I've just had a look at the 2020 admission policy for Crypt, and noticed that they have the categories of:
Looked after child
PP
Kids of staff
Everyone else

It says that within these categories, children will be given higher priority if they live nearer Crypt. There is a separate section re tie breaker situations.

I might be wrong, but I'm interpreting from this that they are applying some sort of formula to the children's raw scores, so that local kids end up with a higher rank. Does anyone else read it that way? Could explain a few anomalies that are cropping up...

the application of the oversub rules should only really come after the CAF forms have been completed and they know who has applied where etc. I can't see that they would be adjusting scores by distance before they have applied

I've actually asked Crypt this very question in the past (and I published the answer on this forum) but basically, distance only applies if 2 or more children tie for the last place based on their ranks.

First comment on the forum so sorry if I'm getting this wrong but:

I think I found your earlier post on this and I'm wondering given the date of it whether it applies to the entry that has just occured (i.e. the 2019 one) and they've now changed it for 2020 - the wording in the Admission Policies on the Crypt website for 2019 and 2020 are certainly different - the 2019 one explicitly mentions that the distance criteria would be applied to separate applications at the 150th place, but the 2020 one doesn't mention ranking based on score above the "entry standard" and only references "distance" once the "Looked After", "PP" and "Children of Staff" have been taken into account.

If they have ranked on distance for those that have met the minimum standard - rather than the marking relative to that minimum it would explain the comment made in another thread about someone getting a quite good score for Marling and then no offer at all from Crypt. It's not clear where that person lives - but if they are too far away they may be above minimum but judged too far away to get on the list. This could specifically affect someone on the south side of Stroud - and would have a similar effect for someone on the north of Cheltenham (e.g. good score for Tommies or Denmark and excluded from Crypt on distance)

Happy to be proved wrong , but that's what it looks like to me.

There is a separate issue about some of the results potentially looking odd for some of the other schools because of children that are above "minimum standard" but falling into "Looked After"/"PP" etc being allocated places in the top 150 rather than where their base score would put them in the rankings - hence why someone can get "in top 150" for Ribston, but no ranking at all for Denmark due the Ribston minimum being lower and picking then up.

All very curious, and it's not helping work out what the positions in the varius rankings actually mean for DD.......

Did they have a consultation last year?

I think grammar schools in some other parts of the country apply distance criteria. So you can have children with lower scores gaining places above those with higher scores because they live nearer to the school.

Hi Cheltdad,

I have found my original email and the reply so I'll post them here. I remember I had exactly the same thought as you over the change from 2019 to 2020 entry (I was planning ahead for DS) and it's definitely 2020 entry we are talking about in the email exchange:

(October 2018):

"We came to the Open Morning yesterday and are very interested in the Crypt for our son, currently in Year 5, for September 2020 entry. I have noticed that you are proposing to change the admission criteria from next year (2020 entry) and wanted to check a couple of things:

1) As I understand it, all Pupil Premium children who receive a qualifying score will automatically be given a place in the top 150 (we do not qualify for Pupil Premium).
2) Distance. As I understand it, after PP children, children are admitted in order of rank, based on their standardised score following the test until all places have been filled, as in other grammar schools. But the admissions criteria mentions distance as a factor. Is this just used for the 150th place if more than one child has the same standardised score, or it is the case that all qualifying children are in fact ranked according to how far they live from the school? I believe this is unlikely but I want to make sure as we live in Cheltenham and would clearly lose out if this were the case."

Her reply:

"Further to your email below – you are correct in your assumption, distance will only come into play at the 150 places – all places are in rank order, after PP students.

Hope this helps?"

Incidentally, DS was ranked in the Top 150 for Crypt (as well as Tommies and Marling). As you can see, we weren't excluded based on distance

I believe there was a discussion on this last year.

If you want to share her rankings and the schools we'll see if we can help you make sense of it all!

Thanks for the replies - must admit what's happened to some people looks a bit odd, but it could just be down to Crypt being mixed and that pushes where you are in the list differently depending on where you are etc.

That said, the updated Crypt Policy for 2020 doesn't read very clearly - the wording is certainly less clear in places than some of the other schools.

A friend with a DS already at Crypt did highlight to me that "the rules have changed this year" - hence why I started looking at this.

We're going to the open day next week, so hopefully I can get a clarification out of someone then.