Gloucestershire Appeal for an undersubscribed school

[Glosmum3]

I posted in the Gloucestershire forum and was advised to post here. We have an unusual situation in Gloucester where one of our Grammar Schools (The Crypt School) is going co-educational for the first time this September and had an unprecedented number of shares. We don’t get scores in Gloucestershire, and children get a ranking for each school. My daughter qualified comfortably for the 3 girls grammars but did not get a qualifying score for Crypt, she ranked late 600s (Crypt qualified 600 out of the 1800 who shared). She has been offered a place at SHS (a girls grammar school - which she loves). But Crypt is closer and easier to get to.
On allocation day it became apparent that Crypt had over predicted the number of children who would accept a place at their school. As they were only able to allocate 79 of the 150 places they have. Looking at the stats it would suggest that with hindsight my daughter would have received a qualifying score. They are not able to extend the number of qualifying children therefore if she want to go there she has to appeal.
I realise that it's just one of those things and it was extremely hard for Crypt to second guess the appropriate score, but I also feel that if she chooses to appeal I could potentially be left with a lot of preparation. If we were to appeal, could we appeal just on the grounds that on reflection she probably should have had a qualifying score. I have looked at the appeals paperwork and it all seems to be focussed around proving she is academically appropriate for that school, which I feel their own stats prove.

[Amber]

In case the relevant experts on here with green names are not up to speed with this situation, there are quite a few threads in the Gloucestershire forum about this - here is possibly the main one. It is I think an unprecedented situation and the school itself has asked for people to appeal as they have 70 spare places.
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... 16&t=53946" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Etienne]

Welcome to Appeals!

(Thanks, Amber, for the link.)

The first question for an appeal is: does the school accept that she is qualified?
If not, then you are going to have to argue that she should be deemed qualified. How you do that is up to you.
If you go for the minimum ("just on the grounds that on reflection she probably should have had a qualifying score") - can you be sure whether an independent panel would consider it sufficient?
If you feel you want to play safe, you should start collating as much evidence of high academic ability as possible:
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeal ... cation#b11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Secondly, if she is deemed qualified, but in the end the year group happens to be oversubscribed - or could become oversubscribed as a result of the number of potentially successful appeals - you maximise your chances by putting forward some good reasons for wanting a place.
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appeal ... -school#c2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Glosmum3]

Thanks for the reply Etienne. I think we need to think it over. Possibly an appeal isn't worth it to us, but I'm sure lots of other children will benefit from the situation.
It's an unusual situation as normally appeals happen when the school has allocated all or most of their spaces. In this case the school is relying on appeals to fill a significant number of places, it seems slightly wrong if only half the places are allocated based on rankings in the 11+

[kenyancowgirl]

But all appeals have to prove evidence of academic ability first. So the majority of successful applicants to the Crypt will, it appears to me, be ones who actually would have ranked comfortably for the school if they had shared there and have evidence of academic ability from school too. There will of course be some ranked lower, with academic evidence from school and extenuating circumstances, but I would expect the former group to be the majority.

[Amber]

For what my opinion is worth - and it really is just opinion here, not based on experience like Etienne has - I think if this were me and neither I nor my child was heavily emotionally invested in the outcome, I would appeal and my evidence would be that my child had passed for other schools in the area which traditionally had a higher pass mark than Crypt, and that had Crypt not (I would be looking for a tactful word here - maybe someone could suggest one?) messed up its own admissions this year then my child would have passed comfortably and that as now there were clearly loads of spaces it wouldn't prejudice the school to take my child.

From what little I can tell, the chances of appeals leading to the school being oversubscribed are almost nil, as the few people who have posted on here are not going to appeal now.

I suppose there is a slight risk with this strategy that your case would look weaker than those who had spent ages collating evidence, and if everyone affected decides to go go appeal you might lose out - but it would not sit well with me to have to try and prove something which is blatantly self-evident and which would not have arisen if the rankings had been more usefully applied. Local people were very surprised indeed as soon as the rankings were announced and it is still something of a mystery as to how those setting the pass mark could have been so ill-advised and over-estimated by so much how popular the school was likely to be with those who had also passed for other schools.

[onthefence]

Just musing, and I would be wary of flying in the face of sex discrimination legislation, but if we are looking at why this school is the best fit for your child then maybe playing up the idea that your DD is resilient and relishes the challenge of being part of the first cohort including girls in a newly co-ed school - despite knowing that they would likely be a minority - would also be relevant? As other posters have noted on the Glos section, Crypt should be bending over backwards (in so far as the law allows) to maximise the number of girls in their first few co-ed years. Unsure how this would be relevant to an independent appeals panel but it looks like the academic evidence would not be hard to muster up in your case and the most singular feature about this school over any other in glos is its newly co-ed status.

[NancyB]

Hi,

This has happened before in Gloucestershire. Ribston Hall, around 6 or 7 years ago, had set their pass mark too high, had loads of unfilled places, then over 50 weeks of appeals took place. The school, apparently, did not fight their side very hard, as they wanted to be full.

As your daughter has qualified for 3 other girls schools, I suspect that you should do well in the appeal - but who knows. There will probably be quite a few who didn't get a place elsewhere also trying their luck, but you would have a better chance.

[Glosmum3]

That's interesting NancyB, I wasn't aware of that.

Thanks for all the replies. After a long conversation with my daughter, she's happy with the school she has been allocated and wants to give traveling a go. She wants to start planning for her new school and enjoy being excited about it and talking about it. Hopefully this thread will be helpful to other parents, thanks for all the great advice.

[stroudydad]

That's interesting NancyB, I wasn't aware of that.

Thanks for all the replies. After a long conversation with my daughter, she's happy with the school she has been allocated and wants to give traveling a go. She wants to start planning for her new school and enjoy being excited about it and talking about it. Hopefully this thread will be helpful to other parents, thanks for all the great advice.

Am I correct in believing it's SHS? It's not a decision that you will regret...
They have the best of both worlds, single sex education, so none of the teenage bravado etc, but in an essentially coed environment