Crypt Appeals

[Prof Pat Pending]

The email contained the stats from last year - 83 appeals, 35 upheld.

[cazien]

Yes she was in the 690s. I spoke to school prior to the allocation figures coming out and they seemed very fixed on an appeal being the only option. Like you I'm not sure it's worth an appeal, as she loves the school she's been allocated. It's a location issue really and I know she would do well at Crypt.

From a personal opinion, I think she would do better at Crypt. Having DC's at both schools, I would 100% choose Crypt over Ribston.

[stroudydad]

Yes she was in the 690s. I spoke to school prior to the allocation figures coming out and they seemed very fixed on an appeal being the only option. Like you I'm not sure it's worth an appeal, as she loves the school she's been allocated. It's a location issue really and I know she would do well at Crypt.

From a personal opinion, I think she would do better at Crypt. Having DC's at both schools, I would 100% choose Crypt over Ribston.

I believe she was offered a place at SHS not Ribston

[Glosmum3]

Yes DD is down for SHS, she likes both schools but prefers the feel of SHS - she's quite girly

[cazien]

Yes she was in the 690s. I spoke to school prior to the allocation figures coming out and they seemed very fixed on an appeal being the only option. Like you I'm not sure it's worth an appeal, as she loves the school she's been allocated. It's a location issue really and I know she would do well at Crypt.

From a personal opinion, I think she would do better at Crypt. Having DC's at both schools, I would 100% choose Crypt over Ribston.

I believe she was offered a place at SHS not Ribston

Thank you stroudydad for spotting my mistake. Apologies Glosmum3 - I confused your post with Rachm82.

I wish your daughter all the best at SHS and hope she thoroughly enjoys it.

[Rachm82]

Thanks Cazien. I'm sure Crypt is a very good school but I think, as a girl, Ribston will have more to offer my DD. Plus I wouldnt be too comfortable with her being in a minority at Crypt, it will still be a very boy orientated environment and I'm not sure how she would get on with that.

[DC17C]

Thanks Cazien. I'm sure Crypt is a very good school but I think, as a girl, Ribston will have more to offer my DD. Plus I wouldnt be too comfortable with her being in a minority at Crypt, it will still be a very boy orientated environment and I'm not sure how she would get on with that.

As a parent who has seen children go through both schools....they both have their merits.I know it is not a preferred school for some..but my dd chose Ribston over other schools and successfully completed gcses at Ribston last year. It was a lovely school for her and gave her an excellent well rounded education and has set her up well for sixth form and whatever the future holds. I hope the co ed transition goes well for Crypt...I must admit to having mixed feelings about it.

[Lysander]

Nerdy analysis coming up

Coming a bit late to this thread - other threads have set out the cause of the problem, but I will try to add some other perspectives. The root of the issue can be seen here https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j ... FWcb1OdSwW

These are the minutes of the governors' meeting at Crypt in 2015 when the issue was discussed. The salient point is this:

BW questioned the consultation format for a) increase PAN to 140 for 2017 b) going mixed. This triggered significant discussion with regard to the timings for both points a) and b) above and the need for one or two consultation periods. ND highlighted to Governors that the consultation window was very tight (due to open days) and needed to go out in the next couple of days. ND also put forward that the timeline was too tight to achieve mixed status by 2017. ND proposed a 2 phase approach with a view to becoming mixed in 2018.

RDJ reminded governors that the strategy to become mixed was financially driven and built into the 2017 budget, therefore to delay the transition to mixed could result in financial problems which need to be understood. Governors raised their concerns that without mixed entry it would be difficult to draw enough boys into the school for 5 forms of entry without academic risk. ND also added that the LEA favoured co-ed status potentially with Ribston but as yet the change in admission policy had not been approved. AB to arrange an introduction to the Ribston board of governors.

From this we can see that Crypt's expansion is financially driven, and there was concern that expansion could result in a drop in standards. Before the expansion, we can see from the 2016 round of admissions, where the last child admitted to Marling was ranked 344, and the last child admitted to Crypt was 370, from scores where children shared with all the schools, that it is likely that (a) Marling took the lowest-scoring boy that year and (b) by and large, Marling and Crypt took the lower-scoring children from that year's cohort, with higher scoring boys tending to opt for STRS or Pates. I want to reflect here that I think Marling and Crypt are lovely schools, and that parents are probably unreasonably swayed by minute differences in league tables, but reasonably influenced by the fact that they're a right faff to get to from Cheltenham or Tewkesbury, but the fact that they are lower down the parental preference order means that they have a large share of the boys who passed in the lower half of the grammar cohort.

This is likely to have influenced the decision to set the cut-off at 600, which probably represents children scoring in the top 60-65% of the grammar cohort (I can't work this out exactly as I don't know how many shared with each school, but we know 1819 shared with Crypt and there are 1020 grammar places, and the Echo reported 2100 registered for the test.)

Given, when it was a boy's school, the lowest scoring child admitted to Crypt was probably somewhere in the 90-95th centile of grammar school passes, this was quite a bold strategy. If Crypt had managed to fill their places with children in the top 60-65%, then it would be visible in their league table results 5 years later. All the grammars in Gloucestershire are really very good, and the small variance in GCSE results after 5 years is probably a reflection of the small variance of ability on entry, which is reflected (albeit imperfectly) by test scores.

If Crypt had set the cut off at the top 90% of the grammar cohort - say the top 900 scorers, there would have been a few children who'd be disappointed, but they'd fill their spaces and not have a terrific difference in results in 5 years time. It was fairly easy to see that 600 was unrealistic - on a previous thread I posted:

Given that Crypt's admissions cut-off for previous years were as follows (I don't have 2017's last admitted):

In previous years, places have been allocated down to the following ranking:

2016 Down to rank 370
2015 Down to rank 350
2014 Down to rank 340

And this year, they are attempting to fill an additional 30 places, you would think that if they were still only admitting boys, their last admitted would be around 370*1.25, or 460. But given that STRS is admitting an extra 30 boys, we should probably round up our estimate of Crypt's last admitted number to 500. And now consider that they are attempting to admit equal numbers of boys and girls - in that case, they should have qualified the top 1000 rather than the top 600.

We know from earlier on this thread that a girl with rank 908 got a place at Ribston. This reinforces the point: if your child is in the top 900 they have achieved a standard which shows that they would benefit from a grammar school education. So if your child is in the top 900, then appeal if you want Crypt: you have a reasonable case, and they have a great number of places to fill and I really hope they manage to do so, because otherwise there's a big financial strain on the school. If your child is in the top 1000, you're probably in with a shot.

[Eromdap]

Fantastic reasoned analysis and so clearly written, thank you.

[Watermelon8]

That’s great analysis Lysander. 900 would’ve made far more sense. Our school has 5 bright boys who last year would’ve qualified for Crypt. They have simply been pushed out of the 600 by the girls in the rankings & now have to wait to see if they get a place. Our primary traditionally has about 13 or so boys who go to Pates, Tommies or Crypt. This year only 8 split btw the 3 schs, the rest qualified for Marling but hoping for Crypt places