Out of county applicants for 2019 test

[anotherdad]

[singlemum4]

The continuing theme of derogatory comments about those who happen to live in another county saddens me though it doesn't surprise me anymore. . We live in another county and my child attends a Bucks grammar school, and the journey is shorter than for many in-county students. (Out-of-county is the title of the thread rather than out-of-catchment). Give us a break, please... we're not all devious, manipulative and grasping!

[scary mum]

The continuing theme of derogatory comments about those who happen to live in another county saddens me though it doesn't surprise me anymore. . We live in another county and my child attends a Bucks grammar school, and the journey is shorter than for many in-county students. (Out-of-county is the title of the thread rather than out-of-catchment). Give us a break, please... we're not all devious, manipulative and grasping!

singlemum4 no-one in Bucks objects to children from neighbouring areas going to Bucks schools, as you said yourself, they are sometimes the closer schools. As has been said many times, it is the people who either use the Bucks 11 plus as a free mock, pushing up the pass mark for those who genuinely want to attend Bucks grammar schools, or those who sit the test with no idea that they have no chance of getting a place, because they assume that a high score means they will get a place. Both of these decrease the chances of genuinely local candidates, whether they are in or out of county.

[Sally-Anne]

(Out-of-county is the title of the thread rather than out-of-catchment). Give us a break, please... we're not all devious, manipulative and grasping!

Forgive us the shorthand. Perhaps we should have entitled the thread: "Not living in Bucks and not in a Bucks catchment area: applicants for the 2019 test". Or somesuch. The trouble is it wouldn't fit, and also the issue really isn't about catchment and it is about applicants from out of county.

However there is not some automatic hatred that kicks in among Bucks folk when we cross the A41, the A412, or whichever road applies. scarymum has given you a perfectly cogent explanation of the issue, but let me (as usual, <yawn>) provide the statistics.

Consider these numbers for 2018 admission (as at 1st March, which I have used specifically to remove the ripple effect of oversubscription appeals later on):

As some sort of benchmark, among Bucks resident children, 1760 qualified and 1684 were allocated places. That is 96%. Unsurprisingly, almost every qualified child will have named a Bucks GS on their CAF.

Now let's take the following adjoining local authorities: Beds, Herts, Milton Keynes, Northants, Oxfordshire, Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead.

1076 applicants qualified and 539 were allocated places, i.e. 50%. Another proportion of qualified applicants will have missed out on places because of distance, especially last year as distances reduced. No one on this forum has a problem with those applicants or those numbers. It's almost certain that the children took the test because they had a genuine interest in acquiring a place at a Bucks GS and, if they qualified, there was at least some chance that they would receive one. Above all, unless they were definitely qualified for another, preferred local GS in their own area (e.g. in Slough), they almost certainly named a Bucks GS on their CAF. I repeat, no one on here has a problem with this.

Now take the following local authorities: Luton, Greater London* Reading, Wokingham and All Other. A total of 939 applicants qualified and precisely 18 were allocated a place. That is 1.9%. Whether their parents were ill-informed or they chose to put their children through the test as a mock, we don't know, but we do know that the vast majority of them never stood a chance of gaining a place at a Bucks GS from the outset. We also know that many of those 939 applicants would not go on to name a Bucks GS on their CAF. They simply didn't have a sensible or genuine interest in the Bucks schools.

These are the people we refer to by the more common term "tourists". Of course they live out of county (OoC), but you really can't conclude that whenever we mention "OoC" we mean "anyone who lives outside of Bucks" and that you are all "devious, manipulative and grasping"!

The trouble is that the parents of 921 OoC children quite possibly were and, in turn, their children displaced many Bucks-resident children.

* One could argue that Hillingdon is an adjacent LA, but for statistical consistency it's easier to leave it as part of Greater London. Hillingdon parents do also tend to be victims of the wider GS hysteria in Greater London.

[Deb70]

Yes, I totally agree with the previous comment. My child is "out of county" and goes to a Bucks GS. However, I had an older child who went to the sixth form of a Bucks GS and before entering my second child, I checked the over subscription criteria. If siblings had not come above distance there is no way I would have put him through the test with no chance of a place. Bucks was the only test he sat and with no tuition. My third child failed and has gone for selection review, but had he passed he would have been guaranteed a place under the sibling rule and we would have moved over to Bucks, changed jobs etc. He also sat only the Bucks test with no tuition. What makes me angry are other parents I know putting their child in for five tests with heavy tutoring, knowing they will never get places but pushing children like mine (who would have got a place) out.

[kenyancowgirl]

singlemum4, sorry that your first posting has stirred up so much feeling - I hope it doesn’t put you off the forum!

It is just that Bucks has unique problems with exam tourists, which does genuinely push out true applicants (who may, like you, live out of county) but in catchment, or close enough to genuinely get a case. It is the former who people are referring to, not the latter.

[Sally-Anne]

singlemum4, sorry that your first posting has stirred up so much feeling - I hope it doesn’t put you off the forum!

I would most certainly not wish to put anyone off posting on the forum, and least of all with a reply to a first post, but it seems that singlemum4 has been reading here for some while:

The continuing theme of derogatory comments about those who happen to live in another county saddens me though it doesn't surprise me anymore. .

Give us a break, please...

I hope that she may prove to be a "happy lurker", someone who has read here and found some good advice, but also felt the need to respond to this particular thread.

[pippi]

The trouble is that the parents of 921 OoC children quite possibly were and, in turn, their children displaced many Bucks-resident children.

I'm probably missing something very simple here, in which case profuse apologies for being so slow, but I really don't see how this "displacement" works. These long-distance children are not included in the standardisation (according to the TBGS minutes), so they don't inflate the pass mark. The over subscription criteria (distance) presumably then do the rest? As you say, only 18 were allocated places (which otherwise would probably have been left unfilled?)? If your aim is to discourage these children/parents from sitting the test, then I'd have thought it would make more sense to point out that they will not displace more local children? After all, we don't want them to be ill-informed...

[MrsChubbs]

I believe that this was discussed at the meeting because the Heads recognise the issue but as it would be illegal, nothing ever came of it. See this report in the TES https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source= ... 4771112649

[Deb70]

Yes, seems difficult to get one's head around. But if the OOC children don't inflate the pass mark (it's standardised using the in-county cohort), it is still the top 30% of children who sit the test that will pass, isn't it? So some of that 30% will then consist of OOC children. But do they actually put Bucks grammars on their CAFs if they really live in Reading or London? So then there will not be enough qualified Bucks children to fill the places.....is that right?! I know my son is 19 miles away from his school and was allocated a place (he put the school first because hi liked it, never thinking he would get a place - we thought he would just get a place at the school his sibling went to, which he put second). He said there were unfilled places in his class in Year 7.