming that my child would have to be accepted before they heard appeals for the ones who did not pass.

Many thanks in advance

[hermanmunster]

Hi Caela,

I am sure Alex will be able to track down he actual numbers of appeals to QEGS at Alford.

I think there are two types of appeal for the schools - first non qualification where a child has (probably unexpectedly) not reached the cutoff score - maybe because of extenuating circumstances. parents can appeal and if they can show that the child has sufficient academic ability through other test / school work / reports etc then they may be considered to have reached the cutoff and then become eligible for a place. They may then have to forward to an oversubscription appeal if the school is full, all places having been offered to children according to the oversub policy. More will become clear if we get the figures (I can't find them)

[Alex]

Hi Caela and welcome,

I am sorry that I do not have any figures for appeals for this school. They don't seem to publish anything and this being Lincolnshire nobody formally collects data from the own-admission authority schools. I don't know either what the cut-off score for out of area places was over the last few years. They are often oversubscribed. The encouraging news comes from looking at the numbers on roll. With a PAN of 84 there are no year groups with fewer than 86 pupils and current Y11 has 92 (October 2011 figures). That means that some people must be successful at appeal.

If the school has more applicants than places and the cut-off score this year is higher than 227 for the out of area children then you will have to appeal. Anybody who did not pass and wanted to appeal would be doing so at the same time. The difference is that for the time between March allocations until the appeals are heard you would be on a waiting list so that if there was movement (e.g. someone turned down their allocated place because a place became available at another school they had placed higher on their application list) you could still be allocated a place whereas a child who had not passed could not.

It is a far easier hurdle to overcome to appeal for a school place with a pass (an oversubscription appeal) than when you are appealing non-qualification and oversubscription at the same time, though of course success rates vary tremendously between schools. The school is right that this is where having a sibling in the school would be an issue you could raise and which the Independent Appeal Panel could consider. The school's admission policy does not give any priority to siblings. Herr it is in case you have missed it:

Preference will be given to:
1. Pupils who have reached the required score and who are in public care.
2. Pupils living within the traditional catchment area who have reached the required score. A map of the catchment area is available from the school office.
3. Pupils (from the following feeder primary schools: Alford, Huttoft, Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, Theddlethorpe, Willoughby and Withern) who reach the required score, 220 or over in the two tests, and for whom Queen Elizabeth's Grammar, Alford, is one preferred by the parents.
4. Pupils not in the traditional catchment area who reach the required score.
In the case of oversubscription from pupils, who have reached the required score, pupils will be ranked according to their 11+ test scores. In the event of a number of pupils having exactly the same 11+ score then the governors will apply a tie-breaker based on the straight line distance (measured electronically by the local authority between the post office address point of the home and the post office address point of the academy), with the child living closest to the academy being given the place.


Good luck for March.

[Caela]

Thank you hermanmunster and Alex for your prompt replies.

I had no trouble getting the first child in - actually the headteacher rang just after the 11+ results came out and told me they had a place.

I (quite wrongly) assumed that the other child would get in on the sibling link and had my world come crashing down on me when I called the school in Oct.

I have been told that children with a 230 or higher will get in and that they were aware of my child but that they were on the bottom of the list. I know a few from our primary that called and were told if they put them as their first choice they would get in but in the end did not put them as their first choice - hoping this helps in my favour and brings my child forward on the list

Keeping my fingers crossed for March but will definatley appeal if the child does not get a place.

Thanks again

[Alex]

The school can probably make a fair guess at who will and won't get in at allocation day based on past experience, however they do not know where their applicants have placed the school on their list of preferences so there may well be people with higher scores who will get in somewhere else they placed higher and there often is movement. Hope it works out for you.

[Audreybee]

Hi Caela,
I'm new to the forum too, and wanted to say that we have put QEGS Alford as our second choice (our dd scored in the 230s and has her heart set on QEGS Horncastle so we have fingers crossed for that one), and I think there must be a lot of movement around Allocations day I would have thought. As Alex said, the schools don't know what our order of preference is. I know children in dd's out of catchment primary school get in to Alford every year and some of these I think are by appeal but don't know details.

Good luck!

[Caela]

Thanks Audreybee

Not long now ... keeping my hopes up.

Would be a bit of a bind to have one at Alford and the other at a completely different grammar school.

Good luck to your DD for QEGS Horncastle