11 Plus Exams Forum

Dear 11+,

Fab website! I am hoping you may be able to offer me some advice. My DD scored 120 & 117 (Bucks). Total shock. She has always scored highly in SAT & CAT (around 96 percentile). All teachers said no probs for her to pass! The Head rated her as 1-1 and has written the most supportive report possible. However there are no major extenuating circumstances for us to raise as to why she did not pass. DD has some self confidence issues and the head has commented upon this. On the appeal form we raised the fact that the week before exam DD received a blow to her self confidence from the school when she was voted into a school house captaincy by her year only to have it removed the next day due to the new teacher not knowing the corrct procedure (teachers appoint not student vote) They did not appoint her. She was (and still is) very upset by this.

My query is should we labour this point or should we focus on her strong academic achievements and strong Head support? Many thanks for any help.

Hi adorableade

On 120 you do not have very much to prove, and you must focus on the academic evidence.

Your extentuating circumstances are "worth a mention", but keep it very low-key and link it to the Head's comments on her confidence.

Sally-Anne

Many thanks for your help Sally-Anne.

We had our appeal yesterday. All seemed to go well and there were positive reactions from the panel at appropriate times... until the end. At the end the chair focused in on DD sometime lack of self belief. She questioned whether a grammar school would be the right environment and how would DD 'keep up' with bright and able children. We responded that DD is also a bright and able child and pointed out some cases where she had excelled. We did not portray her as a shrinking violet.

The chair also questioned us on the Head Teachers Assessments for her whole year group. 46 assessed positive but only 30 of those passed. We said we could not comment on HT but only on our child who we felt 1,1 was correct. of the 24 1,1 assessed pupils 18 passed.

We had hoped with 120 scored, strong academic stats and v strong HT support this appeal would be reasonably straight forward. Our Head told us she had never known a child with 120 not to be successfull at appeal.

We are now v worried that the panel will refuse the appeal based on their opinions of our childs psycological make up. If this is the case it would not seem fair to me?

Fingers crossed is all I can say!

Hi adoreableade,
at least it's over - best of luck!

Totty

I think that the HT's 75% accuracy for 1.1s is very good - S-A or Etienne will tell you.

In my two past appeals for non-q the "how would your child cope with brighter children at gs?" question came up both times - so is probably a standard question. And you gave a good answer and presumably had the evidence to back it up (why else would the HT recommend 1.1?) to show that the score was not a true reflection of your child's ability.

Good luck - you will hear within a week.

Hi adoreableade

Wow! The Appeal That Happened! There haven't been very many of those this week.

It sounds to me as though you handled that very well indeed! The Head's recommendations are really very good (from the overall numbers and the 1:1s) and you did well not to get drawn into too much discussion about the overall success rate.

I also think that you handled the question about her confidence very well. I don't think that it was really an issue for the Chair, and it sounds to me as though she was just looking for something to ask you. I think panel members often find it very difficult to find questions to ask on high scores.

You should hear within 7 working days at the latest, although bear in mind that the weather will play a part in that. The Appeals department has been getting by on a bit of of a skeleton staff in the last few days. Letters are usually drafted on the first working day after the appeal and then posted that day, but you can't count on that at present unfortunately.

Please do let us know the outcome.

Sally-Anne

Hi 'Adoreableade' - I have been reading through your thread ... my DDs school's recommendations are not good - I liked your response to that question and will bear it in mind if that question comes up at my DDs appeal next week.

Wishing you and your DD the best of luck for a good outcome from your appeal x x x

Dear All,

Just to say our appeal was successful. It can happen! Many thanks to Sally-Anne and all who gave kind words of support.

Cheers

Ade

Hi Ade

Very well done, and congratulations. I was always hopeful for you on the basis of what you had told us, but you can never be absolutely sure, even on 120.

Thank you for your kind words and I am glad to have been able to help.

Sally-Anne