THOUSANDS of pupils will continue to have to apply for a secondary school place before they know if they have passed the 11-plus, it has emerged.

Despite a Government U-turn that would allow children to take the 11-plus before parents decide which schools to apply to, county education chiefs say changing Kent’s existing arrangements and squeezing tests into a different timescale would present almost insurmountable practical problems.

The Government recently announced a policy reversal on grammar school admissions, saying that in selective areas like Kent and Medway, parents ought to be told if their child had pased the 11-plus before applying for a secondary place.

At the time, Kent County Council hailed the move as a "victory for commonsense" and said it would spare parents from the dilemma of making "tactical choices" and opting for schools they did not want.

But in a previously unpublished report, obtained by the Kent Messenger Group under the Freedom of Information Act, education officials say a string of administrative hurdles stand in the way of changing the existing arrangements.

The report sets out how, if testing was to come before applications, pupils could end up having to take the 11-plus test in the summer term of the previous year or in the first fortnight after returning to school after the summer holidays. Currently, pupils sit the test in January.

KCC says that would amount to the introduction of a potentially controversial "10-plus" test, a move unlikely to be popular with either parents or teachers.

By far the biggest hurdle, however, is that every single child in Year Six could have to sit the test, doubling the number of pupils from 8,000 to 16,000 - a potentially costly and time-consuming process for the authority.

Even where pupils failed the test, parents would be in the bizarre position of having to place a grammar school on their application form if they intended to appeal at a later stage.

Headteacher appeals - a crucial element of the process - would probably have to be abandoned and even if they were retained, would, says the report, end up "severely compromised" under the revised timetable.

Cllr Leyland Ridings (Con), KCC’s cabinet member for schools, said that unless the Government could be persuaded to relax the national deadline for applications - in mid-November - the practical difficulties would be hard to overcome.

He said: "Testing before selection would not come without cost, as it would require testing, marking and notifiying parents well in advance of them filling in application forms.

"It is possible we would need to consider testing in the summer of a child’s Year Five, rather than now, as in January of Year Six. Most teachers and many parents would be concerned about that."

Equal preference

County education chiefs say the dilemmas facing parents could be resolved if all secondary schools in Kent adopt an "equal preference" system of admissions.

Currently, 30 secondary schools - around a third - have a "first preference first" policy, which effectively means that parents who do not rank their school first are unlikely to be guaranteed a place.

However, under an equal preference scheme, all applications are treated equally and those who do not get their first preference stand a better chance of getting either their second or third preferences.

According to KCC, the need for parents to know if their child had passed the 11-plus would be "significantly diminished" and parents whose child failed the 11-plus "would have as much chance as any other child of getting a place at their second or third preference school".

"Equal preference would get us over most of the hurdles and relieve some of the parental anguish," said Cllr Ridings.

Recent rulings by the Office of The Schools Adjudicator makes the prospect of all schools adopting an equal preference system more likely. KCC says it will formally challenge any of the 30 that try to maintain a first preference first policy.