Appeal affecting school choice?

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karen1307
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:50 am

Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by karen1307 »

Hello all, I'm very, very new to all this 11plus/grammar school process and am unsure of how appealing may affect my son's choice of school.

We live in Bucks and my son missed his 11plus by 5 marks. He scores consistently high in school, achieving 5c/5bs in English although maths is slightly lower at 4a/5c and his teacher approached me today saying that she felt we should appeal.

Our catchment high school is not where we want to go and we have put down as our first choice an out of area school, and last year everyone who put it down as first choice from our village did get in, so it gives us hope.

Our catchment grammar school is also not where we wanted to go, as it is extremely high achieving and very pushy, we would want to choose the other grammar school in our nearest town.

My question is:

If I change our first choice of school to the grammar school of our choice, in case we win the appeal, would it then make the high school our second choice? Is there a way round this?

I just read that we would need to be refused our choice of grammar school before we can go to appeal, so I'm assuming that we would have to put the grammar school down as our first choice, meaning the high school then becomes our second choice and we would then be very unlikely to be offered a place at the high school of our choice should our appeal fail, or the grammar school not have places left.

I really hope this makes sense! Does anyone have experience or knowledge of this?

Thank you :)
Amber
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Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by Amber »

karen1307 wrote:If I change our first choice of school to the grammar school of our choice, in case we win the appeal, would it then make the high school our second choice? Is there a way round this?
Yes, I think that the assumption would be that if you are appealing for a school, you want your child to go there and that would be your first choice. Remember you can't change the order of preference after you have appealed - you only appeal once your first preference has been refused. Why do you want a way round it? If you put the grammar first (and are refused because your child didn't qualify) then you will get your second preference if you meet the criteria for it. If you're not happy with that allocation, then you appeal.
I just read that we would need to be refused our choice of grammar school before we can go to appeal, so I'm assuming that we would have to put the grammar school down as our first choice, meaning the high school then becomes our second choice and we would then be very unlikely to be offered a place at the high school of our choice should our appeal fail, or the grammar school not have places left.
If you are not offered a place at your first choice school, your second choice is treated as your effective first choice. If your appeal fails and you have been offered a place at the high school of your choice, you will still get that. The school won't know you appealed and if that is where you were allocated, that is where you will get a place.

The advice is always to put your true order of preference down on the CAF, ensuring that at least one of the schools is one you have a realistic chance of getting a place at.

Hope that is clear! :D
karen1307
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:50 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by karen1307 »

Hi, thank you for your reply. Because the high school in question is over-subscribed, it is unlikely that we would get in unless we have that down as our first choice (this is information from the head of that school) and that is my concern with appealing at all. More thought needed I think :/.

Thanks again.
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by Tinkers »

karen1307 wrote:Hi, thank you for your reply. Because the high school in question is over-subscribed, it is unlikely that we would get in unless we have that down as our first choice (this is information from the head of that school) and that is my concern with appealing at all. More thought needed I think :/.

Thanks again.
Where you put them on the caf makes no impact on whether you get a place or not.
Moderators
Posts: 251
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 11:45 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by Moderators »

it is unlikely that we would get in unless we have that down as our first choice (this is information from the head of that school)
The head was misleading you - sadly there are other heads too who do this sort of thing! :roll:
southbucks3
Posts: 3579
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 11:59 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by southbucks3 »

I was trying to find my paperwork from last year's letter, but cannot. From memory it had something along the lines of "unqualified " printed next to our first two grammar school choices, so those choices never even got considered. Your first upper school choice will be your first "real" choice in this situation.

Have you looked at the schools allocation profile. The head of misbourne said something similar in his speach, but omitted to mention several people got in there who had it as second place too. :D Don't forget, they are selling their school!
BlueBerry22
Posts: 184
Joined: Mon Feb 10, 2014 9:16 pm

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by BlueBerry22 »

Yes I asked the misbourne to quantify their statement that the Misbourne is a school of first choice & so long as you place first on the caf you will be offered a place. I didn't hear back from them!
loopylou
Posts: 403
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:08 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by loopylou »

Yes, I think that the assumption would be that if you are appealing for a school, you want your child to go there and that would be your first choice.
Plenty of people apply for more than one school. It is fairly common in fact. There is not the assumption that you only want your first choice and aren't committed to any of the others. Many people have a close call about which to place first and would be happy with any of their top 2 or 3.
Because the high school in question is over-subscribed, it is unlikely that we would get in unless we have that down as our first choice (this is information from the head of that school)
Hopefully this is to misinterpret what the Head has said because it is totally incorrect.
Your child will get the school that you ranked highest on your form out of all the ones you qualify.
Assuming comp = distance criteria, a person who lists the comp 3rd and who lives in the same road will have priority over somebody who lists the comp 1st but lives a mile away.
The only way you can fail to get a comp place that you qualify for is if you list another school above it on your form (grammar or otherwise) that your child also meets the criteria to have a place at.
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by Amber »

loopylou wrote:
Yes, I think that the assumption would be that if you are appealing for a school, you want your child to go there and that would be your first choice.
Plenty of people apply for more than one school. It is fairly common in fact. There is not the assumption that you only want your first choice and aren't committed to any of the others. Many people have a close call about which to place first and would be happy with any of their top 2 or 3.
I did say appealing, not applying. I don't think many people would go through the stress of an appeal if they didn't really want their child to go to the school, would they?

Or have I misunderstood something?
loopylou
Posts: 403
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:08 am

Re: Appeal affecting school choice?

Post by loopylou »

I did say appealing, not applying. I don't think many people would go through the stress of an appeal if they didn't really want their child to go to the school, would they?

Or have I misunderstood something?
No, I did understand that but many people appeal for more than one school.
As in, they prepare for and go through 2 or 3 separate appeals for different schools and put forward a case each time that this is the school they want.
There is no presumption that parents can only appeal for a school that was their absolute top choice when they filled out their form in October.

There are parents who will appeal for 2 or 3 grammar schools for example when their child has failed to qualify or has not met the oversubscription criteria for any of the selective schools they listed. Sometimes they lose the first appeal but win at the second or third school and therefore secure a grammar school place as opposed to the non selective that they'd originally been allocated. For many, they aren't paricularly wedded to just the school that was number 1 on their form so will appeal for a few.
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