National Grammar Facts and Figures

[mystery]

OK, let me re-word that - you are right to point out that county is not the right word here. Schools are not there just for people who live in the local authority area within which the school is sited.

[southbucks3]

Nope...add the local authority area "with a two tier system", within which the school is located, and I may be happy

Can't see anyone, let alone 2500+ people applying from other areas for our upper schools, ...I wonder why?

[Rob Clark]

Schools are not there just for people who live in the local authority area within which the school is sited.

But isn't that what a catchment area is? Apart from the handful of super-selective GSs, schools are there to serve the local population – they may not be county-specific or local authority area-specific but they are catchment area-specific.

Children in, say, Oxfordshire or Hertfordshire can take the Bucks 11+ safe in the knowledge that should they not reach the qualifying score they have some very good comprehensives as a back-up. Children in south Bucks meanwhile do not have that option, they have a selection of upper schools – some of which are fine and some of which are not. In south Bucks it is very difficult to access any school other than the local GS or the local upper school.

Bucks operates an opt-out system, every child takes the 11+ unless the parents specifically decide to withdraw them. Out of county children on the other hand are opting in to the exam and the likelihood is that are going to be among the higher-performing members of their cohort. Hence they push up the qualifying standard at the expense of children who are resident in Bucks and attending primary schools there but find themselves competing against top-set children from other areas.

There is also a social element to consider: Bucks GS are not super-selectives and while they are very good schools they are also local schools. Several of them are plonked right in the middle of towns, and children who attend them are 'encouraged' to play a full part in not only school life but as part of the local community. I like the fact that my children walk through local villages to get to their respective schools – who would benefit from bussing them out to more distant schools while bussing in loads of other children with no links to the area simply so the latter can attend what might possibly be a marginally 'better' school…?

All that said, it isn't personal kiwi mum, and in any case it sounds like you are one of us now

[mystery]

If Kent bordered with Bucks and I had the choice of one of your upper schools versus one of our non-selectives I would go for one of yours. When people on here have talked about some of the Bucks uppers I have looked up their latest GCSE results and seen that a very high percentage of children are making at least expected progress in maths and English, and also that there is a decent proportion of high achievers entering the school in year 7. Neither of these things occur at a lot of our non-selectives. I wonder if this is partly because in Bucks you have had such a strange 11 plus exam for so long - GL Assessment 21 VR question types only. Maybe this has resulted in a lot of able children going to the uppers who otherwise would not have done.

As the new exam you have is a better balance (includes maths and NVR too) maybe this will mean a top 25% of a slightly different nature passing the exam. If it does, you may find that over the years the nature of both your grammars and your upper schools changes - they maybe will both be even less "comprehensive" in their ability intake than they were before the test change perhaps. I am just speculating - this could be far from the truth.

I think that maybe the problems you encounter due to OOC children competing on a fair footing with Bucks L A residents are because of the two tier grammar/upper system within Bucks, and to do with some doubts over the quality of education at some of your South Bucks upper schools. Why do you have such bad ones as well as good ones? Banning OOC candidates or not letting them compete on an equal footing (pass, then distance criteria) seems to be a roundabout way of doing things rather than improving these rubbish schools.

It still looks as though the proportion of Bucks L A residents who gain grammar entry iwas a reasonable one last year; will be interesting to see if this changes much on 1 March under the new test.

[southbucks3]

We like to think the great gcse results of our top players in some of the uppers, is due to children who have been rejected having a b***dy determination to prove the system wrong
Also they have really supportive teachers.

[Proud_Dad]

Children in, say, Oxfordshire or Hertfordshire can take the Bucks 11+ safe in the knowledge that should they not reach the qualifying score they have some very good comprehensives as a back-up.

Surely the fact that OOC parents go to all the effort of trying to get their children into Bucks Grammar Schools, implies that the local comprehensives in their own counties are not perceived as particularly good?

If the Herts and Oxon comps were all "very good" then why the heck would any parent in their right mind from these counties go through all the stress, trauma and expense of putting their child through the 11 plus, with the reward for succeeding being that their child would then have to travel long distances to a school in a different county where most of their fellow pupils would be strangers? Surely they'd just have a nice relaxing Y5, spend the money saved on tuition on a nice family holiday safe in the knowledge that their kids will be going to an excellent local school with all their friends?

The fact is though that parents in Herts and Oxon are just like parents in Bucks. They want the best for their children and the fact that they try so hard to get them into Bucks GS sadly implies that there is something seriously wrong with the comprehensives in their own counties, in the same way as Bucks parents feel their is something wrong with the non-selective upper schools in Bucks.

[southbucks3]

There is nothing wrong with several of our uppers, they are/were simply designed only to accomodate the lower 2/3 achievers. So theoretically the all important motivating, hard grafting academic boffins are not at the schools to set the top standards, and inspire the others. They are of course very present in reality now, because it has all gone wrong!
Btw the upper schools are selective, by default they select the 75% who did not pass the test.

[mystery]

Schools are not there just for people who live in the local authority area within which the school is sited.

But isn't that what a catchment area is? Apart from the handful of super-selective GSs, schools are there to serve the local population – they may not be county-specific or local authority area-specific but they are catchment area-specific.

Children in, say, Oxfordshire or Hertfordshire can take the Bucks 11+ safe in the knowledge that should they not reach the qualifying score they have some very good comprehensives as a back-up. Children in south Bucks meanwhile do not have that option, they have a selection of upper schools – some of which are fine and some of which are not. In south Bucks it is very difficult to access any school other than the local GS or the local upper school.

Bucks operates an opt-out system, every child takes the 11+ unless the parents specifically decide to withdraw them. Out of county children on the other hand are opting in to the exam and the likelihood is that are going to be among the higher-performing members of their cohort. Hence they push up the qualifying standard at the expense of children who are resident in Bucks and attending primary schools there but find themselves competing against top-set children from other areas.

There is also a social element to consider: Bucks GS are not super-selectives and while they are very good schools they are also local schools. Several of them are plonked right in the middle of towns, and children who attend them are 'encouraged' to play a full part in not only school life but as part of the local community. I like the fact that my children walk through local villages to get to their respective schools – who would benefit from bussing them out to more distant schools while bussing in loads of other children with no links to the area simply so the latter can attend what might possibly be a marginally 'better' school…?

All that said, it isn't personal kiwi mum, and in any case it sounds like you are one of us now

Did Bucks change to opt in this year for the new test? Either way I don't think it makes much difference to the county / out of county battle.

Catchment areas - I find the term a bit confusing. Schools have admissions policies which set out what will happen if more pupils than the number of places they have wish to go to the school. They don't have hard and fast "catchment areas" as such. Also the School Admissions Code sets out what it is acceptable to put in these oversubscription criteria. This all seems to be worn a bit thin in some admission policies which name parishes etc to be given priority, but many years ago there was something called the Greenwich judgement which said that Greenwich should treat cross border children just the same. Maybe following this is no longer in fashion / necessary but I think in some way the principles in the admissions code enshrine this kind of thinking. Maybe someone more up to date can enlighten us.

Once you have a two tier system you also have to accept that this means that grammar children are on average going to travel much further to school. You can't have local schools everywhere for just 25% of children. In the less densely populated areas of a large county like Kent this exacerbates the travel issues for children. Expecting a grammar to be for "local" children in this situation is really stretching the meaning of the word local.

Also what do we mean by a grammar school? These days it just seems to mean a school which is selective. The curriculum is much the same unlike in the past when the curriculum at secondary moderns, technical schools and grammar schools was vastly different. The percentage of the population admitted to grammar schools has varied vastly over time too. I saw some data while back (can't remember where) which showed that in the late 1940s a whopping 40% of so of children nationally attended grammar schools. Maybe this was a trick of the school leaving age being so low, but it does beg the question, what is a grammar school, and how can we argue what is fair percentage of children in county / out of county who should attend them when there is nothing set in stone about them.

I live near a county boundary - many children here in Kent attend comprehensives in other counties. The ones who live by the sea can't do that. That's not fair either!

[Proud_Dad]

Expecting a grammar to be for "local" children in this situation is really stretching the meaning of the word local.

This is a local school for local people, there's nothing for you here!

[southbucks3]

Well watch out....you know what happened in the league of gentlemen...well we local bucks yokels have our own little quirks that we pass onto our kids, who in turn socialise with one and all at grammar, you ooc families could end up with more than you bargained for.