Just got in from adjudicator's meeting.

[bingybongy]

just heard the headmaster of Amherst on the radio suggesting that places are offered to West Kent children first. Is he an Estate Agent in his spare time?this system is how Cranbrook works, where 80% of kids come from the private sector, where Londoners have moved to the area specifically for the school.

[Flybynight]

Surely these 3 Schools have a fairer system than a tight catchment area. A system where first and foremost academic merit is looked at before distance from the school in the case of a draw. Skinners even has it's playing fields located in Sussex; that's how close to the county border it is. How can it be fair to exclude children who live merely 1/2 a mile from the school due to political boundaries if they have passed with a high enough score to merit a place.

Last year ALL children who passed the 11+ in West Kent were eventually allocated a Grammar School place. Admittedly some had to wait until July. Both WOK and TWBGS have had to open another classroom to accommodate them in the past couple of years. The 'super selectives' are just that. The reason that they are so popular is that they take the cream, that combined with excellent teaching staff means outstanding results. They are victims of their own success.

Last year only 13 boys were OOC at Judd and 20 girls at TGS. That is out of 128 and 150 respectively. Tonbridge in particular has fantastic rail links so even children living as far away as Crawley can leave home around the same time as a child catching the school bus in Sevenoaks.

[SSM]

Agree totally with you. But before others start shouting you down, Skinners' playing fields are not in Sussex. They are towards Southborough.

[Blue Peter]

So why is the implementation of a system that is amost universal throughout the rest of Kent, and indeed the Country, unfair?

.

Can you back this up with evidence? Apart from Twbgs, all the other schools in this area that use distance as a criteria, are not SELECTIVE schools. e.g Hayesbrook, Hillview, and therefore are not determining admissions on academic ability.

[Blue Peter]

Does anyone have a summary of exactly what KCC's objections were/are? Did they provide anything written?

KCC's presentation was an absolute joke. They just summed up how wonderful the schools are etc,but couldn't provide any details about their objections. They were constantly asked "What are KCC's objections?" but they just couldn't answer. Eventually, Scott Bagshaw, Head of Admissions at KCC got up and said that they had got objections, but he still wouldn't outline them. When pushed he said that he'd put them on KCC's website, someone shouted out "By tomorrow?" and he agreed to that.

Basically, it was a farce. They called the meeting but did not present their objections! Is this what we pay our council tax for? How can we officially comment on their objections if they won't tell us what they are. Haven't checked KCC;s website yet.

[Flybynight]

'KCC's presentation was an absolute joke'

Yes I agree with you Blue Peter. Apparently there was no one willing to represent the 'Sevenoaks Objectors' and so a short presentation was made by KCC. Immediately I thought 'great' they have played straight into our hands.

Sorry about the Skinners playing fields location; it was said at the meeting last night by an ex sixth-former who actually made a fantastic case for keeping the current arrangements. Certainly it is true that Skinners is right on the border with Sussex. Also consider the OOA children who live in East Kent and live far closer to the schools than Sevenoaks (I think the border is only 2 miles away!!). Do they not have a chance also of a super-selective based on academic merit and not political boundaries.

Yes we all want our children to go to the best schools, however if you put a child into Judd with a low pass he would not be able to keep up. I have a son at Judd and around 1/2 his class scored full marks, 420, in the 11+. The pace is very fast and there are some SERIOUSLY bright boys there ( one boy can apparently work out square roots of six figure numbers in his head!!!!). The school is fantastic but geared up for the very able.

[zvrk]

just heard the headmaster of Amherst on the radio suggesting that places are offered to West Kent children first. Is he an Estate Agent in his spare time?this system is how Cranbrook works, where 80% of kids come from the private sector, where Londoners have moved to the area specifically for the school.

As you probably know Cranbrook school starts at 13 and primary school finishes at 11. Where are parents supposed to send their children for two years, local comprehensive (Angley, very contradictory stories from parents with children going there) or one of the few prep schools ?

BTW some of us live near Cranbrook school for a long time and before we had children .

[committed]

Completely agree that KCC presentation was farcical. Amherst head had a scatter-gun approach to why he was objecting, saying the system had become more difficult in recent years, overcoaching meant able children may lose out to tutored ones, OOC parents didn't deserve a place and yet OOA in county should be included. Independent schools were skewing the system. State schools should be allowed tutor.... the list went on - all valid arguments, but not cohesive. The Kemsing representative, whilst very weak, was at least overt in simply saying that Kemsing should be catchment!

The 3 schools went after the transparency and fairness card and all came across well. At a guess I'd say you had a 70/30 split in favour of the current policies based on people in the room. It was also reassuring to note that despite the fact that 184 objections had come from one small area and group of parents (indeed I've heard that there was a template letter written...) that it was considered just one point, though if I was one of the schools involved I might be tempted to rally support from their parents and get a couple of hundred parents to write in to support the current policies just to even it up...

However, the most interesting facts of the night were to be heard talking to Scott (KCC Head of Admissions) afterwards. A Togs potential parent whose child sits the test this weekend was aghast as to why Togs were included in the complaint when they had not had a consultation period earlier this year. KCC apparently thought the Togs entrance criteria was great - right up to the point that they realised that Togs actually offered more OOC places that the other two schools and all of a sudden thought they weren't.... I got the impression (and it is only my impression) that if Togs only offered 10-15% of places to OOC that they'd have been left alone - or even lauded as the way it should be done.

Scott also went on to say that in the end almost all kids ended up with the school they wanted but that some had to go through the horrible wait / appeal involved. In his opinion the Kent parents should be spared this ordeal and it should be OOC parents who have to go through it!!! I was a tad surprised at his honesty

I asked him whether they were going to change the policy on scores and it seemed to be a relatively minor objection becuase their frustration stems from not knowing how many OOC places are going to be offered which makes their life difficult - which would again seem to infer that if the three schools had a specific number of OOC places available that would be much better.

He did promise to put their objections up on the website today (after claiming that we could get it with a freedom of information request!). He said it extended to 7 pages - which makes me think that they've adopted a scatter-gun approach too... However I'll certainly wade through it when/if they do make it available

[twellsmum]

Err, Skinners playing fields are right opposite my house which I can assure you is most definitely in Kent (and in fact further in to Kent than teh school is if you take the boundary from the Frant end of town) otherwise my DD would not be at TWGGS!

[dadofkent]

So why is the implementation of a system that is amost universal throughout the rest of Kent, and indeed the Country, unfair?

.

Can you back this up with evidence? Apart from Twbgs, all the other schools in this area that use distance as a criteria, are not SELECTIVE schools. e.g Hayesbrook, Hillview, and therefore are not determining admissions on academic ability.

i think if you look at the admissions booklet you will find that all of the remaining Kent GS's allocate on distance (and siblings), with a few minor exceptions. e.g MGS allocates a proportion of it's intake to those in it's defined catchment area (designated parishes) above a certain score (which ironically probably frees up a few spaces at Judd and Skinners). But why should the allocation process for GS's be any different to non-GS's. There is a non-GS in Maidstone with a catchment of 1 mile, and which causes many people on the East side problems, but there is no one shouting it is unfair.