Outside the Catchment area

[Guest]

My daughter wishes to attended Altringham Grammar, she is practising for her exams and we have received confirmation today that she will be able to sit the test.

However...do you think is possible for her to gain a place is we are outside the catchment area? How many of you have been fortunate to expirience this?

Any comments appriciated

[TraffordMum]

I don't know exact numbers. Could you ring the school and ask them directly?

At the recent evening for new Yr 7 pupils for this coming September it was obvious there were quite a lot of girls from outside the immediate catchment area. There are certainly pupils coming from Warrington, Cheadle, Knutsford, Didsbury, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge.

[Guest]

Altrincham Boys have 168 places available, but only 89 I believe are available for altrincham area boys, they save 70+ places for the brightest of the surrounding area kids, hence the results.

[TraffordMum]

With respect, I don't think you are correct. Alty Boys would fill its entire 168 places from local catchment area boys if 168 local boys passed the exam and wanted places there. However, it doesn't have that many local boys who pass the exam and want places - hence why it admits to out of catchment boys but only after it has admitted all relevant local boys first. Its admissions policy is available on its website and clearly states that.

The school has stated that for 2007 entry it is admitting 93 boys from immediate catchment and 75 from outside. That doesn't mean it reserved those 75 places for out of area boys, though. It means that only 93 local boys took up places there, leaving 75 spaces available for others.

I don't know the figures for the girls' school, but it wouldn't surprise me to know that the figures are similar.

[rich]

My son is sitting the Altrincham Boys exam tomorrow and we already have in writing from the school how many places there are for boys in area and for boys out of area, before the exam has already taken place. I think you will find that the previous poster is correct, they try to scoop the cream and hence the results.

[guest66]

As a parent of a boy in catchment (anxiously waiting for results) and with one son already at the school, my blood pressure rises reading this email regarding out of zone applicants. If you attended any of the admission evenings you should know that the pass mark is set based on the number of children who take the exam and the marks these children achieve in the exam. The pass mark is arbitrary and variable. Rumour has it that an older child would need to achieve in the region of 80% and 75% for the younger end of the year. Presumably this can be increased if the number of children out of zone increases and score well. Therefore a local child who say scores 75% may find they do not qualify for a place and an out of catchment boy who scores 76% may be offered a place. How can this be fair? How can a 10 year child who scores above 70% in an exam be classed as a failure? Forgive me if I dont sympathise with out of catchment parents, however when I see intellegent local children being classed as failures being nudged out of places by out of zone children I feel very agrieved!

[Nikki]

I think you'll find out of catchment area boys have to score significantly higher scores than in area boys. If you're in area you have to 'pass' obviously this score varies according to average score of the boys and difficulty of the exam - which is the same for all 11+ exams. With out of area boys taking the exam (of which there are large numbers) there are a set number of places and the ratio of places to boys is much smaller. If you're out of area the places go to the boys who scored the highest marks. Therefore in theory you could have to score well over the in area pass mark to get a place. I don't think it does any good getting angry at in area / out of area parents or children. The school sets the admission criteria for reasons we can only guess at. Surely we all just want the best for our children - it's the school who obviously want the very brightest (best at the test?) children, and as we all know, when our children are involved emotions can run high.