Guest55 wrote:
I wish the GS headteachers would grasp the nettle of the explosion in the number of OOC entrants - there are almost as many OOC as in county. These 'self-selected' OOC candidates distort the '121' and push out Bucks children who would have qualified in the past.
A higher qualification % would restore the balance as distance would push out ridiculous commutes.
Do the heads actually care though? In times when league table rankings are everything, as long as they get their 'top' children why should they mind? I think that heads fall into two camps on this - those who want to cream off the highest scorers, whatever happens, and are willing to either ignore the consequences or else (looking for a polite term to describe this) expose local children to disadvantage to do so; and those who may feel differently but have no effective choice, or voice to express that feeling.
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) and a teacher at a GS I was speaking to the other day observed that the journey distances among children at the school had 'gone mad' in the 12 years she has taught there. My children have all studied with classmates undertaking journeys of 60-90 mins each way, sometimes even longer. I genuinely do not understand parents doing this - they are only schools!