Out of county applicants for 2019 test

[Sally-Anne]

Sally-Anne has the number increased or decreased from last year’s cohort .

Up from 4292 in 2018 - an increase of 227. It has increased every year.

[Emmal]

It would be great if exam tourism could be made as socially unacceptable as the misuse of NHS facilities. All public services are under such pressure - surely people understand that they are diverting finite funds from the pupils who should rightfully benefit? I just can't understand that mindset.

[anotherdad]

It would be great if exam tourism could be made as socially unacceptable as the misuse of NHS facilities. All public services are under such pressure - surely people understand that they are diverting finite funds from the pupils who should rightfully benefit? I just can't understand that mindset.

I think it's just another symptom of an increasingly me-first society. As you say, thousands of people see nothing wrong with turning up at the surgery with a sore throat or cold, with continually seeking medical help for problems relating to lifestyle choices they continue to make, with using ambulances as taxis, etc. Why would schooling be any different? It's part of the "I pay my taxes, so...." way of thinking.

Everybody believes theirs is a special case. I see it on here: "I'm not a tourist, we will genuinely move into the area if DC passes". The aggregation of all those special cases creates a collective problem.

[anotherdad]

Here in Gloucestershire we have no catchment areas for our few grammar schools (cue lots of people from Herts and Berks rushing to sit tests)

You've done it now.

"How far is it from Cheltenham to QE?"

[Sally-Anne]

I think most Heads do care or they would rank on score not distance. Long commutes impact on results and participation in all school events so it is not healthy for the school or the students doing this.

However, I think they have not really done enough number crunching to really 'see' what is happening.

We crunch so they don't have to - see the attached file, with glorious technicolor to illustrate the problem.

By around 2022/2023 we will cross the Rubicon, and the number of OoC children taking the test will be greater than the number of Bucks children.

An additional factor in that prediction is that the proportion of Bucks children opting out of testing is increasing. In the last decade it was around 13%, but it is now nearer 16%.

[scary mum]

Was 2014 when it changed to CEM?

[Sally-Anne]

Was 2014 when it changed to CEM?

It was indeed, hence the increase of around 700 OoC testers on the previous year.

[Guest55]

We crunch so they don't have to - see the attached file, with glorious technicolor to illustrate the problem.

By around 2022/2023 we will cross the Rubicon, and the number of OoC children taking the test will be greater than the number of Bucks children.

An additional factor in that prediction is that the proportion of Bucks children opting out of testing is increasing. In the last decade it was around 13%, but it is now nearer 16%.

So do you think Heads have really looked at this or the proportion of Bucks students in the qualifiers? How many Bucks children who would have qualified in 2009 are now missing out?

[qwerty]

I'm going to stick my head on the block but in recent weeks I've been wondering if this view that OOC children push out in-county children is correct. If that were the case, and it's true that the vast majority of OOC children don't put a Bucks grammar as their first choice (I think I saw Sally-Anne said this recently) then there would be lots of spare spaces at the grammars, although there is the chance to fill them at the selection review stage of course.

If a much higher proportion of OOC (45%?) qualify compared to in-county (25%?) but then most of the 45% don't go on to apply for a place in Bucks then I'd suggest they must set a qualifying level such that many more children qualify than there are places otherwise there would have to be a big adjustment at the selection review stage, or empty grammar places. I haven't studied statistics for this to see if many more selection reviews are successful as the number of OOCs has increased.

I do remember some years ago the local papers having articles about the number of spare spaces there were at the time, I don't see lots of spaces now if one looks at the Bucks lists of where there are grammar places.

To know the influence one would need to see whether the number of OOC children actually at Bucks grammars is increasing, taking into account any increase in PANs.

I'll retreat now and see if my brain is completely gone after a summer of 11+ angst!

[anotherdad]

It's an interesting point, qwerty, but I think the system simply pushes the problems onto reviews, which of course are carried out before the school allocations. Given the worrying information that with the numbers of reviews taking place, some are given just a few minutes' consideration, it seems to me that the schools know they have a problem and then have to frantically go through the reviews and fill the spaces. I'm not suggesting there's a quota, or that panels are targeting a certain review success rate, but there must be some implied pressure because they don't operate in an information vacuum.

If reviews were carried out thoroughly in all cases and were FCO, I'd accept that they were a solid way of determining borderline cases and attributing places that OOC qualifiers have "stolen". I don't believe they are carried out thoroughly in all cases, so the OOC problem condemns lots of parents to what is somewhat of a lottery.