More evidence.

Consult our experts on 11 Plus appeals or any other type of school appeal

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

Post Reply
11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now
gingerherb
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:49 pm

Appeal coming up!!!

Post by gingerherb »

I am worried about how my appeal is going to go. It is next week. My daughter gained 120 in her bucks paper and we are going to appeal. She has the reading age of 13 years and 3 months and she is ten. She has a full support from the her head teacher and she is level 5 in english and 5b in maths. Sub Levels for english weren't availbale from the teacher because she didn't sit the english paper so the teacher couldn't judge the level. In her CATS test which was NFER Nelson she did last February 2010, in verbal, she got 121, in maths 119, non verbal 123. She was predicted to pass over 121 and just below 130 by the school. When she was 9, she got chosen to work with year nine pupils from westgate to perform a powerpoint presantation about a prefered book. Later, she was invited to the MARS factory to say her speech on the enterprise. And in year five, she wrote a poem about African children and the teacher admiried it so much that she got to go to the houses of parliment and talk about poorer children and how we can help them. She is a school ambassador and a journalist and she's signing up for the Arts Award. We have enclosed the speech, the poem and her best peices of work. Are the appeal panel goign to reccomend my daughter? :?
rubyrubyruby
Posts: 58
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 7:35 pm

Re: Appeal coming up!!!

Post by rubyrubyruby »

Gingerherb, good luck with the appeal. Much more qualified people will be along soon to advise, all I can say is to read everything you can on this site it will be time well spent. Etienne or Sally-Anne will, I am sure, advise you to focus hard on the academics- so school report, cats, sats and other hard data as this is first and foremost what the appeal panel will be looking for. With a score of 120 you have not got too much to prove, but of course every year 20% of those with that score do not get through so prove it you still must. Get all the data together in a nice clear way so that it is easy for the panel to see how very clever your child is.

good luck

RRR
tiredmum
Posts: 1161
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:51 am

Re: Appeal coming up!!!

Post by tiredmum »

as i keep reading in the bucks section and everywhere in the appeals really what you need to provide the panel with is
EVIDENCE EVIDENCE EVIDENCE.
Make sure you are well prepared for questions, write down before you go any you can think you may get asked and read the info on this site. Go prepared. Good luck
hermanmunster
Posts: 12815
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Appeal coming up!!!

Post by hermanmunster »

tiredmum wrote:as i keep reading in the bucks section and everywhere in the appeals really what you need to provide the panel with is
EVIDENCE EVIDENCE EVIDENCE.
Make sure you are well prepared for questions, write down before you go any you can think you may get asked and read the info on this site. Go prepared. Good luck

Tiredmum is just right, worth having a look at the feedback section as there are quite a lot of comments on there about what people have been asked, bit like exams - worth having "model answers" prepared - saves you forgetting crucial bits on the day.

Good luck!
gingerherb
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:49 pm

More evidence.

Post by gingerherb »

Thank you for the comments! What I'm not sure is that should I take the school reports? They are great and very high standard. Year 4 and Year 5. We are taking her school books and there are over 4 peices of work in each book which have very good comments in. We are also taking the school newspaper which my daughter has written articules in. There is also a magazine where my daughter's picture is taken because she visited the houses of parliment. There is also the Westgate paper where a picture of her in a group is taken because she did an enterprise there. Which documents do you not reccomend? :?:
Annan
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2010 10:38 am

Re: More evidence.

Post by Annan »

Hi, having had my appeal last week and spoken to friends who have just gone through it as well, we are of the same opinion that the panel were looking for strong academic evidence backed up by an extenuating circumastance. They even asked my friend if her four year old son had been awake the night before the exam which may have kept her daughter awake. They asked us if there had been any "illness's in the family"? I don't know for definite if they are trying to gauge how desperate you are or if they are genuinely looking for an extenuating circumstance, my feeling is the latter.

I would bring as much academic evidence as you can and if you have an extenuating circumstance get evidence of that and push it in front of them.

Good luck, x
rubyrubyruby
Posts: 58
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 7:35 pm

Re: More evidence.

Post by rubyrubyruby »

Photos/magazines I suspect are much less impressive unless you can explain what they prove- which you wont have time to do and wont be in the room when they go through them- if you have great school reports and work books I think you have your answer- they are completely self explanatory and will be in a format that is familiar to the panel members

RRR
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: More evidence.

Post by Sally-Anne »

gingerherb wrote:Thank you for the comments! What I'm not sure is that should I take the school reports? They are great and very high standard. Year 4 and Year 5. We are taking her school books and there are over 4 peices of work in each book which have very good comments in.

Yes, take them all. I suggest that you take a photocopy of the reports for the clerk to add to the case record.
We are also taking the school newspaper which my daughter has written articules in.
Yes, although it might be better to take a photocopy of it and highlight your daughter's articles so the panel can find them quickly. If it is a lengthy booklet, take the opriginal and put some post-it notes on the pages where your daughter's articles can be found.
There is also a magazine where my daughter's picture is taken because she visited the houses of parliment. There is also the Westgate paper where a picture of her in a group is taken because she did an enterprise there. Which documents do you not reccomend? :?:
I think these are probably going too far. There is a risk with this type of thing that where you state "she was selected ...", "she was asked ..." the panel may start digging deeper to find out the actual criteria that were used for selection. If it turns out that in fact half the class went, you risk them thinking that she isn't that special after all. If the essential academic evidence from the school is really strong, these latter points could end up obscuring that.
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Re: More evidence.

Post by Etienne »

Sally-Anne wrote:There is a risk with this type of thing that where you state "she was selected ...", "she was asked ..." the panel may start digging deeper to find out the actual criteria that were used for selection. If it turns out that in fact half the class went, you risk them thinking that she isn't that special after all. If the essential academic evidence from the school is really strong, these latter points could end up obscuring that.
I agree entirely with S-A - the test you should ask yourself each time is "Is this evidence of high academic ability?"

I would apply the same sort of test to the school newspaper:
  • Is it that the school encourages participation, is keen to have more contributions, and is happy to print anything within reason?
  • Or was it printed because the quality of the English was brilliant?
    Or because everyone in the class was asked to write an article, and hers was one of the best and among the few selected?
- If it represents a real achievement, it would probably be better to have a letter from the class teacher to explain this, with the article or newspaper attached.
Etienne
Post Reply
11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now