Secondary school placements: We want your stories (From Bucks Free Press)

My son got our first prefrence rgs but a parent who have their other son already in rgs and live closer than I do got place in chashmah grammar. Could somebody please tell me how does the system work.

Well this has been a huge success! Get Ivor to write a blog on the subject and you're sure to get some comments.

It's a subject of some significance locally and I think the BFP were right to float it - if there had been a lot of feedback from a wide range of viewpoints the justification would have been clear but ... like you say ... it has not been responded to to ... unlike some features on this site.

(Just looking at it - it has only been there for exactly twenty hours - maybe in another twenty-four.)

This whole process has prompted me to look at little bit more into the relationship between education providers and their community.


Sir William Borlase - A school located in Marlow, but a Marlow school?

The history of the school intended it to be for the benefit of the people of Marlow.

Sir William decided to build a "free school" in the town in order "to teach twenty-four poor children to write, read and cast accounts, such as their parents and friends are not able to maintain at school"

Today Borlase is a tremendous school with excellent facilities, it buildings and history adorning the centre of Marlow. All residents of Marlow pay a house premium for our proximity to Borlase.

However, I would very much doubt (based on significant verbal research) that more than 25% of the current pupils actually live in Marlow. They either never did and live in Wycome or neighboring Berkshire or they have moved out of the catchment area.

IMHO Borlase should be a school for the benefit of those living in Marlow as it was always intended and that the pursuit of academic excellence enabled through casting a bigger net is a policy that favours the academic vanity of those that run the school but offers little to the people of Marlow who support it, directly and indirectly.

Perhaps it is time to wake from our slumber and move to make the school recruit a higher number of people who actually live here.

Youngsters in Marlow are taking the 11+ test but are missing out on going due to the volume of entrants from outside of Marlow. For example a score of circa 80% in the 11+ would not have been good enough for a child in Marlow to pass and attend. The pass mark is driven higher because of the volume of qualifying applicants from Berkshire and surround so that a child in Marlow is also having to compete against a child in Maidenhead, High Wycombe or further afield. Yet the parents in those locations do not have the house tax premium of close proximity to a grammar school.

Maybe its too simplistic but it would be great if the school offered 75% of places to people living in Marlow and 25% to the surrounding areas. If not how and why should the town feel proud of the school if it does not provide for local children, utilises valuable buildings in the heart of town and adds to traffic congestion.

I would love to see Borlase stop focusing on more and more selective entrance so that it can use the vanity metrics of league tables to aide the career of a CEO Headteacher and started focusing on why it is there. To provide a good education for the boys and girls of Marlow.

Historically the grammar schools have been selective. Even back in the 1960's students came to the High Wycombe grammar schools from fee Chalfonts and beyond. If you looked at Aylesbury, Wycombe, Chesham etc. grammar schools you would find that there were still high proportions of students from 'out of area'. Marlow is a relatively small town, as is Chesham, so the proportion of 'local students', in relatively large schools is higher. The only way to implement the local schools for local students would probably be to abandon selection and that might not be too popular either.

As I think somebody has mentioned elsewhere, the majority of parents put the grammar schools as their first choice. Again, this means that a fairly small percentage, where there is selection, are going to get their first, second even third choice. Then of course, some secondary schools are particularly popular. As I understand it, at this point, the catchment area 'theory' becomes relevant, so possibly a fairly high proportion of parents get their first choice of none selective secondary schools if they have chosen their local school. Most of the appeals concerning placement, used to come from students with specific needs and in the final analysis, these were arbitrated and decided at County Hall Level, with schools and parents being involved in the processes. Hopefully, there is somebody out there, with the up to date figures and procedures!

Manda,

Good points I am for selection but would like to see a higher percentage of local children getting in. For example when local children are getting 80%+ in their 11+ but cannot get into a local school because the aggregate score needed to pass has been boosted by broadening the net to include children from further away this seems inherently wrong.

Whilst Borlase is now an academy I think the principle is wider than just them.

Do we want to create quasi private schools that exclude the majority of the local population of force those high performing schools to take in more local pupils and drive up their educational standards and be realy parts of the community not just situated there.

There is an argument that will less pupil mobility children and parents force up the standards of schools in their own area.

It would be nice to remember the ethos of why it was established and to reconnect with the community

In 1624 Sir William Borlase founded in West Street, Marlow, a free school to provide basic education for 24 poor boys, to 'read and write and cast accounts' and 24 poor girls to knit, spin and make bone lace.

Dear knows it all and sg2103
I have been retired from a large none selective secondary school for sometime but I'll try and explain what little I know. The 11+ papers are all marked and graded. To some extent it would make sense, but then *they*don't work that way, to put all the Marlow pupils in Borlase and all the Chesham pupils in Chesham but each Grammar School takes a proportion of each grade of pupils who have been selected. So you take your top grade and distribute those, taking into account preference NOT post code and so the process is repeated. Because schools like Borlase are so popular, there is a very high demand for the places and so they are allocated to all those who qualify as fairly as possible, on ability.

I think as far as Sir William building the school for the children of Marlow goes, it is lovely, but both the school and Marlow have changed a lot. I totally empathize with you, local schools for the locals, but I guess, at Grammar School level, because they are "selective" and inclusive, it cannot be just for the local pupils.

P.S. I didn't design "the system", just marked the papers and did the job. Good luck and happiness to all the new y.r.7s in their new schools!

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:
It's a subject of some significance locally and I think the BFP were right to float it - if there had been a lot of feedback from a wide range of viewpoints the justification would have been clear but ... like you say ... it has not been responded to to ... unlike some features on this site.

There you go Lawrence couldn't keep my big nose out but as you say, this is a subject of local significance and rather more worthwhile than some of the things I comment on. x

Many parents want single sex education for their children, so choose to educate them outside of Marlow. A mixed school was of paramount importance to my children and all four went to SWBGS. Had they been allocated a single sex grammar school, we would have chosen a mixed comprehensive in Berkshire.

Anna Smith wrote:
Many parents want single sex education for their children, so choose to educate them outside of Marlow. A mixed school was of paramount importance to my children and all four went to SWBGS. Had they been allocated a single sex grammar school, we would have chosen a mixed comprehensive in Berkshire.

More and more schools are moving into co-ed, even Stowe is co-ed now and RGS had 6th form girls. I guess that is another argument, should so many Grammar Schools be single sex entry? I personally loved teaching in a co-ed school. I also passionately believe in equal opportunities for all our pupils which again would be another can of worms as some, however we look at it, some are born with greater advantages than others. Just how do we make sure that every child gets the best education to suit them and reaches their full potential, not just educationally, but physically, emotionally and socially?

buser wrote:

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:
It's a subject of some significance locally and I think the BFP were right to float it - if there had been a lot of feedback from a wide range of viewpoints the justification would have been clear but ... like you say ... it has not been responded to to ... unlike some features on this site.

There you go Lawrence couldn't keep my big nose out but as you say, this is a subject of local significance and rather more worthwhile than some of the things I comment on. x

LOL!

Baffling to imagine which things you mean!

Re sg2103
"Berkshire and surround so that a child in Marlow is also having to compete against a child in Maidenhead, High Wycombe or further afield. Yet the parents in those locations do not have the house tax premium of close proximity to a grammar school."

Are you seriously saying that if parents can afford to live in Marlow, their children should been given priority in what is considered to be 'the best schools'? Even the best 'private schools' offer scholarships to kids whose parents cannot pay the fees, okay the majority of the parents do pay, but surely no child in the public sector should be disadvantaged because of where their parents can afford to live! It does sound like a very Marlowvian comment. Equal opportunity so long as your parents can afford to live in Marlow. The words elitism and snobbery spring to mind here.

I agree with you, Frederick Unworthy Kernell. When we were choosing schools for our kids, the girls had the choice of Wycombe High, Beaconsfield High and SWB. The boys had RGS, John Hampden and SWB. (Things have changed now). They visited them all and chose SWB for numerous reasons. We do not live in Marlow and would not wish to do so, although we are only about 4 miles away. Our lives would have been easier if we lived in Marlow, but it is not somewhere we would like to live.

Sir William Borlase, as a philanthropist, set his school up to cater for the poor children who's parents could not afford to pay for their education not for those who were rich enough to live in Marlow because it had the best schools , nor was it built to cater for those who could afford private coaching to 'pass' the selection examination. ( We are told that the new selection process will make this option impossible and make the system fairer on that score too). Applying this, all children, who are selected, via the examination processes, regardless of whether their parents can afford to live in Marlow, or even whether they chose to live in Marlow, have every right to attend the school.

Unfortunatley you have Gove in charge and his passion for Academies. Make no mistake, these are private schools funded by the tax payer. They can set their own entrance criteria and catchments.

BucksComment wrote:
Unfortunatley you have Gove in charge and his passion for Academies. Make no mistake, these are private schools funded by the tax payer. They can set their own entrance criteria and catchments.

Like it or not, we have a good few 'selective' 'and 'none selective'' secondary Academies in our area. Ultimately all the students have to go somewhere. The primary method of selection for the Grammar Schools still seems to be the 11+ . Unfortunately it seems rather like the games lessons at school where you picked your teams, the best players were picked first and the less able came last . As has been stated, if you put 3 grammar schools as your first 3 choices and are not selected for Grammar School, you are down to your 4th choice before you go any further.