Will my ds fail to get a place at Marling due to Crypt?

[Stressed?Moi?]

Ah OK thanks that explains it. An extra 30 is quite a jump. I would imagine it's about costs as I know it's been struggling financially. I think that they concentrate their finances on excellent teachers and therefore have a shortfall for extras, although it hasn't affected us in anything we've needed/wanted. The PTA seem to do pretty well to cover shortfalls. From what I've seen of Mr Morgan, he is absolutely on it, and I can't think why there would have been confusion.

Ref house I would imagine they would just add another one; North North West Gate maybe? That's what I would do! There are inter-house competitions but as you say Amber, I get the impression it isn't too massive a deal.

Ref Stroudydad "Unless it's changed that's not how the house system works in Tommies anyway. There have always been 4 houses, even when there were 2 and 3 forms of entry. There are a number of students from each house in each form. The theory being that this gave greater opportunity to mingle and form other friendships..." I think that is very much the case. In fact, my son has more friends in other forms than his own, so the mixing thing works well.

[dr.watson]

Pates increased their numbers few years back and added another house. So I don't think it's be too difficult.

[Watermelon8]

I don't know Stroudydad, that's different to what our 2 lovely y8 guides were saying. Mind you 1 had only been there a few wks & the other one barely drew breath bless him
Crypt added an extra form & extra house this year, no issue at all I was just surprised Tommies didn't seem to have thought about it that's all

[Amber]

Sorry Stroudydad but that's not right. The forms in y7-11 are tied to houses. So all the boys in one form will be in the same house. I imagine they may either restructure the house system or add one and divide the boys up. It is such an unimportant aspect of life there I don't think anyone will notice what they do!

I have such faith in MM that I doubt he has overlooked the detail of how to add 30 more boys to the school! He might just not think houses are the most important thing.

[stroudydad]

Sorry Stroudydad but that's not right. The forms in y7-11 are tied to houses. So all the boys in one form will be in the same house. I imagine they may either restructure the house system or add one and divide the boys up. It is such an unimportant aspect of life there I don't think anyone will notice what they do!

I have such faith in MM that I doubt he has overlooked the detail of how to add 30 more boys to the school! He might just not think houses are the most important thing.

I did say 'unless they have changed it' I am actually quite sad, because it worked well. Definitely a change for the worse.

However if you know the history behind Tommies and the House names - I wouldn't be surprised if they find some way of dividing them up rather than add a new house

[Amber]

However if you know the history behind Tommies and the House names - I wouldn't be surprised if they find some way of dividing them up rather than add a new house

I do; and yes. I am sure someone is onto it. Just maybe not the Head's PA.

(Personally am not a fan of houses but I know the world divides along those lines. I was trying to explain how it all worked to a range of my foreign colleagues and it met with utter bemusement from Asian, Arab and European alike. After that it has always struck me as very odd - something we accept as 'normal' but it really isn't!).

[stroudydad]

As my house wasn't particularly good at most things other than Chess I was never a big fan..
And the name of the trophy was obviously always a source of amusement to all boys. (Has it changed?)

Interestingly Stroud High have recently introduced 'house families' partially to try to introduce vertical interactions throughout the years as well as horizontal

[yellowdawg]

Does anyone have an idea of the following:

1) the amount of movement beyond Allocations Day in GS in general - a poster on one of the SHS threads has said that Admissions there stated that they ranked last time to 371 on March 1st but by the time all the "shuffling" had gone on by the end of the Summer, she thought the ranking had reached to around 402. Another poster seemed to imply that her DD had missed out on March 1st by about 10 places and her rank was 395, which would suggest that they actually ranked to 385 on March 1st. This would mean movement of about 30 (first scenario) or at least 17, but both figures seem quite a lot.

2) the number actually taken above the stated PAN for any of the boys schools this Sept. For DD's year of entry to SHS in Sept 2015, the PAN was 120, but 128 girls actually started, which suggests 8 came via Appeal. With Crypt and STR both expanding this year, is this likely to cut those numbers entering via Appeal.

DS is very twilight for Marling this year so trying to establish if there's any hope........

[dr.watson]

Email from Crypt just now...

Dear Parents,

I understand that some parents, whose child is ranked towards our 600 cut off point, are concerned about how low that ranking may appear, and are perhaps thinking that their child is unlikely to be offered an actual place at The Crypt School in March, when the Local Authority confirms secondary school placements with parents.

May I make two observations for you, which I hope will help you to understand the rankings a little more:

1. Most importantly, you cannot compare your child’s ranking at The Crypt School with the ranking of another single sex grammar school: you are not comparing like with like. This year, we had over 1600 children share their scores with us, which is our cohort, and includes both boys and girls. Single sex grammar schools will have a much smaller cohort; hence, it is likely that your child’s ranking at a single sex school will be higher than it is for The Crypt;

2. The Governors and I had to make a decision regarding how many of the 1600 children who shared their results with us, should achieve our qualifying standard, to enable us to: fill our 150 places, maintain the academic standard of entry into Year 7, and reasonably judge how many of that top 600 would choose another of the 6 grammar schools over The Crypt for their child’s secondary education.


Of course, we can only recommend to parents to put schools on the Common Application Form in their absolute order of preference; however, please don’t think your son or daughter has a ‘safer’ ranking at another school than Crypt, and that it would therefore be better to put another school as your first preference. Historically, any student who has gained a qualifying standard, and put The Crypt first on the preference form were offered a place.

[Nammum]

Does anyone have an idea of the following:

1) the amount of movement beyond Allocations Day in GS in general - a poster on one of the SHS threads has said that Admissions there stated that they ranked last time to 371 on March 1st but by the time all the "shuffling" had gone on by the end of the Summer, she thought the ranking had reached to around 402. Another poster seemed to imply that her DD had missed out on March 1st by about 10 places and her rank was 395, which would suggest that they actually ranked to 385 on March 1st. This would mean movement of about 30 (first scenario) or at least 17, but both figures seem quite a lot.

2) the number actually taken above the stated PAN for any of the boys schools this Sept. For DD's year of entry to SHS in Sept 2015, the PAN was 120, but 128 girls actually started, which suggests 8 came via Appeal. With Crypt and STR both expanding this year, is this likely to cut those numbers entering via Appeal.

DS is very twilight for Marling this year so trying to establish if there's any hope........

I was said poster regarding SHS. My DD2 was ranked 395 for SHS last year. After allocations day I was told she was 10th on the waiting list which might suggest the school offered at 385. I wonder however whether some DDs may not have requested waiting list status which may explain the discrepancy in the rankings you refer to. After reallocation she was 3rd on the waiting list. We lodged an appeal and were successful. I know the number of appeals was only 10 last year. There are 155 in Y7 at SHS which suggests that 5 appeals were allowed.