Appeal when did not pass the 11 plus

[lefol]

Cath given that your headteacher supports you it will be silly not to appeal. Are you a Kent or Bexley resident? Depending on where you live in Kent, it may be worth placing a school on your CAF and then lodging an appeal with the headteacher's support. My ds passed but I was a little surprised at his scores as he did better in English and Reasoning compared to math which is his strongest. The idea of top set/bottom set in primary school is also a mystery as most children considered to be lower sets pass the eleven plus with higher scores and I am not confident it is just down to tutoring.

[Cath28]

Cath given that your headteacher supports you it will be silly not to appeal. Are you a Kent or Bexley resident? Depending on where you live in Kent, it may be worth placing a school on your CAF and then lodging an appeal with the headteacher's support. My ds passed but I was a little surprised at his scores as he did better in English and Reasoning compared to math which is his strongest. The idea of top set/bottom set in primary school is also a mystery as most children considered to be lower sets pass the eleven plus with higher scores and I am not confident it is just down to tutoring.

Well done to your DS. Yes... I think I will put a GS first choice and thenappeal. At least then I will feel at least I tried!! We live in Kent.. Nearest being MGS or Oakwood Park. My son is usually very strong in maths... he did have a lower than normal attendance in year 5 so could have missed some important curriculum... so I shall use that as one of my points in my appeal.

Thank you everyone for your advice and input. Any parents of future 11 plus takers I would say the best advice I can give is however bright your child is... get them a tutor!!! If you can't beat them, join them!!!

[Sennockianmum]

There is often smugness from those whose children have done well but 'haven't tutored' whereas in reality all that has happened is the parents have been pseudo tutors, doing exactly what tutors do. The smug points only come from 'not' outsourcing.

[ahu_ran]

Hi Cath, I think Oakwood Grammar was undersubscribed last year, if the same happens this year you have a good chance of appeal. Encourage your son to do well in Sats at the end of the year. Look at the appeal forum and prepare a case. Look at kent advice and you might find a lot of useful info.

[Stroller]

There is often smugness from those whose children have done well but 'haven't tutored' whereas in reality all that has happened is the parents have been pseudo tutors, doing exactly what tutors do. The smug points only come from 'not' outsourcing.

Disagree. Tutors who "know of many students" pump their candidates for information after exams and interviews and build up an almost real-time picture of what is asked year on year.

DIY parents - and we were that family - have no such detailed insight. We paid attention to public domain posts here, bought papers and put in the preparation effort we thought would do the job. And it did. It's not smugness, it's a sense of happiness and relief that a DIY child managed to get through DESPITE not having access to that back catalogue of details.

To the OP, I'm sorry the result wasn't what your family was hoping for. Children from our local primary school scatter to the winds for secondary. There's always some trepidation about attending a school with few or none of your primary school mates, but they all settle in rapidly (and still keep in touch).

[Cath28]

Hi Cath, I think Oakwood Grammar was undersubscribed last year, if the same happens this year you have a good chance of appeal. Encourage your son to do well in Sats at the end of the year. Look at the appeal forum and prepare a case. Look at kent advice and you might find a lot of useful info.

MGS would be my first choice as my other son goes there! Maybe I should put Oakwood 2nd? Would that mean I would need to do 2 appeals? And I think for the first year ever Oakwood we're over-subscribed!! Grrr!!

[kenyancowgirl]

Cath28, I'm in a similar situation in Warwickshire.

Boys only had to come in top 50% approx to get into a grammar school. My son is (or we thought he was but do wonder now) quite bright, has always in all school life been in top half and often on top tables.

He missed by well, who knows, about ten points.

He did very well in maths, but I believe here the vr and non vr are added together and divided in two ... he did badly in both. No tutoring and he refused to practice. So we feel guilty for not having tutoring and not trying harder to make him do Bond papers. He had looked at them.

All - all - his eight? friends have passed, and I don't know how many other boys. It's a bumper year for his school.

He has no reason for failing other than he's obviously not very bright (school have always said he is?) or had bad day, but no extenuating circumstances and very low ranking and score mean there is no way he will be going to a gs. He is lucky we have a good back up school - assuming he gets there, no guarantee right now - but gutted he won't be with his friends who all live around us and will all go to the gs.

I thought he'd be a border line pass, tbh. If he'd failed by a little less ... or any of his friends had failed ... but it's upsetting to say the least. Especially when I hear that everyone who passed at tutoring. He's doing well and holding his head high. I'm just avoiding school. Good luck.

Ginx, in Warks, VR is 50% of the total marks and Numerical Reasoning and Non Verbal reasoning are worth 25% each. W/r to the age standardisation, Cath, whilst it is natural to assume that as a summer born your son may have "effectively" been docked some marks that a winter born child would have had "added", age standardisation doesn't work like that. Your son will only have been compared with children born in the same month as him - if he was born in say June, and all the June babies did particularly well this year, but all the Sept babies did particularly badly, the June babies would, in effect have to get a higher raw score to get the same pass score as the Sept babies who would have to get a lower raw score. If it had been reversed (which is what people expect) the situation would be the other way round. But, he is actually in "competition" with people born in the same month as him...

[Sennockianmum]

There is often smugness from those whose children have done well but 'haven't tutored' whereas in reality all that has happened is the parents have been pseudo tutors, doing exactly what tutors do. The smug points only come from 'not' outsourcing.

Disagree. Tutors who "know of many students" pump their candidates for information after exams and interviews and build up an almost real-time picture of what is asked year on year.

DIY parents - and we were that family - have no such detailed insight. We paid attention to public domain posts here, bought papers and put in the preparation effort we thought would do the job. And it did. It's not smugness, it's a sense of happiness and relief that a DIY child managed to get through DESPITE not having access to that back catalogue of details.

To the OP, I'm sorry the result wasn't what your family was hoping for. Children from our local primary school scatter to the winds for secondary. There's always some trepidation about attending a school with few or none of your primary school mates, but they all settle in rapidly (and still keep in touch).

I disagree that all tutors do that - ours certainly didn't. Ours purely focused on techniques such as time management. The school also provided us with past papers so these were all freely available.

[Loopy Lou]

Hi Cath28, just a thought, it may be worth contacting KCC and ask them to go over his answer paper for you. It may be your son got muddled with the answer sheet, see if there were any frantic scribbles or rubbing outs, or maybe he marked too many answers. That with asking him if he had any difficulties you may be able to build up a small picture of what went wrong. Good luck!

[Cath28]

Hi Cath28, just a thought, it may be worth contacting KCC and ask them to go over his answer paper for you. It may be your son got muddled with the answer sheet, see if there were any frantic scribbles or rubbing outs, or maybe he marked too many answers. That with asking him if he had any difficulties you may be able to build up a small picture of what went wrong. Good luck!

Thanks. I thought I read somewhere that we are not allowed to see the test papers?