Wirral Appeals

[wirral parent]

I have learnt a great deal from looking at the appeals section, however, cant find very much live information re Wirral appeals.

I am assuming the worst for next week as son told me that he had not done well at all in first paper. He pulled it back in second but not sure it will have been enough.

He is scoring 5s in all SATS and did at end of yr 5, however, find our school very uninformative re ranking, positions, predictions etc or are these things just in other areas.

Be very interested to know just how many pupils the head at our school has ever appealed for.

Still agonising on how to approach school gates on Tue

[Appeal Mum]

Hi Wirral Parent,

I just wanted to let you know..

This time last year another person on this forum was going through exactly the same scenario as you are now.
Her daughter came home from school claiming she had missed out questions on the papers. As you can gather the mother was very upset and so she had been reading up on the appeals process, that she was inevitably going to have do.

Me on the other hand, very confident, daughter finished both papers and felt herself she had passed.

2nd of March 2007:

The above ladies child passed with flying colours.

My child didn't.

You can never be sure what way it will go until you receive the results.


There isn't much on the Wirral appeal process, 4 people now I think. But that’s 4 more than there were last year.
Just so you know the Appeals process is very similar nation wide, Bucks system probably being the closest in exam format and Appeals process.
However there are a few notable differences:

Head teachers here don't rank children in order of suitability.

Some schools also follow the LEAs protocol of not even writing a statement of support for the child. (Other schools don’t follow the guidelines and write their support. Very unfair but the panel are aware of these inconsistencies.)

The Head Teachers get their opportunity to Appeal (Those who they believe should have passed and didn't) and then the parents get their chance after allocation day.

Please stay positive, the chances are you won't even need to appeal!
But should you need to.. There will be a few more of us this year to help.

Good Luck..

AM

[wirral parent]

Many thanks Appeal Mum - your comments were very useful.

With regards to the Head Teacher Appeal - the words on the Wirral Education site read "We expect these appeals to be very rare" -

So my question is - Has anyone on the Wirral had a Head Teacher Appeal in their favour ? I wonder exactly how many do

Any way just need to wait another week and then if necessary cram for the Appeal (obviously if scoring close to the pass mark)

Appeal Mum - I take it you appealed last year?

[Appeal Mum]

Appeal Mum - I take it you appealed last year?

Yes we did and thankfully we were successful.

Another parent on this forum had a Head teacher appeal fail, so they went ahead to a parental appeal which was successful too.

Please don't worry (I know easier said than done!) but you really might not need to be worrying at all.

What school are you hoping for?

Please let us know how you get on.

AM

[wirral parent]

Hoping for WGSB - however from what I have just read on other posts he did do a lot worse that some of the other people who also felt that their child had not done too well

1st test missed out 9 and random guessed 5 (so I have to assume that is a fail)

2nd test - he was really pleased - finished and only left out 3 - he is generally accurate so I just hope that this can pull the combined score up - its going to be a close call tho

The really awful thing is that I read hints and tips off here to him night before test and it said "never leave whole sections out" and he interpreted that as "dont leave any out" and yes you can guess he ran out of time

He went back to his old method for 2nd test and did fine - If I could just take back those words .....

Why I was so interested in the Appeals is that he is really bright (level 5 yr 5) and I just wondered whether it was a bit of a lottery as to whether your Head Teacher would appeal for you ( IE some may not agree with 11 plus and so not do any appeals) Also I kind of got the impression that only those on medical/mitigating circumstances would be put through on Head Teacher Appeal

[NotionPotion]

Hi Wirral Parent- At my daughter's school the headteacher arranged an informal meeting with those parents whose children were going to take the 11 plus and informed us whether or not she would back a potential appeal if the child was a few points short. She had a record of all CAT type scores going back which presumably would be used as supporting evidence.
Her school isn't one were much 11 plus preparation is given. I think they are fairly neutral about it all but nevertheless I repected the fact that these meetings were arranged. So in theory I would have thought that if the academic evidence is there then they should appeal in the "january stage".
If they don't then I guess its down to loads of hard work in preparing an appeal yourself but really the person to guide you through this, if it gets to that is most definitely "Appeal mum". Have a shufty at her posts from last year for an extensive insight!
Anyway hopefully you won't need it and things will be fine.
I think as results day draws near we are ALL getting a bit jittery! Good luck to you and your son!

[Wallasey]

The HT of my DD's school said she would appeal on behalf of any child who didn't pass. There aren't many children taking the 11+, but even so it might be difficult to justify appealing for really low scores, if there were any. It is good to know she is supportive though, as this isn't a traditional 11+ area.

[marie]

hi wirral parent

like appeal mum we too went through appeals process on wirral last year .
my daughter failed by 8 marks but with extenuating family circumstances .
Our head had appealed on our behalf (Indepandant Assessment Panel - a group of heads from grammar and primary look at appeal and decide - one girl in my daughters class was successsfull at this appeal ours wasn't ! )

we then appealed on advice of head teacher and were succesful

marie

[Newbie But Stressed]

Great posts as usual from Appeal Mum... which explain it all really.

I had almost completely written my daughters chances off last year and fortunately she prove me wrong so don't give up and if you believe your child would thrive in a grammar school then you must appeal..

She missed about 6 questions out on the first paper but completed the second paper.

Her marks were the same on both papers..

Good Luck to everyone next week , I shall be reading the posts with Interest on Tuesday..

[SPUD]

My son missed the mark by 5 last year. His head teacher appeaed = but i think she appealed for most of the boys who didn't pass. None went through via this panel. We appealed and got in. This was also wgsb.

Good luck, not long now!