Appeals?? :(

[Tolstoy]

You don't have to make a decision now. If you have a good back up comprehensive then I would put Ribston down on your CaF form followed by your back up. Make sure you have a sure thing somewhere in your list. When the allocations come out in .March ring up the school and ask if they have any spaces. If they do then decide whether you want to appeal.

There is a lot of help and support in the appeals section and if you have a good alternative sorted it will take out some of the stress.

[glosguy]

So we should put down Ribston on the preferences form at the end of this month? and our first choice comp second? then wait until March to appeal?

[Tolstoy]

Yes and make sure you put your catchment comp in somewhere if it isn't your second choice just as a fail safe.

Also open up a file and put in anything that might explain a drop in expected results. Unusual stresses at home, any distractions during the exam. You might have forgotten all this by March. Then you can just forget it all you will be surprised how quickly the time passes.

P.S You can still appeal even if it isn't on the form but and I believe people do but I think if you have the space you may as well do it and perhaps put something in the reasons bit about why.
Capers will know more about thIs

[glosguy]

Much appreciated.

[cairo]

In my estimation she got between 20 and 25 questions wrong.. something she had never done in practice papers

Your daughter probably didn't get that many wrong. In the "easier" first paper, the impact of a few wrong choices is magnified. DS1 got 73/85 correct (i.e. 86%) in the first paper last year - at Tommies this equated to a score of only 104. Like you, I was mystified as to what he had done to score so low, as he had thought the paper was easy. I suspect there must be some red herrings in there.

Glosguy - there's lots of useful information on this site if you decide to appeal. You don't need to decide that now. Make sure you put a school on your CAF you would be happy with, and you can decide whether to appeal or not in March. Everything must feel very raw now, but in a few weeks it'll become clearer what you should do. Really feeling for all those who did not get the results they expected and hoped for

[malvern]

Hi Cairo

Your email raises so many questions - my DD did well in her paper two and bagged herself a score (224) which should be OK for a place at HSFG and she is chuffed.

However, her paper one has her mystified, she too got 104, very suprised - she thought it was easy and in practice was getting in the 90's. Questions, how do you know the mark your DS got? and how comes a 86% equated to a 104?

Malvern

[capers123]

I'll just reiterate what others have written.

An appeal is against not being offered a place. No one is offered a place until 1st March, so you can't start the procedure until then. You can, however, start gathering any evidence you may need now, rather than leaving it until the last min.

For some schools, unless there is astounding mitigating circumstances, you'd be very unlikely to win an appeal if your child has not passed. With Pates, rumour has it that that applies even if your child has passed!

For the last two years, though, Ribston has been undersubscribed, so all who passed got in. The appeals panels then allowed a lot of appeals of non-passes. Not sure what level of mitigating circumstances were taken by the panels, but I'd interpret it as the school putting up (deliberately) a weak case. So you might have got a place if you'd appealed last year. I currently have no idea if the same is likely to happen this year for Ribston. I suspect it might, but we'll not know until March. I have no special ways of finding out the information - appeals panellists have no connections with the schools.

If I were in your place, I'd gather every little bit of evidence I could.

[cairo]

Malvern - The only reason I know my son got 86% last year is because I was given that information when I appealed. (His combined score was just over the Tommies' pass mark but he wasn't initially allocated a place there.)

Of course 86% last year equalling 104 does not necessarily mean that 104 this year would be the same %. It is complicated even further by this whole age-standardisation thing, so one child on 86% could "pass", whereas another could "fail".

However, I do think it illustrates that any child who has passed for any of the Glos grammars has done EXTREMELY well and you should be rightly proud of them. Also, there is an element of Lady Luck in all this - I'm sure all of our children will have taken educated guesses for some of the questions. Whether their guesses happen to have been correct or not, might have made all the difference.....

[sally.russell]

First time round at all this, very confused. DD desperatly wanted to get to HSFG, but only scored 208. Is there any point putting HSFG on the application form? Do they ever take girls below the pass 210? Or should we just put the whole thing behind us and move on? Does anyone know how many girls passed and for how many places? Sorry so many questions!

[Tolstoy]

You might be able to get information on the number of passes from the school. Tommies gives it out with the results. Annoyingly it doesn't tell you a great deal as many people opt for other schools which they will also have ticked for at this stage.

208 is pretty close to the pass mark but if you put it down you will not be offered a place. However in March they maybe oversubscribed or they may be under subscribed if the latter then an appeal is more viable.

Have a think about it there is an excellent appeals section on the site and both Capers and Cairo will be able to advice you if you opt for that route.

If you do put HSFG down just make sure you have a good comp backup and if it isn't your catchment then put that in somewhere to ensure that you do get a school place>