Objection to the admission arrangements of Sutton Grammars

[WorryQueen]

It seems that most parents will tutor their child in order for them to sit the grammar school test whether they are in Sutton Borough or out of Sutton Borough. A lot of these parents are not well off but feel that they need to place their child on a level playing field. Certainly at my DS's primary school, they never ever did a verbal reasoning test and never ever covered a lot of the maths questions in the 11+. However, in the local prep schools, this was part of the curriculum. Surely this is unfair! A fair amount of children were tutored but only a handful of those passed. Some were tutored at home DIY style (which is easier if one of the parents does not work) and some went to a Tutor maybe once a week for a couple of hours.

I live in the Sutton Borough and my DS attends a very local Grammar school. It seems that most of the children in his class are also very local. Maybe within 5 miles. Only a handful have to travel a long distance to school. The current admission procedures stops people from moving into the area in order that they can gain a place.

I live very close to Nonsuch school and have seen various families move into my road. Gained a place at Nonsuch on catchment area and then moved back to where they originally came from and then the next family moves in eager for that catchment place.

With regards to the transportation to school in large cars, I think you will find that this is mainly parents from the Sutton Borough who daily ferry their primary school children to and from school. Very few people in my road actually send their children to the primary school which is 5 minutes walk away, but choose instead to attend one of the more prestigious primary schools in the area which means they would need to be transported by car. How these people managed to avoid the catchment area for primary schools, I will never know.

So the question is, would changing the admissions procedure for the Grammar Schools really mean that more Sutton Children would get in. I am not so sure.

[Giulio]

There is factual evidence that children in Sutton have in fact advantages in terms of education opportunities, for example over children of the LB of Lambeth where I reside.

"...secondary schools located in Sutton currently provide more places than there are children of secondary school age living in Sutton..."
Meeting minutes of the Sutton Council Admission Forum, 19/7/2010, 540b Motion

"...Lambeth only has enough secondary school places for 13 out of every 20 children living in the borough. …]
Lambeth Council web site, Education and Leanring, 2009

Here are links for full text
http://sutton.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDoc ... 2601&Ver=4
http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/Educ ... People.htm

From the full text from those sources I derive, if not mistaken, that Sutton has 24 places every 20 children, which is almost twice as much.

[Giulio]

the objector calls them "our grammars"
well, everybody pays for them, but it seems that the borough of Sutton gets a bigger slice of the pie and some resident would like a bigger slice still
I pay taxes..... (suprisingly .... you would say, being Italian... )
don't laugh, everybody pays taxes back in my country
unless you own a football team and you are the prime minister
in which case you make the rules that suits you, to get more of what is not actually yours...
... a far fetched parallel ...

[Webbo]

So the question is, would changing the admissions procedure for the Grammar Schools really mean that more Sutton Children would get in. I am not so sure.

I'm not sure either, maybe slightly if at all. However the alternative being proposed is far from being "sutton schools for sutton children". Presuming the catchment area distances will be similar to the girls' schools, Wilsons and Wallington candidates will need to compete with children from Croydon and part of Merton. Sutton grammar will need to compete with parts of East Surrey and Merton. Some children in Sutton may find themselves out of the catchment area of schools in their own borough.

With the aid of a ruler I've worked out that I (a croydon resident) would actually be better off if the objection is successful, as we live within a few km of Wilsons and Wallington.

However I find it hard to believe they would change it for the 2011 intake with the tests already taken. I wonder if it is technically possible to reprogram the admissions system in time !

[abr]

"From the full text from those sources I derive, if not mistaken, that Sutton has 24 places every 20 children, which is almost twice as much." - And yet, Sutton area children are forced to go outside the borough, which does not make any sense, especially given the fact that neighbouring counties e.g. Kent have certain %ages reserved for their local children.

I think everyone is missing the point of the objector Mr. Cullen's proposal. To have at least some oversubscription allocation based on catchment (i.e. 50% of the places in Sutton borough for DCs in catchment was what Mr. Cullen raised in his closing statement). This is fair to both IB and OOB children.

All said and done, I do not believe anything is going to change, as this is all part of due process, and if something had to happen on this it would have happened long back when these Sutton Grammars removed catchment from their oversubscription policies. However, I will be happy to be eat my words if the adjudication upholds the objection and accepts the middle ground proposed by Mr. Cullen.

Nice summary by the way, ob1

[Giulio]

I haven't seen all Mr Cullen objection, yes I assumed that something like that is what is asking.
given that the people that live in the LB of Sutton already have more school places then others, to also reserved 50% of grammar places makes things more unjust

they take a good proportion of the grammar places anyway, but that is not enough...

I think the girls' grammars are the anomaly, in fact they wanted to do without their catchment area last year
only the local opposition stopped that, but it does not make it fair

--

Sutton council says that 20% of children go to school OOB
first this is less than in other boroughs
and second this does not mean all of them are forced, a proportion of them must have chosen a school OOB

I am at the border of my borough, so most of the schools around me are OOB

[4mykids]

I attended the public meeting on Tuesday.

Let’s be honest about this. The majority of parents supporting the objection do not really want or care about a “Sutton” based catchment area per se. They simply want to do anything that increases their own sons chances of getting a place at the respective schools. To me, the “Sutton” argument is a smokescreen and a way to legitimise and gain wider support for the objection.

One point to note. The floor was opened towards the end of the meeting, to people who were not parents. Three people spoke. One was a head (if I recall) who simply defended the reputation of the non-selective Sutton schools, that he felt had been dragged through the mud by Sutton parents who implied that if their children did not get a place at one of the Grammars, that their academic career was effectively over.
The other two, a Head and Chair of Governors Sutton non-selective secondary schools, both stated categorically, that if this objection was upheld, that it would have a seriously negative impact on ALL Sutton secondary schools.

This case is really about some parents wanting to increase the chances of their own sons obtaining a place in these schools. The league tables that some were deriding at the meeting are the same league tables that no doubt make these schools so attractive to some of them and their sons in the first place. Imposing a catchment area will lower standards to some degree (otherwise there is no reason to introduce it) so the schools may ultimately end up no longer being the places the parents aspired to send their sons to.

[Sally-Anne]

I pay taxes..... (suprisingly .... you would say, being Italian... )
don't laugh, everybody pays taxes back in my country
unless you own a football team and you are the prime minister
in which case you make the rules that suits you, to get more of what is not actually yours...

How nice it is to see some humour on this thread! You made me laugh out loud Giulio.

[Rob Clark]

unless you own a football team and you are the prime minister
in which case you make the rules that suits you

Or Ferrari, Giulio. Doing some work with them at the moment and they definitely don't think the rules (or even the laws) apply to them

This case is really about some parents wanting to increase the chances of their own sons obtaining a place in these schools.

Actually, you have absolutely no idea whether this is true or not, unless you happen to have a unique insight into all these parents' motivation. You may be right or you may not, but you can't possible know for sure. Come on people, I know this is an emotive topic, but let's play nice, eh?

[4mykids]

This case is really about some parents wanting to increase the chances of their own sons obtaining a place in these schools.

Actually, you have absolutely no idea whether this is true or not, unless you happen to have a unique insight into all these parents' motivation. You may be right or you may not, but you can't possible know for sure. Come on people, I know this is an emotive topic, but let's play nice, eh?

Hi Rob, you are of course correct that I don't have an insight in to the parents' individual motivations, but note that I was careful to say "some parents" as opposed to "all the parents" who are actively supporting the objection. Please tell me, hand on heart, that I'm wrong.

I also noted that at the meeting, as per my previous post, when the floor was opened to questions from "non parents", the only people who spoke were Head Teachers and a Chair of Governors, implying that all other speakers - on both sides of the argument - had a vested interest in the outcome.

An article about the case in the Sutton Guardian quoted Mr. Cullen "who has three children under 9" as saying "I didn't come into this with any set idea, it was more out of interest.". I of course have no idea whether any of Mr. Cullen's children are boys...