11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi Etienne

You suggested for me to send you the school’s case / breakdown of HT recommendations when we got it which we now have.

Number recommended (number qualified)
1.1. - 6 (5) ( the one who didn’t qualify was our dd)
1.2. - 4 (3)
2.2. - 4 (2)

So 10 out of the 14 recommended, qualified.
30 in class, 25 took the test. 11 not recommended for grammar school.

Thank you for any further thoughts on this. Does this look like our HT made reasonable predictions?!?

Woobywoo

Does this look like our HT made reasonable predictions?!?

I for one am convinced.

I find the '2' recommendations the most revealing.
The success rate here for the 2:1s/2:2s looks a bit above average, but what stands out is that the head has been realistic and hasn't put forward too many candidates.
Experienced panel members probably get tired of seeing long lists of '2' recommendations, most of whom haven't qualified.

In my view the '1' recommendations ought to be much easier to get right, so I'd be looking for a high success rate. 8 out of 10 should be fine.

I suggest you draw the panel's attention to the matrix at stage 2, and remind the panel that your daughter was one of the 6 with a 1:1.
At this point you could refer to the low number of '2' recommendations, and you might consider asking the LA rep whether he agrees that overall the head hasn't over-recommended, but has been very realistic.
There's a good chance he'll agree with you!

Thanks Etienne. That’s helpful and reassuring - although the odds are still definitely against us. 40 are appealing for AHS and I note they didn’t go over PAN the past 2 years.

But I feel we are as equipped as we can be and do appreciate all the comment and advice.

Our stage 2 isn’t until early June but I will share our experience and outcome once known.

Dds Guinea pig died last night so not great timing with SATS this week - but at least she is not aware of appeal and the shenanigans of it all
Bw

Woobywoo xx

So we had our appeal on Monday but won’t know result until 7th July. It took about 1 hr as we were appealing FCO, qualification and prejudice. Panel seemed warm and fair in most of their questioning. In terms of FCO the LA rep seemed to say he thought it wasn’t FCO based on what we had raised, so it’s hard not to feel hopeful about that hurdle.

For the qualification bit they didn’t really ask anything about our academic evidence other than to say it was “comprehensive” but they did ask more about why our DD didn’t pass given evidence. It was tricky to answer but we were as prepared as we could be thanks to advice here and boiled it down to an anomalous day against a turbulent yr 5.

The bit I feel we really didn’t give them enough on was the prejudice bit but we couldn’t give any more genuine reasons with integrity.

There were some bizarre questions where we couldn’t work out what they were looking for eg is your daughter a quick skim reader or does she go through every detail... we said the former as that is true but no idea if that went for or against her!
We were also asked if we had tutored her but there was no right or answer. If so, why ask it? We had, so we said yes due to turbulent yr 5 and missed bits of curriculum and also because everyone else around us was too so we didn’t want to disadvantage her further.

We came out feeling some bits had gone well and they had given us positive vibes and some bits had not. Goodness knows what will happen - i think we have a good chance of jumping theFCO hurdle but maybe that’s it. We were certainly far more prepared because of this forum so feel we did all we could. Thank you! We will update with result when known to help others in the future.

the LA rep seemed to say he thought it wasn’t FCO based on what we had raised

Interesting - we rarely hear of this point being conceded.
They are, after all, being paid to defend the school case!

I wonder why it is such a long wait? We had ours yesterday and have been told 5 working days. This seems adequate in my opinion.

Good luck.

Tolstoy wrote:I wonder why it is such a long wait? We had ours yesterday and have been told 5 working days. This seems adequate in my opinion.

Good luck.

Decision letters have to be sent out within a certain time frame after the last appeal has held, not within that time after each individual appeal (because decisions cannot be made until they have all been heard). So it would depend on the pattern of the hearings - e.g Essex appeals where there are too many for one day are usually heard over consecutive days, but sometimes logistics dictate otherwise and you may get, say, hearings split over two or three successive Wednesdays or whatever. So someone whose individual appeal was straight after the group presentation on day one would not get their decision until three to three and a half weeks later.

Final appeal for the school is 2nd July apparently so that’s why we won’t hear until then.
Good luck to you Tolstoy.

Yes we were surprised at the responses of the LA rep too, Etienne. He started by saying that he had never seen a recent school move being raised on a selection review clerks notes before and that the first school will gave by law provided data to second school and upon further questions from us and panel conceded it prob wasn’t fair for this to be a reason to question our evidence at SRP....

Woobywoo

Ah that explains it Toadmum and Woobywoo. Glad ours were done swiftly been able to switch off up until now as too much else going on to spend time thinking about it . Now it is done feel the need to put it to bed pronto and move on.

I can’t quite believe it but we found out our appeal was successful today!

So we managed to jump the FCO, qualification and prejudice hurdles!!!. Thank you so much to this forum (Etienne and guest55 especially) for all the advice and wisdom shared on my and other threads that clearly helped us.

It’s been such a rollercoaster. I’ll put our full feedback on the ‘feedback from all areas” thread regarding the actual appeal questions etc. If any one has any more specific questions I’m happy to answer them on this thread.

So DD goes to AHS in September - just chuffed to bits. She is too, if a bit unsettled having been to a different induction last week and having had no idea we went to appeal.

My heartfelt thoughts to others still waiting or who did not get the outcome they wanted. It feels like a lottery and we’ve been lucky today.

Woobywoo xx