11+ Results - You Have Options, Don't Panic.

If you live in an area with Grammar Schools your child will now have sat the 11+ and will be nervously awaiting the results.  These should arrive in the next week or so to allow you time to make sensible decisions as to which schools to include on your Common Application Form (which you need to submit by 31st October). 

Hopefully your child will have secured the required score but if not don’t panic.  There are options.

Some areas offer a Selection Review where the Local Authority will consider whether despite not reaching the required score your child is in fact of grammar school standard, perhaps considering why this was not demonstrated in the actual 11+ test.  

While you can make written representations you cannot appear before these Panel’s, they are not independent of the school or the Local Authority and there is no statutory basis upon which they make their decisions. 

I discourage parents against engaging with this process as it has implications for later when you may wish to formally appeal. 

Briefly if you ask for a Selection Test review and it is not successful (as many are not!) then the Independent Appeal Panel, which you can appear before to make your case and has a statutory basis for the way they make decisions, cannot hear your full appeal. Instead they are limited to considering whether the Selection Review was ‘fair, consistent and objective’ - you will struggle to prove it was not. 

Instead if your child has not reached the required standard best keep your powder dry and use the next six months preparing a sound case that (a) your child is of the required standard, (b) there is a high degree of suitability between your child and the school and (c) the school has physical and educational capacity to admit them.