private school children get raw deal with Grammar school pl

[FAM]

I have just read an article in the Mail on saturday where they state that in Dorset, privately educated children are ranked behind state school children for places in the Poole Grammar schools. Does anyone know if this is the case in Warwickshire too, or does anyone know who I should speak to to find out.

[fed up]

I don't think this is the case in Warwickshire. There is a consultation process underway regarding the admission arrangements (look at www.warwickshire.gov.uk) and follow the links, but as far as I know nobody has ever mentioned ranking privately educated children behind state educated.
Mind you, anything's possible nowadays.....

[WP]

The issue is that the Admissions Code allows schools to give priority to children at named feeder schools, but only state schools can be named. I think that Warwickshire uses catchment areas, not feeder schools.

[Warks mum]

I've just checked the copy of the admissions booklet we had when we were looking at schools (dated 2007-2008) and some schools in the South Warwickshire booklet had feeder schools then. Children from those feeder schools had priority over other children in non-feeder schools - but they were Foundation or Voluntary Aided schools.

There were two such schools in the South Warkwickshire booklet: St Benedicts Catholic School and Trinity Catholic School.

I can't track down the Central Area booklet, I'm afraid, but I'm sure there was at least one school (in Leamington?) that included a prep school in its feeder school list.

[WP]

The four booklets for 2009 entry all say:

No, we do not operate a feeder from primary/junior to secondary schools. It is the child’s address that mainly controls priority for a school.

[Warks mum]

Yes - but if you look at the specific page in the booklet for Trinity it still shows children from feeder schools having priority over non-feeder school children!

[WP]

Ah, so that statement is only about the county criteria, but some Catholic schools (which are voluntary aided) have designated Catholic feeder primaries:

• St. Benedict's Catholic High School
• St Thomas More Catholic School & Technology College, Nuneaton
• Trinity Catholic School

[mitasol]

privately educated children are ranked behind state school children for places in the Poole Grammar schools

These children are ranked equally alongside any other children who do not attend a designated primary feeder school. (They are not being sent to the back of the queue)

I think this has come about because the revised code, no longer permits priorityto be given to independent schools.

Feeder primary schools
2.72 The use of named feeder schools can support good curriculum and geographical links and local continuity between phases in an area but feeder schools must be selected on an objective and consistent basis. Admission authorities must ensure that such arrangements do not unfairly disadvantage children from more deprived areas near the school and must not include independent schools as named feeder schools.

[WP]

magwich2, I'm so sorry. I was deleting duplicates of your posting, but I think you were too, and now they're all gone.

[magwich2]

I do not really know what people perceive to be the advantage of a private prep school. We sent each of ours to such a school for years 4, 5 and half of year 6 and I obviously know why we did this even though it was painful financially.
They did do some preparation for the 11+ but we were the only people who did not pay for any tutoring. What they mostly did was to provide a good traditional education - you know the kind of thing- proper desks, a blackboard, strict teacher armed with a red biro, spelling tests, exams, speech day with prizes that were not just for washing the paintbrushes, games where someone actually won and an environment where intelligence was not a fascist, elitist outmoded concept!!

The importance of the school to us was that our children were not bored stiff all the time and I could actually find some other parents in the playground I had something in common with and who were actually enthusiastic about grammar schools ( do not all throw stones at once - I know there are lots of great parents at state schools- and there were a lot at the prep school looking like extras from Footballers Wives with loathsome evilly behaved children!!)

What I do notice at DS's state school is that although it has exactly the same size class as the private one (and far more hours fron the teaching assistant) is that no one listens to him read from one term to the next (private school did every day even in year 6), no one corrects his work properly even when it is full of mistakes in case they should damage his self esteem (!) and no one sees it as important to get any child ahead of another because that would obviously be elitist(!)

I suppose what I am trying to say is that you do not really buy an educational advantage so much as a different set of attitudes which I personally find much more acceptable but others might not.