Anyone here yet for 2021 entry?!

[Eviewin]

drums fingers....

[Future2020]

Hoping the weekend will fly by. I have such a busy work schedule on Tuesday too, I think we will have to wait until evening till tell DC as we both want to together, good or bad news!

[Polgara_Glos]

I am in a state of constant anxiety. I’m just that kind of person and I can’t forget about it till Tuesday. Really glad DC doesn’t know. This wait has been horrible.

[starcrazy]

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.

Thanks for clarifying this.
Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that a list of all applicants for each school was compiled before places were allocated - hence my wondering if the schools would know how many total applicants they had and how many children they may need to rank to fill their places. (I was assuming anonymised data, I know they wouldn’t be able to compare preference with rank etc.)
But it sounds like the council - not the schools - prepare the lists of applicants for each school and consequently, each school will find out how many preferences they had in March when GCC publish their data.

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

Is that 100 out of area children per year across the whole cohort and all seven schools combined, or per school each year, do you know?

[starcrazy]

I am in a state of constant anxiety. I’m just that kind of person and I can’t forget about it till Tuesday. Really glad DC doesn’t know. This wait has been horrible.

I think the process and all the uncertainty around test days, missing school time, on top of the whole pandemic and now this wait has made the whole thing harder this year. I know it isn’t as simple as not thinking about it when you can’t switch off though.

[Polgara_Glos]

Is that 100 out of area children per year across the whole cohort and all seven schools combined, or per school each year, do you know?

It would have to be across all schools? Or 2/3 in each year group 100/150) would be out of county and that seems crazy!

I’m going to be a mess Monday and Tuesday morning. Expect ramblings from me here!

[Yellowhammer]

Regarding out-of-area children, that is across all 7 schools in total. Having said that, the school which always has the highest number of out-of-area children is Pates, and in previous years it has always been Crypt with the lowest proportion.

A significant proportion are also children who started their school careers in private education, and move into the state sector for senior school.

The schools that have attracted (and hence selected!) the highest scoring individuals are also the schools that do best at GCSE / A-level; so one has to question, for example, whether Pates excels by being a fantastic school or by having selected fantastically able pupils.

Gloucester is an exception, and most areas with grammar schools prioritise children within their catchment area, and take comparitively few out-of-area children.

Having said that, despite the presence of grammar schools, and taken in totality (rather than singling out specific comprehensives), comprehensives in Gloucestershire do not underperform compared to similar areas of the country without any selection on ability at 11.

That isn't always the case for those remaining areas where taking the 11 plus is still the norm for children in year 6 in all state junior schools, rather than Gloucestershire's position: a proactive and positive choice by parents (and from my experience, largely neither encouraged nor supported by the state junior schools).

In all, the Gloucestershire grammars only take about 5% of the children transferring from in-area state junior schools to state secondary education.

Getting one of the places is a privilege that is not afforded to all those who would qualify, were Gloucester to use the selection processes in place in many other selective authorities.

However, missing out on a place in one of those 7 schools doesn't close down opportunities for a good, and successful, state secondary school experience in the way that others do experience, under different qualifying regimes.

[Yellowhammer]

Some interesting statistics concerning last year's school allocations:

In October 2019, when last year’s CAF’s were submitted, there were 6,596 pupils in Year 6 across all Gloucestershire state primary schools.

On allocation day (March 1st, and driven by October CAF submissions), there were 6,572 places available in non-selective schools and a further 1050 in the grammar schools, an excess of 1026 senior school places available compared to the number of children within the state primaries. In other words, Gloucestershire has sufficient provision to educate virtually every one of its primary pupils outside of the grammar system.

It also appears that, although the number of places at the grammars has increased significantly over the past few years, the number of applicants hasn't grown proportionately.

On allocation day last year, a total of 6,158 pupils were allocated one of those places in schools outside the grammar sector and at that point, a relatively large number of places were left unfilled pending late submissions, appeals and the like.

However, there were no unfilled places across the grammar schools.

I have assumed that a negligible proportion of non-selective school places go to pupils from out of area or previously privately educated.

On that basis, that implies that of the 1050 places in grammar schools, only 438 were allocated to pupils from the Gloucestershire state primary schools with the remaining places being given to pupils from either the private sector or out-of-area.

Individuals will draw different conclusions from these statistics - and they are based on a single year and a snapshot in time, so should be taken as indicative, order-of-magnitude numbers only.

[Polgara_Glos]

Yellowhammer, that is a lot of research! Do you have a child in primary or secondary?

I would say that in Gloucester City it is different with 4 grammars in a small area and many of the comps only now seriously improving after several years of difficulty.

[Yellowhammer]

Yellowhammer, that is a lot of research! Do you have a child in primary or secondary?

I would say that in Gloucester City it is different with 4 grammars in a small area and many of the comps only now seriously improving after several years of difficulty.

None of the Gloucestershire grammars can be regarded as "local" schools! The majority of the children in all of the grammars travel in by bus or train (and yes, that is based on family members as pupils and staff of a couple of the grammars, and a child waiting for results). There is a large overlap of applicants to all of the Gloucestershire grammars, and most people sharing with most schools (then taking whichever place they are offered).