I thought some people might find this interesting and thank you to the moderators for allowing me to post the following link and response.

This is the article from the local paper:

http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/16290454.Grammar_school_s_expansion_plans_slammed_by_campaigners_who_fear_neighbouring_schools_will_be_badly_affected/

This is the response to the article from the head teacher:

14.6.18 - JHGS Bid for Government’s £50m Selective Schools Expansion Fund (SSEF) Raising Attainment and Creating Opportunities for Local Children

Dear Parents/Guardians

I wrote to you earlier this week about the bid we will submit to the Government’s recently announced SSEF.

We are committed to providing the best educational experience for the students that come to us and would like to widen this opportunity to more boys. If we were successful in our bid we would invest in our facilities and resources to deliver a truly 21st Century educational experience. We will share these new facilities and resources with the local community, including primary and secondary schools, so that together we can raise attainment and achievement in High Wycombe.

Local anti-Grammar School groups have set up a petition to stop our expansion plans. The Bucks Free Press have run an article today which covers the anti-Grammar Schools groups’ position with very little coverage of our reasons for expanding and the benefits that this would bring to High Wycombe and the local area. In 2017, John Hampden Grammar School’s disadvantaged students made more progress than any other state secondary school in High Wycombe. We were in fact the only school in High Wycombe with a positive Progress 8 score. At A level we are consistently the highest performing Bucks Grammar School in terms of value added. Students achieve excellent academic results at JHGS. The educational experience they have here equips our young men to go on to study at the best Universities or begin Higher Level Apprenticeships with top firms. In addition, our outstanding extra-curricular programme provides innumerable opportunities for the boys to develop those highly coveted “soft” and “employability” skills that will enable them to lead fulfilling lives after John Hampden Grammar School.

I recognise that not everyone supports the Grammar School system but that is the system that we have in Buckinghamshire and it gives you, as parents, choice. I hope that you will support the school’s bid to the SSEF and by emailing your support to Headspa@jhgs.bucks.sch.uk the school will be able to demonstrate that at the close of the consultation period more people were in favour of our expansion than not.

To read the consultation document please click on the link below.

http://upload.reactcdn.co.uk/johnhampde ... cument.pdf

All 8 of them

I'm not convinced by that statement. What choice? The choice to get your child to sit the test which statistically (in HW) gives you roughly a 1 in 5 chance of qualifying, or opting out entirely and ending up at the same school you would have attended with an 80% chance anyway.

The only positive element to the plan is the intention to take in extra children in year 9, to give later developers another chance.

I wish the school, along with the other Bucks grammars, would spend their energies improving their broken selection processes rather than trying to expand, because expanding simply extrapolates the problems they have created.

CHOICE - this is the one word that has made me see red in HT's letter.

There is not really a choice for Bucks parents - it maybe gives choice to those from outside the area that might get in to a Bucks school or are prepared to move and take their chances with later allocation rounds.

In Bucks - children are split asunder and friendship groups broken as parents try to do their best for their offspring.

I work in West London and get so fed up of colleagues saying "you are so lucky to have Grammar Schools"

I would have much rather chosen a mixed comprehensive but we don't have that choice.

Rant Over.