This on The Times website:

Over a dozen grammar schools have agreed to change their tough admissions criteria and admit more poor children to qualify for a slice of a new £50 million improvement fund.

Sixteen schools have been given a share of the pot to build new classrooms and other facilities to accommodate a total of 4,000 extra pupils.
The schools, across 12 counties, were selected from 39 bidders and make up 10 per cent of the country’s 163 grammars.
The money has been granted on condition that the schools carry out ambitious plans to admit more poor pupils. Grammar schools, with their competitive entry exams, are overwhelmingly colonised by middle-class children whose parents have the money for tuition and coaching.
Overall they have 3 per cent of children on free school meals, the benchmark for under privilege, compared to 17 per cent of youngsters in the area in this category.

The schools have all had their proposals for widening access approved by the government. As well as prioritising disadvantaged children in their admission process, the successful schools have put forward plans for outreach in their area to get poorer children to apply in the first place.

• Altrincham Grammar School for Boys (Trafford)
• Bournemouth School (Bournemouth)
• Bournemouth School for Girls (Bournemouth)
• Chelmsford County High School (Essex)
• Colchester County High School (Essex)
• Colyton Grammar School (Devon)
• John Hampden Grammar School (Buckinghamshire)
• Kendrick School (Reading)
• Lawrence Sheriff School (Warwickshire)
• Queen Mary’s Grammar School (Walsall)
• Queen Mary’s High School (Walsall)
• Sir Thomas Rich’s School (Gloucestershire)
• Sir William Borlase’s Grammar school (Buckinghamshire)
• St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School (Barnet)
• Rochester Grammar School (Medway)
• Wolverhampton Girls High School (Wolverhampton)

**wave** Yorkshire / Lancashire here

Obviously the counties are too well off to require a leg-up for disadvantaged children.

Not all have got their 2020 admissions consultations anywhere very obvious (when I looked earlier today) at the moment. And hasn't St Michael's just done / are they not in the middle of significant building work? Just going from something that I (may have mis)read on the forum.

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Perhaps that's it or maybe they didn't shout loud enough.

I don’t think they have to have started their consultations yet. In previous years some have started only just before Christmas. They have to be 6 weeks and finish by the end of February.

How important was it to have LA backing for the bid? If the LA is opposed to the expansion of selective places, schools in those areas may have been put at a disadvantage.

Do you know whether any actually applied?

No, according to the Admissions Code, they have to complete the consultation process by the end of January and must jave determined their admission arrangements by the end of February. So yes, if the schools want to work to the latest date, they've still got a few more days to get the consultatuon document published.

For admission arrangements for entry in September 2016, consultation must be for aminimum of 8 weeks and must be completed by 1 March 2015. For all subsequent years, consultation must be for a minimum of 6 weeks and must take place between 1 October and 31 January of the school year before those arrangements are to apply.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

That’s a change I didn’t know. I know it was end of February a few years ago.

Kendrick had already stated what they would change theirs should they get funding, so they should have it all ready to do. According to the email they sent out, they only received the news late on Friday,

At WGHS as part of their bid for capital spending it was suggested the school would expand numbers for year 7's from 145 to 180 and year 12's from 135 to 165 from September 2020.Building works probably beginning in 2019.

My understanding is the £50 million was part of a £200 million fund set aside for selective school expansion.Part of much larger figures to fund the expansion of school places in many other different types of schools.

https://www.tes.com/news/grammar-school ... s200m-fund

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46429040

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In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

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