Bucks Appeal

[catcool]

In the summing up neither party should introduce any new evidence or add extra points . You need only briefly highlight your case and emphasis all important issues.
Indeed you do not need to say anything if you do not want to but I would say it is best to have the last word .

[SadDad]

We have no intention of blaming the school but I noticed another thread regarding a low performing school.

Do we need to be prepared to field questions or should this be mentioned by us in our presentation?

[Etienne]

We have no intention of blaming the school but I noticed another thread regarding a low performing school.
Do we need to be prepared to field questions

I wouldn't expect you to be asked questions about whether your child attends a low performing school. However, if for some reason questions move in that direction (one thing leading to another), you should respond as best you can (truthfully but briefly).

or should this be mentioned by us in our presentation?

Only if it might assist your case. For example if the school has been going through a difficult patch recently, during which results have dropped - and you can point to an earlier period of very high achievement - then I see a line of argument that could be used.

On the other hand, if the argument is simply "My child has been disadvantaged by attending a failing school," I'm not sure that will help very much. There is a risk of overdoing extenuating circumstances. Your appeal will almost certainly succeed or fail, not because of extenuating circumstances, but on the basis of whether there is sufficient academic evidence of well-above average ability.

[Etienne]

The LA rep will read another standard statement. You can then make a brief two or three line statement to highlight the key points of your case yet again.

The Bucks LA summing up used to be along the lines "A qualifying score of 121 was not achieved, so in the view of the LA an upper school placement would be more appropriate".

It's likely to be still the same, although the exact words used are up to the individual presenting officer.

[SadDad]

The LA rep will read another standard statement. You can then make a brief two or three line statement to highlight the key points of your case yet again.

The Bucks LA summing up used to be along the lines "A qualifying score of 121 was not achieved, so in the view of the LA an upper school placement would be more appropriate".

It's likely to be still the same, although the exact words used are up to the individual presenting officer.

Thank you for that, we have prepared our presentation and are reasonably happy with it.

We are just trying to prepare ourselves for the Q&A. Probably building the committee up to something far worse than they actually are!

[SadDad]

Another question,

We have made very brief mention of siblings in our presentation but, should the opportunity present itself, should we mention both DD are already at GS and with high scores or play it down.

We do not know if we are likely to be asked about this or not.

We are possibly imaging impossible to answer questions anyway.

(I already tried a quick search on siblings and this question did not come up.)

[Sally-Anne]

You won't be asked the question, but if you wish you can raise it very briefly by saying: "We have two elder daughters at grammar schools, so we are aware of the academic demands of a grammar education". (Don't mention their scores though! Genes count for nothing at an appeal.)

If you get lucky, a sympathetic panel member might just follow up with: "Does he feel under pressure to emulate his sisters' success ...?" I think you know what the answer should be - just keep it short.

[Etienne]

(I already tried a quick search on siblings and this question did not come up.)

The nearest we get to siblings is twins!
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeal ... cation#b24" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SadDad]

Just back from appeal.

We do feel traumatised, and as if we were tongue tied and did not present our points very well.

Strangely our ally appeared to be the representative for the county!

I don't think we could have prepared anything differently, and it was a great relief to have written out our case as there is no way we could have done anything at all without it.

The panel were nice enough, asked some tough questions and challenged us on some of our evidence.

We now feel we must concentrate on high level 5s and prepare for the 12 plus.

Neither my wife or I can remember exactly what was said! Now the short wait for the letter of confirmation. It has been a very tough few weeks and the appeal was very tough for no other reason than our own stress.

It lasted about 40 minutes including waiting for them to look at our school books. Time for coffee!

[SadDad]

We were unsuccessful.



But DS is actually quite happy (or putting a brave face on it) as he is now with the rest of his friends that didn't get through and they are thinking about 12 plus.

Wife is thankful as the long wait is over and we can move on.

School I suspect will be very disappointed.

I am no longer feeling as sick as I was but what a hard run.

We failed, I think, as we did not have enough academic evidence for years 3 & 4. Year 2 was OK but unfortunately only level 3s in Maths and Science and only 2As in English which does not count. We had good extenuating circumstances for year 5 and the exams. The school were very strongly supportive, had good predictions and spoke about strong academic potential.

In hindsight there are many things we could have done differently but we are now trying to be postive and take what we can from it. We will continue to use forum to try and get thinks right going forward.

Is there a 12 plus section?