Fair access to grammar schools

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Dear Kent County Council,

I would like to know what steps are taken to ensure that the children in kent have fair access to grammar schools in kent. I would also like to see all data held by kcc which shows that the grammar schools that offer their own entrance exams conduct a fair test and would like to see the data that the tests are in fact equal. for example, how many children for each school are found eligible for a single grammar school ( for each school) having not been found suitable via the kent test.
Id like to know what proportion of appeals were upheld for each grammar school in kent for the last 5 years.
Id like to know what steps are taken to ensure that parents are properly informed about the individual tests and that the tests are comparable between other tests offered in the local area.

What steps are taken to ensure that some children, for example, can or cant take all tests available to them. Harvey grammar offered some tests in the afternoon and said theoretically those few children could have accessed both the harvey grammar test and the dover test, thus giving them a potential advantage over the other children as they could not only have communicated with those who sat the test first thing in the morning but could also have an additional chance of passing a test.

Since you are responsible for ensuring fair access and I believe that both schools use KCC panels to hear their appeals I would like to know what training the appeals panel have recieved in the past 3 years to ensure they are familiar with the pupils who are at an aptitude whereby they could be found suitable for a single grammar school - either dover or harvey grammar. I note that there is a marked difference in the number of appeals that are upheld for Dover grammar school for boys than the harvey grammar school. Is this because of
a difference in testing quality? What is deemed to be an equivalent CAT test score. What is the minimum and mean and range of CAT test scores for pupils who are admitted to Dover grammar school for boys and the harvey grammar school. What is the minimum and average kent test score for those who are found suitable for each grammar school with own test.

How do you ensure that the appeals process offers those children who wish to apply to a school having missed their own test a comparable chance of access to the school so that children can not be refused access purely because they have missed their own test?

I would like to know for the past 5 years how many appeals have been heard and upheld for Dover grammar for boys and harvey grammar school.

Id also like to know how many children sat each of the individual tests, and how many for each school were deemed selective on the basis of a single test only, the kent test and the own test.
Id also like the PAN of each school for each year and id like to know the proportion of pupils who were admitted the school that were admitted via kent test only, kent and own test, own test only having passed the kent test, own test only having failed the kent test, own test having not sat the kent test and via appeal.

Yours faithfully,
Claire Thornton

 

Information request
Our reference: 10201877

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Dear Ms Thornton
   
Thank you for your email which we received on 13 November 2019.
 
 
Kent County Council (KCC) acknowledges your request for information, which
we will consider under the relevant legislation (Freedom of Information
Act 2000 and/or Environmental Information Regulations 2004).
 
Assuming KCC holds this information, we will endeavour to supply the data
to you as soon as possible but no later than 11 December 2019 (20 working
days from date of receipt).
 
We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information.
 
Please quote our reference - 10201877 in any communication regarding this
particular request.
 

Please see our [1]Information Rights Privacy Notice for details of how we
process your personal data.

 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Kelly Leeson
Strategic and Corporate Services
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

References

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1. https://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-counci...

Dear Kent County Council,

Just to update your team that these queries have now been dealt with privately via email communication with Fair Access.
i therefore no longer need a response unless you wish to make one

Yours sincerely,

Claire Thornton