Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding areas

Eleven Plus (11+) in Surrey (Sutton, Kingston and Wandsworth)

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tiffinboys
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Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:00 pm
Location: Surrey

Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding areas

Post by tiffinboys »

For last many years, parents from local areas have been demanding changes to the admission arrangements of our local grammar schools - Tiffin School and Tiffin Girls School (Tiffins).

Tiffins had ability/distance based criteria, which was changed to Open Selection from 1993 and ever since is cause of major grievance of the local parents.

Greenwich judgement (1987) was cited as the reason for change. However, Tiffins policy of ability/distance was tested in and had been approved by the High Court in its Judicial Review decision (1992). Despite this fact, regretfully, the LA and Tiffins changed its admission policy to open selection.

The result currently is that the number of children from the local area in the school has dwindled rapidly.

Recently Tiffin Girls realized the need for catchment. Only the catchment they adopted is a very large, haphazard and anomalous, including areas even Southall and upto A40 to the North.

We are working on new proposals which are based on ability and then distance from the School to main residence.

Our Objectives and focus has been as follows.
1. To meet the aspiration of the local community.
2. To maintain the high standards of Tiffin Schools.
3. To alleviate secondary school place shortage in Kingston.
4. To reduce the number of children travelling from far distance to Kingston.
5. To reduce the cost and administrative burden of the School, as the number of candidates is now exceeding 2000.

Our proposals meet these objectives and provide an opportunity to the Tiffin Schools to play an active and constructive part in the local community.

These proposals would be compliant with Greenwich/Rotherham judgments and the Judicial Review decision. It would contribute towards meeting their admission requirement under their Funding Agreements and Academies Act, which require schools to admit children 'wholly or mainly from the area in which these are situated'. The local children will only benefit if they are in the top 450 candidates.

To get an idea, last year over 1600 candidates appeared for the tests at each of the Tiffin Schools. This year, the number registered at TS exceeded 2000 and test was conducted over 2 days. TGS had similar numbers as the previous year.

We understand that the Tiffins are now considering its admission policy for 2015-16. Any draft for consultation would need to be issued by end of December 2013.

We request all local parents to write to both the Tiffin Schools Governors (and copy these to your local councillors and MPs) to bring in ability/distance criteria from the next year.

The School Governors' contacts are on their website as follows.

Tiffin School
jpierce@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk

Tiffin Girls School
clerk@tiffingirls.rbksch.org

Please put 'School Admission Arrangements' in the subject line.
nvr star
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Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2012 3:35 pm

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by nvr star »

6. To raise house prices in Kingston
7. To prevent bright children in Brentford and Houslow from getting a grammar school education
8. To reduce the academic potential of Tiffins schools by reducing the ability of the intake
9. To give my child a better chance of getting a place

I'm still not convinced. It all depends on your definition of "local".

(Hint: I live 4.1 miles away)
tiffinboys
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Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:00 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by tiffinboys »

Pass; as we have gone through all these points in the other threads on Tiffins.
999 mum
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Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by 999 mum »

tiffinboys wrote:Pass; as we have gone through all these points in the other threads on Tiffins.
So you can repeat your points at will but others can't????

May be the question should be why is the percentage of local children going down?

Could it be that education is not as high on the list of life priorities as it is for the families who live further away.
tiffinboys
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Location: Surrey

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by tiffinboys »

Please don't take me wrong 999mum. It's open forum. You can repeat what you like. I am just not repeating my answers. If there is some new and sensible question raised, I will definitely try to explain.
Last edited by tiffinboys on Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
999 mum
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Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by 999 mum »

tiffinboys wrote: It here is some new and sensible question raised, I will definitely try to explain.
So is the local children percentage going down? and if so why?
tiffinboys
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Location: Surrey

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by tiffinboys »

That's a mystery. As per SATs stats, Kingston is second only to Richmond in achieving level 6 in Maths & English.
agathachristie
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Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:46 pm

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by agathachristie »

That's interesting Tiffinboys, I live local to Nonsuch and it would appear that in my DD good primary school so many of the girls do not even try the grammars because parental perceived notion that the odds are stacked against them. Quite a number of these girls achieve level 6 stats. Is this the case for Tiffin?
tiffinboys
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Location: Surrey

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by tiffinboys »

That perception is widely believed here too. Perhaps local parents are totally disillusioned with Tiffins over the years. Perhaps tutoring methods have changed a lot and local tutors & parents have not adopted to extreme tutoring and practicing for hours every day.
sgsgirl
Posts: 112
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:47 pm

Re: Calling parents from Kingston Borough and surrounding ar

Post by sgsgirl »

Unfortunately, agathachristie, I think this is the case for Kingston/Wimbledon children. Last year my DS was one of only 2 boys trying for Tiffin boys and we are about 5 minutes drive from the school. I think parents have been put off applying thinking their children have very little chance if the DCs are predicted level 5s even.
The other thing is there are very good Indies in the Wimbledon area so parents who can afford it take this route. Unfortunately no outstanding comps in the area though.
The other thing I have noticed, since my DS was the first to take the 11+ in our family, is that there are a lot of families willing to travel great distances to get their DC into grammar school. These DC may well be much brighter than the 'bright' local kids.
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