HGS - Where would a score of 123 put a kid

[gettomahesh]

Thanks. I have been doing runs to slough from harrow regularly and it never took more than 30 mins but it was on weekends and Wednesday evening so not a good indication as I am sure school time must be double the time atleast.

You are right that Upton may be better than Herschel in terms of travel hence thinking of putting it higher unless HGS is a lot lot better than Upton. So any feedback on that would be useful.

Have you tried to see how long it will take using Google maps or similar from your house to Herschel or Upton?

Upton might be easier as it is on the A4 and so on the bus route for the 81 bus (It is a London bus, going from Hounslow to Slough and is used by quite a lot of kids going to Upton or St Bernards.)

Also check the admissions for either school to see if there is a bus from the Harrow area. Bear in mind that it is quite a journey, and there could well be early starts cos of school trips. (My DD is at St Bernards and had a day trip to France last year, they left school at 645am! Wasn't too bad for us as we are local but I felt for some of her classmates.)

[scary mum]

None of the Slough grammar schools will be substantially better than the others. Indeed I believe Upton did very well in the value added league tables recently, if that is your thing. I regularly do a similar but shorter journey in the other direction & I don't think there are many mornings that you could do it in half an hour. Also remember parents' evenings, after school activities etc. I would think Upton might be a quicker journey than Herschel.

[rhiane]

DD is at Upton (15min journey) but there are many children in her class from Harrow/Hayes/Ealing/Hounslow etc who have a nightmare journey and really suffer because of it.

Hi,

How has your DD found Upton Court? DS and I visited both Upton and Herschel and liked them both equally and now a tad unsure which order to place them on the CAF. Any insightful thoughts on Upton would be most helpful.

Thank you.

DD absolutely loves Upton!
After qualifying for Slough we decided to send her to an independent school instead, where she spent Y7 but she never settled there so we made the decision to move her before it was too late. (Upton choose their GCSE options in Y8, a year earlier than most other schools)
Since starting at Upton in Y8 (She's Y9 now) she has flourished in all directions, it really was the best thing we could have done, she loves going to school and hasn't had a single bad day since starting there!
We did our research on all the Slough Grammars and visited them all, neither of us liked Herschel or Langley, DD would have really suffered socially there, which to me is important as I believe the social aspect is very important. The cultural mix at both of those schools wasn't consistent with real life. St Bernards was ok but I wasn't comfortable with the religious part, and found the building quite claustrophobic!
As scary mum pointed out, Upton has done amazingly in the 2017 Government League Tables (Progress released last week, out of nearly 7000 state funded school they came 9th, they are the 2nd best Grammar school (Tiffin Girls just beat them by 1 point!) and Upton are the number 1 mixed Grammar school in England! That is quite an achievement.
At the end of the day what counts is your child's happiness, a happy child is more likely to be a high achiever.
Needless to say Upton is the only school I have put on my CAF for DS who also loved it there.

[scary mum]

Needless to say Upton is the only school I have put on my CAF for DS who also loved it there.

Does his score make him certain of a place? Otherwise you need to put more than one school.on the CAF, otherwise he could end up anywhere that has places. As mentioned previously, there does not seem to be a sibling admission criteria for Upton.

[HYG]

@rhiane Thank you.

[BlueBerry]

DD is at Upton (15min journey) but there are many children in her class from Harrow/Hayes/Ealing/Hounslow etc who have a nightmare journey and really suffer because of it.

Hi,

How has your DD found Upton Court? DS and I visited both Upton and Herschel and liked them both equally and now a tad unsure which order to place them on the CAF. Any insightful thoughts on Upton would be most helpful.

Thank you.

DD absolutely loves Upton!
After qualifying for Slough we decided to send her to an independent school instead, where she spent Y7 but she never settled there so we made the decision to move her before it was too late. (Upton choose their GCSE options in Y8, a year earlier than most other schools)
Since starting at Upton in Y8 (She's Y9 now) she has flourished in all directions, it really was the best thing we could have done, she loves going to school and hasn't had a single bad day since starting there!
We did our research on all the Slough Grammars and visited them all, neither of us liked Herschel or Langley, DD would have really suffered socially there, which to me is important as I believe the social aspect is very important. The cultural mix at both of those schools wasn't consistent with real life.

rhiane, please can you expand on the comments highlighted? Why would have your DD suffered if she went to Langley or Herschel?

[rhiane]

Needless to say Upton is the only school I have put on my CAF for DS who also loved it there.

Does his score make him certain of a place? Otherwise you need to put more than one school.on the CAF, otherwise he could end up anywhere that has places. As mentioned previously, there does not seem to be a sibling admission criteria for Upton.

I did think of putting a second choice as it's obviously not 100% but he is very high up on the admission criteria, Upton is my only entry on the CAF but I haven't actually pressed 'Submit' yet. I did think of putting St Bernards and/or Burnham (don't want Herschel or Langley) maybe I should? but there is a very high chance of him getting a place under the feeder schools before it even reaches scores!

Upton have 165 place for 2018 entry

The criteria stipulates:
Section 5: Children with special education needs
Section 6
i looked after children
ii 15 places (possibly a few more) for children who qualify for pupil premium
iii Children of permanent members of staff who have employed for at least 2 years
iv Designated feeder schools. of which there are only 2 (New this year)
v Up to 120 in rank order of performance
vi The remaining offers up to 165 are determined by proximity.

Even without sibling priority, my son stands a very high chance as he is at a designated feeder school (I would anticipate there being at least 130-140+ places available when they get down to this category and there are 3-4 children in his school putting Upton on their CAF) and this category is ahead of score.
DS scored 128 so again a very good chance
We live 2.98miles from the school (straight line) which is much closer than the majority.

I know that League Tables are very fluid and can change massively every year (due to cohorts) and are only one part of selecting a suitable school but I believe Upton may be a more popular school this year as they are ranked the number 1 mixed grammar school in England for the 2017 Progress 8 league tables released 2 weeks ago (the new GCSE A*-C measure) and number 9 out of approx 7000 state schools, and I believe Langley has slightly fallen out of favour since changing their admission criteria, and I also know of some parents with DC already there who do not want to send siblings there due to the lack of cultural mix.
x

[rhiane]

BlueBerry

I have actually replied to your question twice (including the quote) but for some reason they're not posting?

It's a personal subject due to DD having previous issues!
Why do you ask?

Apologies if all my replies post at once!

[Aethel]

Whoa, Upton Grammar has two “feeder schools”? That’s new!
Foxborough has previously had its issues, maybe this will rejuvanate it a little... I presume the other school (which is a middle school in Windsor) is aware its numbers will deplete if some jump ship to Upton in year 7....)

It seems that the children who may lose out from this change in criteria are the local children in Langley/Windsor/Colnbrook not at those two schools, as there won’t be as many as-the-crow-flues distance places available at Upton. This will therefore prioritise the super-high-scoring-longer-distance children. Which I know people on forum love, but it will then lead to the no-one-can-socialise situations common in LGS.
Maybe Upton wants to become more of a super-selective?......

[rhiane]

Yes the feeder school priority is very new (this year)

The Upton Educational Trust (A national support school) was set up a few years ago and they were asked to sponsor Foxborough in 2014, Trevelyan joined on 1st Nov 2016 but the feeder school part was only added to the admission criteria in the last few months, in fact I didn't even realise that it was there until about 3 weeks ago!

It may not make much of a difference with Trevelyan numbers as I doubt it will change the number of DC sitting the 11+, most of those passing leave after Y6 anyway, Trevelyan is oversubscribed in Y5 & 6 but undersubscribed in Y7 & 8 due to the 11+ leavers, which has recently prompted them to reduce their PAN as they were losing too much money.

I don't know how this will affect places for the more local children, maybe not too much of a change as a number of these will get a high enough score to get in anyway? DS and his friend scored 124 and 128 so even without the new feeder school category they would probably have got in anyway.

I feel Upton has stepped up a gear recently, the Headteacher, who has recently moved on to become the Executive Head Teacher of the trust has done an amazing job with Upton and has now set her sights on transforming the 2 other schools in the trust, I have already seen a difference at Trevelyan, I don't know about Foxborough?