How many sat the test?

[turtleglos]

I don't know the numbers, but ds1 said that they had more than enough dcs in the hall at Pate's to fill the years intake and they were also using the six form areas as well. He took the test at Marling last year and was shocked at the number of dcs.

[Glos_Mum]

................

[capers123]

As most of the Grammar schools are over PAN after appeals one overseas student not taking up a place shouldn't really make a difference Tigger as they can't offer that place to a waiting list until they go under their PAN. Either there were no successful appeals or they lost more than one prospective pupil.

Pate's Admissions Authority tend to put up a stronger case at appeals, thus making it harder to win. Some years 2 or 3 appeals have been won for Pate's, as opposed to up to 8 or 9 for the other oversubscribed schools. And of course, just because 2 or 3 appeals have been won for Pate's does not mean that they'll be over subbed if 2 or 3 drop out after the appeals. The are lots of circumstances that lead to child not taking up places.

[bombdabah]

I don't think the e registration will have made any difference to the sharing of scores. Even with the old system people would tick more than one box to keep their options open.

That's interesting Capers as I should imagine even with children not taking up their places most of the Grammars still end up over PAN. I suppose the private/ state dilemma has a greater effect with people opting to go private last minute.

What is PAN?

Can someone elaborate please

[rob-gloucester]

PAN = Published Admission Number

The number of pupils that will make up the following year's Y7

[capers123]

To clarify, the PAN (aka IAN - Indicative Admission Number) is the number of children a school / admission authority is allowed to allocate. It's a number agreed between the school, the governors, the LEA (even for acadamies) and neighbouring schools, taking into account the number of spaces needed in the area / county, the physical capacity of the school and the same for surrounding schools.

The grammars in Stroud (& Pate's?) have PAN's of 120, the Gloucester ones slightly lower. Once [insert PAN here] children have been allocated to the school, no other child can be given a place unless there's been a major error with an admission (say a paper was marked too low, or distance from home to school miscalculated) in which case the school/LEA would offer a place. The only other way to get a place once PAN has been met is by appeal - Independent Appeals Panels can force the schools to take extra children, but will of course have to be mindful of the effect on the children already in the school.

Some schools, even grammars, are undersubscribed - ie have less children than PAN. In which case they can offer a place at will to any child (for grammars, assuming they reach the required standard in the test). For children who didn't pass, the school can not offer a place - again it has to go to appeals, who will look to see if from the evidence provided, the child would be suitable for a grammar.

[slackmum]

[ I've also heard of a child who started at a local grammar, but after two or three weeks Pate's rang to ask if they were interested in a place. Mum has decided to ship kid half way across the county each day (no bus from where she lives) and buy a new uniform!

Unless there is a second child with exactly the same story this is not quite accurate the child goes on a local bus with his peers and the uniform consisted of rugby kit, new badge and tie. The child himself choose to attend after spending a day at Pates.

[turtleglos]

Said child is in ds1's form and has settled in quickly and made new friends(at least according to ds1). Perhaps we ought to stop discussing dc now as it's not really any of our concern.
Also remember that not all dcs who took the test wanted to take it. I know of a dc last yr who didn't want to go to grammar and didnt perform their best I suspect that there may be some this yr.

[Pushkin]

This is in Mr Fenton's message for this week on the Pate's website:

Almost 500 candidates came to Pate’s on Saturday morning to sit the entrance test and, thanks to great planning and support from staff and students alike, the whole event went off without a hitch.