And all the other independant schools. You will also have children who's local grammar isn't their first choice school. It will certainly help if those other schools have another class added too. Just goes to show how important it is to put down your true preference order. I do worry that some may miss out because they are filling in the CAF on the basis of what they expect to get rather than what they really want.
Thank you got posting the link, it fills me with a little more hope than I had before.

Very interesting. It is good to see how the pupil premium places are divided between the schools. As I understand there is a minimum number off pp places per school but no upper limit, so Five Ways will need to have another 23 pp children from out of catchment. Camp Hill Girls is the other one with fewer than the 25% of pp children in catchment, but they only need another 4-5 pupils.

It’s all down to distance now. By my reckoning (and assuming no one goes to another school):
FW has 59 extra pupils in catchment than there are places
Aston has 10 extra
CHB has 42 extra
CHG is 32 pupils short
HWG has 40 extra
HWB is 21 pupils short

So that makes 98 pupils over the total PANs

It’s late so my maths might be dodgy

This is fascinating. Thanks Nella for doing the maths.

I submitted CAF yesterday with CHG OOC as 1st choice, which doesn’t feel quite such an unlikely prospect as it did yesterday. Still a long wait till March. 2nd choice is HWG IC with distance approx 2 miles so feeling confident with that one.

Good luck to everyone still deciding on the CAF order. Hadn’t anticipated how stressful the decision making would be.

I think it goes to show, (as many have posted) that the KE Foundation have done their homework with regard to PS and number of places available. Of course they have; it was never a finger in the air

It’s interesting, that of the non-PP, roughly 16% of the 4573 applicants scored the PS score of 222 or above. Would be interesting to know the % for the original PS of 220 - guess if that was closer to 20% that’s why it was increased - would have been 914 who achieved the PS as opposed to 727.

Agree that this would have undoubtedly been the reason. (Just to add that this % only refers to catchment non PP children, let's not forget there will be many additional (and frustrated) only-a-stone's-throw-out-of-catchment children who scored above 222 of course.)

And out of Nella's calculations - there will be some who DO apply to / go to another school, and also they have said the PP figure is likely in reality to be up to 20% lower ... freeing up a few places.

Main thing to reiterate is to put your first choice of school first on your CAF - not necessarily your catchment school - e.g. if you're in Five Ways catchment but you really want e.g. Handsworth or Camp Hill or Aston or other surrounding area Grammars - put this/these latter FIRST Good luck all. March seems an eternity away!

Just looking at the figures again
The percentage of PP applying is the same as last year but the percentage getting the minimum score has gone up
This is despite the overall higher pass score percentage being roughly the same
Would be interesting to see the breakdown of PP in the different areas and if it has changed

That's a great news. The KE foundation has definitely got their number right. I think all those that has score the PS and live within the catchment will definitely get a place, even for those in FW catchment. Looking at last year waiting list movement, I am sure there will be more than 98 pupils that achieved PS but will eventually take up offer from private school or Walsall consortium.

Gosh. This is a much more positive thread than the other one for Birmingham Grammar schools! I’ve just had a quick look at last year’s waiting list thread- loads of places offered after 1st March.
I think I’ll stay on this one

You’re right this one is more positive than the other one. It was making me question my caf choices but I have put in preference order come what may.

Have to rely on the allocation process now.

I agree!



Difficult to predict how many places this year with the new system but I used to reckon that most of those taking a place at KE/KEHS would have had a GS place offered so that was always a good amount of movement - some of them may have been OOC for the new system so that could have affected the numbers - but there always will be movement. There is also the knock on effect as well - someone gets offered a Cat 5, takes it and perhaps gives up the offer at the catchment GS freeing up another space.