Anyone here yet for 2021 entry?!

[Polgara_Glos]

2 weeks?

More like 10 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes

Me? I'm not counting or worried.....

[Future2020]

Time is still massively on the go slow for me! I’m just feeling more anxious too as the days pass.
I haven’t told DC that we are aware of the date for results, have you all shared? Last thing I want is too have to share when he walks out the school gates or have others parents asking.

[2Socks]

DD knows the date, but I have said that they won't be out until after 4... also I'm planning on parking a bit further from school and she can meet me at the car. That way I won't get caught by other parents!

[proudmumwhatever]

I remember the horrible cases of the kids who got the wrong results a couple of years ago in my ds's year and so I'll be very tempted to wait a day or two before I tell dd just to make sure there hasn't been any mix ups. I'm afraid we shared with all the schools just so I can cross check the result. Last time we only shared with the one in our town.

I did enjoy all the data analysis that went on that year though, and the stories that had the happy endings.

[Bells]

DD2 knows the date. She kept asking and I could see she was anxious, wanting to join her older sister so badly. So I started building up the 2nd choice, and now she says she prefers the 2nd choice. I am going to go crazy before this is over, the whole process is so dragged out this year.

[Polgara_Glos]

I just told DC December, they were worried thinking they’d be out last week or something so I just said December. That means they won’t start thinking about it now until December. That’s the theory. I’m hoping people avoid me at school pick up.

[Polgara_Glos]

I remember the horrible cases of the kids who got the wrong results a couple of years ago in my ds's year and so I'll be very tempted to wait a day or two before I tell dd just to make sure there hasn't been any mix ups. I'm afraid we shared with all the schools just so I can cross check the result. Last time we only shared with the one in our town.

I did enjoy all the data analysis that went on that year though, and the stories that had the happy endings.

This is horrifying. Did they work out what went wrong?

[proudmumwhatever]

They did work out what had happened and it was so awful that I don't think it is likely to go wrong again, but then this year has been challenging ...

We aren't surrounded by many others who have done the test and have a good (possibly better) plan B which is the only reason I think I'll be able to wait a little bit. I'm banking on the brilliant folks on here who enjoy looking at the numbers to pick up any issues so do post your full results, it was the anomolies that revealed the mistake that time. We ended up with amazing scatter graphs of how one school's rankings correlated (or didn't) with another's!

[Yellowhammer]

Sorry this is long!

Clearing up some confusion across a number of recent posts, and adding some interesting – and surprising – numbers into the mix. Of course, it is the results that matter, and certainty only comes for most in March, but if you end up needing to appeal, or just reset your child’s expectations between grammars or in favour of the local comp, this information might help.

The 31st October 2020 closing date for submission of the CAF and the 1st March 2021 announcement of secondary school allocations are set by law at a national level – neither the schools themselves, nor Gloucester council, can change those dates.

The schools are not given details of whether they are named on a CAF, and if so in what position – sharing that information is simply not allowed by law. For the schools then, this year is no different just because CAFs have already been submitted, and when they rank children it will be entirely on the basis of the results that have been shared. They cannot even take account of where the exam was taken.
So, each individual school will rank everyone who has shared with them, down to the level of their school determined qualifying standard (or a little below), regardless of whether any given child has their school named on a CAF or not.

People do not all share with all schools and some don’t share at all, only considering the school at which their child sat the exam. In recent years, a very large majority (around 90%) have shared with Pates and Crypt, so if you shared with either or both of those schools, those results will be closest to your overall ranking across all children. That is your best guide then to whether you can demonstrate your child is likely to cope with a place at grammar school (note, not at a specific grammar school) and would have succeeded in getting a place under normal circumstances if you later need to consider appealing because the late provision of results compromising your choice on the CAF. When looking at where your child ranks overall, don’t forget that only around 40% are girls and 60% boys, so a lower ranking from Crypt is a worse omen for a boy than a girl at appeal! And don’t forget that the extraordinary circumstances this year will have significantly skewed who actually got a place – so don’t only look at the positions at the named schools you missed out at when considering which school to appeal to!

Girls are at a significant advantage here in general. Not only are there more places for them, but fewer girls than boys are entered in the exams – in rough terms 40% of applicants are girls and 60% are boys. Both genders perform equally well in the exams, and the fact that more boys than girls get places at the mixed schools is down to the inequal number of applicants by gender, not due to any school bias.
Of the girls’ schools, which I’ve spent most of my time analysing (guess why!) I was surprised that the largest number (above 80%) share with Ribston, and there is less sharing of results between Stroud and Denmark Road schools. It is still a majority but far from all. As a consequence, the ranking of a girl across those three schools can be very different.

At the start of this year, there were more than 750 out-of-area children in the Grammar schools, and that number has almost doubled since 2016! That means at least 100 out-of-area children get places each year (and that is a conservative estimate, as I don’t have enough data to compare leavers to starters by year – just the overall totals). Just over two thirds are from Swindon. Crypt has fewer than the other schools, but all schools take a fair number every year from out-of-area.

Whether you think that is fair or not is of no consequence, but my gut feel is that people out-of-area will have had to make some very tough choices when completing their CAF’s and the number may be lower this year – only time will tell on that one.

Good luck!

[Glos18]

Yellow hammer - out of interest, how do you know about the 60:40 boy/girl ratio? I've never come across that before.