This week a consultation process has started to bring in catchment areas for the Birmingham Foundation Grammar Schools.

This means Anyone outside of Birmingham would be highly unlikely to gain a GS place at any of the Birmingham schools.

This will mean more children looking towards the Warwickshire schools.

We need to safeguard the future of all the Midlands Grammar schools.

A petition has been set up on Change.org regarding the proposals to change the admissions process -

Jayne.francis@birmingham.gov.uk: keep Birmingham state grammar schools

Please sign the petition and share the link with family and friends and ask them to do the same.

I don't understand. Save the schools from what?

I agree with catchments - they make sense for schools and the environment.

So do I, and I have sent Jayne Francis an email supporting the proposed changes accordingly.

In the interest of balance - whilst there will be some families that fall outside of the catchment areas for Birmingham and inside the priority area for Warwickshire, there are unlikely to be vastly increasing numbers - some of the areas in question mean that travel to the Stratford Grammar Schools, for example, would be very difficult, and parents are as likely to look at their very good local comprehensives.

Warwickshire within the priority area, currently ranks on score, and outside of the priority area on score/distance. This may mean that, in the extremes of the priority area, children who would have looked to one of the Birmingham Grammars (which allow entry on a lower score) but now cannot, will look to the Stratford Grammar Schools or Alcester instead. Entry "score" to the Stratford schools has been rising slowly every year, with a guaranteed score for entry being around the level of the CH schools in Birmingham, but the minimum entry being usually above Birminghams proposed cut off score of 220.

So, yes, again, on balance, whilst there may be a small increase in the number of children wanting to apply to a Stratford GS, they will likely have to score higher than they would have (to gain entry in a GS in Birmingham - except the Camp Hill schools), so may not actually score high enough for a place. That is not to say that I do not understand the worry of their parents who effectively feel they no longer have the option of a GS - they still have the option, it is just they will have to socre higher than before.

We will be looking at AGS now for our DS2 and DD2.

In a way, this will take the pressure off them to achieve the high scores that are needed for the school their older siblings are at. (Scores which are becoming more and more unobtainable)

What's so awful about your local schools, NM?

JD

There's nothing awful about our local schools. In fact, we are quite lucky.

We are guaranteed a place at a Solihull school, we also fall in the catchment for Henley school.

However, rightly or wrongly, we favour a GS education for our children, the same as many others.