Appeal for a twin - both eligible but oversubscribed

[Marylou]

We successfully appealed a number of years ago, with our case revolving around a dubious interpretation of a sibling policy. (There's a report in the feedback section). We had even managed to uncover what we considered to be something unethical that occurred as part of an LA policy reorganization which, even though it suited the LA's purpose and affected very few families, directly impacted upon our daughter's application. However, on the advice of the wise sages here we focused our appeal submission on the suitability of the school for our daughter and the prejudice argument. Appeal panels are very sympathetic to apparent injustices like this (ours were highly intrigued ) but unless the policy aspect is completely black and white, you need to give them something else. As I was told at the time - you have to make them want you to win the appeal. In the end they have to decide between your daughter's interests and the school's - and provided you've presented a good case for your twin as an individual, sympathy over the way the policy was handled could just swing things in your favour (as I suspect it did in ours.)

That school definitely needs to get its act together as regards its policy, though...!

[Sally-Anne]

I have sent an email to the moderators with information and criteria which is ??? Relevant to an appeal.

Thank you, and I will be sending you a PM.

[Twinmumdorch]

I have just read the letter dated 3rd of March from the school about my second twin. It says the following:
"As advised to you by your local authority, regrettably we cannot offer her a place at present due to being oversubscribed. In our admissions policy it states that students who live within the borough of Poole are given priority. Any remaining places are then offered to students who live outside the Borough of Poole who have met the required standard in rank order of their test score."

There have not acknowledged here that she is a twin, or that they even have a multiple birth policy within their admissions criteria. However, they do know that she is a twin because when I called them on March 1st I reminded them. I wish I had challenged this more on that day but I was too upset to deal with it because I knew how my daughters would be feeling.

[Twinmumdorch]

Does anyone know if schools or admissions authorities can provide me with past admissions criteria to look at? Can I request them to compare to the current one?
I know it sounds strange, but in our case with twins I wonder if the multiple birth issue has only come up as a problem now because the criteria changed. It used to based on distance out of catchment not rank by score. Now I realise that a twin could be 180 and her sister 181 as they live in the same house! With this policy of rank by score it would be statistically very unlikey. Does that make sense?

[Stroller]

Does anyone know if schools or admissions authorities can provide me with past admissions criteria to look at? Can I request them to compare to the current one?

The one for 2015 entry is here: http://www.poole.gov.uk/EasysiteWeb/get ... Attachment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Suggest for any useful docs that you save a soft copy locally AND print btw.

[Twinmumdorch]

Whilst preparing for this appeal I have contacted the two boys grammar schools and the girls grammar school in Bournemouth too to ask them to explain their multiple birth policy. The first reply came this moring.
One of the boys schools said the following:

"Thank you for your enquiry. I can only comment on the 2017 policy (same as 2016) the policy states:

Applications for children of multiple births
If applications from children of a multiple birth span the threshold for the published admission number, this will be treated as an exceptional circumstance and they will all be admitted if they are all of the required standard.

I hope that this clarifies the position for you."

This clarified nothing! I therefore emailed again to ask - Just to clarify, does this mean that if both twins pass the 11+ and are ranked with all the other applicants but only one falls within the PAN, both twins can be admitted regardless of where the second twin is ranked? I am sure you can appreciate the concern over the possible separating of twins.

I have received a response - "To clarify - it does not mean that wherever the second twin is ranked they would receive an offer of a place. It means that if twins span the 'threshold for the PAN' - in other words if they are both ranked 150th then they would both be offered even if meant going over the PAN. We would in that circumstance offer 151 places.

If one twin was ranked 100th and the second twin was ranked 175th (based on all applicants putting us as first preference) then no the second twin would not be offered a place."

So their policy means that twins have to both be ranked 150 to gain entry, again, what are the chances of that? Do people think twins are going to score exactly the same on three papers because they are twins?
It feels to me like the grammar schools have a multiple birth policy that is worthless because it is not designed to prevent forcible separation of twins/triplets and may deter families with bright children from applying. How sad.

[Amber]

o their policy means that twins have to both be ranked 150 to gain entry, again, what are the chances of that? Do people think twins are going to score exactly the same on three papers because they are twins?

And you can imagine that if they did do just that, there would be some kind of hoo-hah because surely they must have copied each other...what an incredible policy this is!

[Twinmumdorch]

I am so glad I am not the only one who is struggling to comprehend these multiple birth polices. I feel like I am losing my mind!

I called the local authority today to ask why they have a multiple policy and they said I need to discuss it with the school direct as they set their own policies. I am worried they are going to get annoyed with me if I keep ringing them. I emailed them on Friday and I am waiting for their response.

[Amber]

Personally (sorry) I can sort of see why there wouldn't be preferential treatment given to twins - in many ways the arguments for having them together are similar to those for other siblings (logistics, being close, etc). But as you say there then seems little point in having a multiple births policy - if the conditions for actually taking advantage of it are vanishingly unlikely ever to happen, one wonders why they bothered drafting it. Unless there is some kind of higher law which says they have to?

[loobylou]

I think that the reason for having a multiple birth policy is because, if the last place to be offered was 150 and twins had both scored 150, then there would be no ability to differentiate between them (exactly the same distance away, for example) so they would have to offer over PAN to be fair to each of the twins. Inevitably one would be discriminated against if they only picked one. This is obviously a vanishingly rare scenario.
Assuming it is a "proper" grammar school and therefore has no sibling policy then I can't see why they would have to have a multiple birth policy that does more than that.
Where there is a sibling policy (eg in my dd's partially selective school) then if one twin gets in on academic grounds, the other automatically benefits from the sibling policy and is admitted for that reason. But in this situation, admitting the 2nd twin would be prejudicial against all the other children on the waiting list between the lowest offer score and your dd's score.
I don't think grammar schools are allowed sibling policies? and therefore I don't think they will be swayed by the fact that this is a twin.