Advice please - order of preference in application

Eleven Plus (11+) in Gloucestershire (Glos)

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Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Amber »

Tolstoy wrote:This is worrying and goes some way to explaining why year in year out this sort of question keeps popping up on here at allocation time. Just browse the threads here and previous years with no sign of it dying off as it should. The having to put an oversubscribed school first in order to ensure getting a place system has long been abolished many years ago .
Indeed. You would think someone could put together a simple guide to the CAF which made this crystal clear - you do wonder how many parents make mistakes at this stage which lead to their child being allocated a school they hadn't intended. The production of all manner of useless leaflets, posters and websites doesn't usually suffer under resource constraints - surely a step by step simple guide to the CAF could be readily and cheaply made available to parents. :evil:
Guest55
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Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Guest55 »

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/school ... -form-caf/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We had guidance in the Year 5 meeting re 11+ (now called Transfer Test) and in the booklet.
Tolstoy
Posts: 2755
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:25 pm

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Tolstoy »

Guest 55 I think a meeting is the only way.

In Gloucestershire I have read on this site that some schools have had meetings complete with LEA rep, clearly informed the parents what school options are available to them and were then told how to sort out their CAF.

My experience the first year was a booklet with information about all the different schools etc and how to apply. A year later it was a form indicating the catchment school, to back up the taster day the DC had spent there in the summer term of y5 and a direction to the authority website, guess they suddenly felt it necessary to save the rain forests :twisted: . I do hope that has changed.
DebsB
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:25 pm
Location: Cheltenham

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by DebsB »

The page you link to is mostly very good; it's "golden rule" is very clear, but then it goes and spoils it by adding advice that might not apply and might be confusing. Why does it say:
3. If your child is taking the 11 plus, you must list all your preferred grammar schools above any other type of school. If your child fails to qualify, those schools will simply be “erased” and the first non-grammar school you have listed will become your new “first preference”?

They are presupposing that everyone reading the page would rather their child went to any of the grammar schools on their list than any of the others. It might not be true. I can easily imagine, for example, a Cheltenham parent who prefers a co-ed school and would rather their child didn't have to travel outside Cheltenham unless it's the only way to avoid their local comp, which they don't like the look of. This hypothetical parent might have a genuine order of preference that went:
1. Pate's
2. Balcarras
3. STRS
4. Crypt
5. Local Cheltenham comp

For this person, a sentence saying "you must put all the grammars higher than any other type" would be confusing and unhelpful. Those "basic" guidelines are unnecessarily complicated. All that needs saying is:

1. List schools in your actual order of preference. The schools won't know where you put them in your list, and legally wouldn't be able to take it into account even if they did know. The order is just to tell the LEA which of your child's possible places they should allocate to you.

2. Make sure you include at least one school where your child is certain of getting a place - usually this is your local catchment school. Otherwise, if you don't get any of the ones you have listed, you will get a place at the nearest school where the LEA happens to have spare spaces, which could be a long way away and/or in a school that you wouldn't like.

3. You only have space for a limited number of choices (5 in Gloucestershire). Don't waste any of them by putting down schools you have no realistic chance of getting into.
Last edited by DebsB on Tue Oct 14, 2014 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Amber »

I think maybe that page is geared up more for parents in Bucks. I know it doesn't say that but here there is a different set up. In Bucks all you need to do is pass the test and you can apply to any grammar school, though in practice they do have catchment areas as well. Here our grammars are what are rather distastefully known as superselective, meaning that anyone can apply to them and distance isn't taken into account. So that sentence you quote doesn't apply here. Maybe someone with a green name could look into editing it. :D
Sally-Anne
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Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Sally-Anne »

A green name will certainly take a look at the wording, and thanks for raising the point, DebsB.

The scenario you give is far from unusual, even in Bucks. There are areas of the county where a comp over the border, or even a local Upper School might be the second preference instead of a second grammar school.

The difficulty is finding wording that doesn't trip up the other 95% of parents for whom a grammar school is always the preferred option, and who shouldn't be persuaded otherwise by vainglorious Heads/schools!

A solution exists ...
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Amber »

Sally-Anne, there is a similar thread on here about someone wanting to put a non-grammar school (Balcarras) as first choice over HSFG (a grammar), but wanting HSFG as a back up as Balcarras is heavily over-subscribed. If a green person does edit that page, I think for Gloucestershire users and maybe others it would be helpful to cover that scenario too. :D
Peridot
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Joined: Thu May 16, 2013 5:02 pm

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by Peridot »

I think the advice needs to be simple - to just put the schools in your true order of preference, whether grammar or comp. If parents can just be made to clearly understand that one thing there would be no problem. It really doesn't help if the schools themselves cloud the issue.

We were lucky in our area that a representative of the LEA visited each primary school to explain the facts. Budget cuts may have put a stop to this though.

So in the end our order for our daughter was:

Grammar
Comp
Faith comp
Grammar
Comp
Comp

Over which we agonised but it really was our true order of preference.
ducativalentino
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 2:04 pm

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by ducativalentino »

I definitely agree that more guidance is needed, especially for those of us who children go to a school that won't discuss Grammar school options. Without this forum, I would be in quite a muddle right now!

Our preference at the moment is:

Grammar
Comp

It is such a relief to know that we don't need to be 'playing games' to get what we want, just simply put our preferences in order.

As a side note, do we HAVE to put 5 choices down even if we know that we will definitely get our 2nd option?!
kenyancowgirl
Posts: 6738
Joined: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:59 pm

Re: Advice please - order of preference in application

Post by kenyancowgirl »

You do HAVE to put schools in your true order of preference.

You don't have to use all the slots on your CAF....

However....be aware that every year we have people who only put grammar schools and highly oversubscribed comprehensives on their list and, when the child did not qualify for the grammar school and was not eligible for the highly subscribed comps, are astonished when they are allocated a school NOT on their CAF at all, or are left without a school place.

If you are absolutely without a shadow of a doubt in catchment for your comprehensive and it is not generally oversubscribed (and you would be near the top of the list for any additional decision criteria like distance/sibling rules etc) then you should be Ok with just two choices on there.
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