decision on 1st March? Anyone want to sit and sweat it out with me?

Realistically speaking, ds is nr 41 on the waiting list, there is no chance is there?

Apparently we have to hand deliver a letter expressing our wishes for the school on Monday morning, to speed the waiting list up ....

Hello! New member (and lurker since this time last year when I went through the same process with my DD)

In my LEA (Lancashire) don't actually need to accept your offer. Quoted from website:

"Offer letters will be issued to all Lancashire resident applicants by second class post on 28 February 2013.

If you applied online, you can view your offer now. If the initial offer is not for your preferred secondary school please wait for your letter to arrive which outlines what to do next.

The majority of Lancashire parents will receive an offer for their preferred secondary school. However, if the initial offer is not for your preferred secondary school please remember that this is the start of the process and that often things change between initial offers and school start dates in September 2013.

The offer letter will contain a form which allows you to request reserve list and appeal information for alternative schools.

There is no requirement for parents to confirm acceptance of an offer with the Local Authority."

Hope this helps!

Congratulations to everyone who got their first choice and just hang on in there to everyone who didn't and wants a higher positioned school than they've been allocated. There is a lot of movement for all the waiting lists even for highly sought after selective schools.

Yes, I agree about the communication aspects of it all - we are somewhere between a rock and a hard place at this time in technology development. It's okay to submit the form online, find the result out online but you still have to submit a paper form of acceptance. I remember DW being paranoid last year - almost to the point of not trusting the post and hand-delivering it....

The other thing that's not entirely reassuring is that the online application results do not change from the original outcome, even if/when you do get offered and accept a waiting list place somewhere down the line....

MissMogwi thank goodness for that, Tameside is my LA.

To be fair DD was very happy with the school even though it was our third choice. I think we are fairly laid back about schools and DD picked up in this. There was no choice where I grew up so I simply went to the closest one.

DD is a bright bunny and I'm a qualified teacher so we feel she will probably do well wherever she goes. We were far more anxious about our neighbour who got into her first choice and will be able to take advantage of the fantastic dyslexia support offers.

I thought the same yesterday Manky, so I called the department. Poor woman sounded on her last nerve!

Apparently we will get a letter from the school in the next week, which tells us how to confirm or decline the place.

That's with our LA, Tameside. Others could do it differently of course.

He online allocation notification system does not seem to have any further information on it, other than the fact we have been allocated first choice - nothing about how to accept the place or anything. We should get the snail mail letter today apparently, so will see what that says.

I'm now frightened to death that we need to do something to accept it and I don't know what, and they will give the place to someone else. I need a chill pill!

DDs BFF has got her no 1 choice. We have to wait till Monday to get ours, because we had to do a paper one, and we're not at home today. Really please for DDs friend though, from last year's catchment, she was marginal, we should be fine.

Many Parents will have woke up this morning with extreme anxiety, I was no exception I felt sick with worry as I would find out what school my son has been given.
I was worried that my youngest son would end up in a school where he knew no one and would be deeply unhappy.

I suppose I was one of the lucky ones, we were given his first choice, but it wasn't in an ideal world my first choice.
Ideally we would live in a leafy picaresque village with a small school that was filled with the best teachers and in the Ofsted report was achieving excellent in every subject and school criteria.

We do not unfortunately live in a place of my dreams where all children get along, bullying doesn't exist and my son comes home each day so happy and loves the idea of going to school.

So this morning no school in my area would live up to what I believe my son deserves , so I wasn't deliriously happy when I opened up the email telling me the fate of my son for the rest of his school years.

I know some parents will have moved areas, lied on there applications, and practically drawn blood to try and get there children into there first of even second choice schools.I really feel for those parents who will have woke up this morning happy enough to be left disheartened and distraught by simply opening an email or a letter in the post.
The sheer thought of the fight to appeal against an organisation that sees your child as a reference number rather than a scared and disappointed child, do they care that your child will be the only one from his or her school year at the school they gave you and expect you to be happy with that?

I think my fear is for selfish reasons I just don't want my baby going to the big bad world of High school.
No more primary school life, weekly assemblies, pumps,instead carrying bags all round a vast school getting lost and been alone unchaperoned by a teacher with 16 year old boys and girls, well young men and women really sharing the same routes as my young naive 10 year old.

In my ideal world he would study from home staying safe from harm and cruel words, would this make him happy?
Maybe at first he would lavish the idea of no school and been content in his own home, It wouldn't be too long before he missed the interaction with other youngsters his own age.

It is down to me to learn the skills and coping mechanisms to have my primary school child take the giant leap into secondary school and help support and guide him with whatever comes his way.

I will just have to put a big brave smile on my face the first time I see him in his uniform on his first day and keep that smile there until at least 8.50 am when the melt down will begin.

If this wasn't hard enough I have to get my children through Stats and GCSE exams and support My eldest son as he leaves high school to start a very adult life at college.

On September 5th the tissues better be ready!

I hope any parents reading this will have breathed a sigh of relief when they opened there placements today and if unfortunately this was not the case just don't give up and fight for the School you deserve.

Schmedz We had friends who paid a deposit to secure an offered place at Indie, but then place at DD's school came up for her (was on waiting list), and she ended up starting there with DD. HTH
I guess in the scheme of things losing a modest deposit is not a biggie if you're considering private school.

Oo, could be expensive. Good luck.

Definitely on the waiting lists, but without accepting the offer at the private school place by Monday, that's gone!

Schmedz, can you go on waiting lists? Things can move quite a lot in the next few months. Unless you have your heart set on the private school.

Got NO choices. Not one. Offered school where vast majority fail to pass their GCSEs. Thank goodness we have an indie place!

We are happy with second choice. We always knew our first choice was very unlikely as we aren't religious but there wasn't any harm in trying

Got our first choice, and so have most of our friends. Many people happily surprised. Feel for those that didn't and hope it works out for you.

All the kids at DD's school got first choice.

We are in Surrey and received email about 2 minutes ago.

DC got second choice as expected.

I decided not to stay up until midnight as all asleep here. We got an email at 06:16 this morning which gave us first choice school. Most of her friends got first choice as well.

Well done to those happy and chin up to those no happy. If you are still waiting, then fingers crossed.

Ah.

I've just noticed that the email saying that the allocation had been made and pointing to the Herts website also contained, um, details of which school DD had actually got. So I didn't need to waste my time trying to get to the site. Oops.

DD got the school we wanted!

So, you have some options Quint ?
You could become Quakers what with all that porridge eating and transfer to a nice Quaker school for sixth form (they're still private though so would probs have to keep on with the porridge eating )
Sorry you didn't get what you wanted to see today

Super. We've had the email saying that the allocation has been made, while the website is saying that they're still being sorted. And it took a good five minutes to say even that.

Well done Herts.

midnight log on to the computer so exhausted today but DS got into grammar school - relief all round.

Thanks, we will be fine. The RC secondaries which were 1st and 2nd on our list are heavily oversubscribed so not sure there is a point on remaining on a list. We do have private offers so not all bad, we were just hoping we would not have to go down that route.