I'm speechless to say the least. DS1 would not have got in last year. I sensed that this would happen since it became a King Edwards School. There is an increase in scores across the board this year...I wonder why?

Is it to do with increased competition?

Anyway, wishing those this year all the best.

This has definitely been a surprise year. Like you, my son would not have been allocated a place.

I'm not sure for the jump across the board and I still think it may move down a bit (but even so it's a huge rise, like Vesey).

I don't know the reason, but it's been a KE school for a couple of years now and there wasn't a steep rise say last year. But maybe word has spread?

It's a high birth year and maybe it's the number of sitters, the new admissions plans or simply the fact that HGS is a very good (but sometimes overlooked, possibly?) school.

I hope there is more movement for those waiting - it's a unsettling place to be, but early days still.

The reason is probably because all the KE schools have agree to over exactly on PAN and not over offer as happened last year

Over offer? What do you mean Ricky?

sorry should read over PAN

Thanks Ken. That makes sense now.

Caveman, I interpret this as: say the school has 150 places then it will stick to that PAN. Guessing in previous years they've gone say 10/20? over and accepted more pupils and widening the score band. Times that across all KE schools.

(Ken, help me out as I may be barking up the wrong tree!)

All grammar schools find that some parents reject offers of places for a variety of reasons, but principally because many children sit exams for Independent schools (KEHS, EHS, KES, Solihull School etc) and choose those schools; and then of course there is the knock on effect that some children get offers but are on the waiting list for other schools.

Many KE grammar Heads don't like this because they feel that many parents on a waiting list for a particular KE Grammar will choose to stick with their existing school (which may be another Grammar School with a slightly lower pass mark) offer rather than have the uncertainty of waiting for offers from the waiting list. So what some Heads prefer to do is to make offers over their PAN knowing that they will get x% rejections from parents. For example, the KECHB Head used to like to make offers for 30 places over the school PAN. They feel by doing this they attract the best children??

Some years KE Schools make offers over PAN, some years they don't. It looks as though this year all KE schools made offers exactly on PAN (I don't know if this was a KE Foundation policy or not). Last year they were allowed to make offers over PAN.

The last year that the KE schools made offers exactly on PAN was for the Sept 2016 entry. I recall that year the last place pass mark for KECHB went up from 242 the previous year to 248, but I believe it came down significantly from the Waiting list (maybe not down the 242 but by quite a bit)

Thanks for explaining.

Good luck to all those waiting too.