The pressure to achieve results has resulted in the two girls’ grammar schools in Maidstone both adopting apparently unlawful tactics to secure top A Level grade performance, at the expense of the futures of some students. OFSTED considers both high performing schools are Outstanding, so there is no doubt about the excellent quality of education offered for those young people who stay the course.
However, at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, the school suddenly introduced a new and unlawful provision for selecting external students for admission to the Sixth Form in September 2016, illegally picking those predicted to achieve highest GCSE Grades by a process not in the school’s admission rules.
At Invicta Grammar School, 22 students ‘voluntarily’ left the school half way through their A Level course, refused permission to carry on into Year 13. This was because their grades at AS level were insufficient to be confident of the high A Level performance of which the school is so proud. Given no alternative to stay on, this amounts to expulsion although there is no lawful provision for students to be removed mid-course by schools in this way.
Further details on the situation at both schools below.
Each year, I am contacted by a number of young people, mainly but not exclusively in grammar schools, who are not admitted to Sixth Forms although fully qualified according to the school admission criteria, or who are forced out at the end of Year 12 because the school only wants the highest performing students for the sake of their league table position. However, these two cases are the most extreme I have come across.
Too many students, capable of fulfilling their potential by achieving A Level success, albeit sometimes at a lower level than schools wish to see, therefore see their life chances damaged in such ways...
According to an FOI Request, there were 329 external applicants to the Sixth Form with 168 conditional offers made, all other applicants being placed on a waiting list. Straight conditional offers were made to the highest performing students who all had a projected Average Point Score of 47 GCSE points, based on a reference from the previous school. This is very different from and effectively higher than the published academic requirement based on variants of six GCSEs at Grade C or above, with at least four of these at Grade B or above,
After GCSE results were published in August all those with direct provisional offers who achieved the official published academic requirement were presumably awarded places. The school states that it anticipated around 50 external places being made available to bring the total entering the Sixth Form up to 200 each year. Even if as few as half of those with conditional offers reach that standard the school will have had to admit a total of around 234 Sixth Formers if all Year 11s had stayed on. In practice and typically, for 2015, there was a net increase of just two students from Year 11 to Year 12, taking the intake to 180, so there will have had to be a very high number of internal leavers to keep the figure down. I will update this when I see the 2016 census figure.
In reply to an FOI submitted by me, the term ‘entry requirements’ relating to continuation of the course into Year 13 is used several times, although the school claims none were refused permission to continue. According to the school, if any of those students who failed to meet the entry requirements had wished to stay into Year 13, “this would have been considered further with the parents and students until a resolution was agreed. The School does not stipulate to students that they are 'not allowed' to remain in the School for Year 13, however the School encourages the students and parents to understand that it may be in the best interests of the students if they proceed with a different pathway or move to an alternative school or college.” It is difficult to see what resolution could have been agreed that did not involve leaving! Apparently 20 of the 22 who left were counselled and provided with advice about alternative placements (two not responding to invitations) “and many students and parents accept the position and understand that the School could be setting them up to fail if they continue with their studies into Year 13. Please note that the place for the student remains open in case a suitable alternative provision could not befound”. What about those not included in ‘the many’?
This is not the experience of those families I have talked with where students were simply told they could not come back with no counselling, apart from a number who were told to approach Valley Park School (also in the Valley Invicta Trust) about applying there. In a number of cases, a fortnight after visiting the school the students were told this was not possible. Refusal to allow students to complete their sixth form studies would of course be unlawful, so the school is not in a position to admit this.
The school asserts in the FOI that “The School sends progress letters to parents during the school year if there are concerns about grades and achieving the entry requirements for Year 13. The School invites parents to attend meetings during the school year to discuss concerns about progress and the areas for improvement”. For some of the girls not allowed to progress to Year 13, no concerns whatever were raised about progress in Year 12, so this was irrelevant.
Student: "On the day I received my results I called my parents and told them I had a meeting at the school and they said 'you didn't get the grades, try Valley'. That was it" Parent: "We tried everywhere offering A levels and after **** started at college, Invicta called and said did she find a school? That's not offering support, if we had not found the course at college ourselves I'd have nothing to go to and they didn't care." Note: With only one of the four Kent Further Education Colleges now offering A Level courses, this option is shrinking fast. |
Legally all young people are required to participate in some form of education or training until they reach the age of 18, and KCC have had to chase up some of these young people, as required by the legislation, as the school had no idea and apparently no interest in where they had gone.
This is all in a school culture known to be hard on both students and staff in the drive to achieve top grades. In 2015, there was a similar fall of 26 students between Years 12 and 13, the fourth highest leaving rate in a Kent grammar school, so this is clearly a pattern of which potential students need to be aware. Further, although I don’t know the number of external girls joining the Sixth Form, for 2015 the overall number of students in Year 12 was lower than in Year 11, suggesting a high number again leaving at this stage.
Last year the school carried out an internal investigation into alleged illegal teacher assistance towards students taking the 2016 AS media studies examination. The school found itself innocent. One of the students I have been in communication with alleges that her Media Studies grade was helped by being shown a video and advised on it, that was subsequently shown and featured in the examination. Perhaps there was not sufficient determination within the school to expose an internal issue that helped raise grades, which sadly would be consistent with the above pattern.