1 in 3 London kids don't get 1st preference - gross UNDER estimation?

"But if you're silly enough to raise kids in London you get little sympathy from the rest of the country."

T4gnt: any reason to be gratuitously rude to the OP?

FanDabbyFloozy: you MUST put your schools in your actual order of preference, if you do want to have a chance of your favourites. Putting the 'dead cert' schools lower down the list, even in last place, does not disadvantage your chance of getting the place at that school.

However placing a favoured 'wild card' or even 'maybe' lower down than your 'dead cert' 'catchment' school means it is a wasted listing - they will give you whatever school is highest up your list and can offer you a place. So even if the 'wild card' might have offered you a place, you won't get it allocated because you have placed it below another school that offered you a place.

The majority of Londoners DO put down schools in actual choice order.
Because many Londoners do have more than one feasible nearby school (because schools are so close together) they may well put a 'wild card' as choice number one. And because Londoners get 6 choices, they may well put 4 'wild cards' and end up with a perfectly reasonable 4th or 5th choice.

It makes no sense to say that they don't get first choice if they don't include a grammar that the 11+ was failed for. That is the nature of selective schools. How can you get first choice in a selective if you are not of eligible ability? I have a very high achieving child, and we have 4 super selectives within reach. For various reasons we didn't bother with applications to the super-selectives and sent him to the good local comp where he is flourishing in the top sets and streams. Had we applied to the super selectives, this could have been 5th choice. As it is it is 1st choice - and either way we are equally happy with it. (we put down two other schools for which we would also have been happy with and have a v good chance of getting into - none faith)

Finally, the 'first choice' stats are done according to offers on National Offer Day. London has a highly mobile population and many near-by schools, so places on waiting lists can move a lot before September. Many many people get first or higher choices in the end.

London schools perform better on average than in any other area of the country. There are, of course, black holes, as there are elsewhere in the country. But in RL London parents are much happier, and fond the whole London secondary transfer process a lot less angsty that MN would demonstrate.

Because of course the people on MN are those with tricky situations.

thecat was thinking of Kingston, Sutton, plus a few round Bexley and Bromley, which all means most kids in south London are in reach of a grammar if they score well - but as said above, parents don't know if their child has passed the actual tests, only pre-tests, by the time they apply.

We're looking to move out of London. There are many good schools around the country.

There are several superselective schools in my area (London) which people put as their first choice before knowing whether their children have passed the entrance exam. They're really hard to get in to - that has to skew the results, as a lot of them won't have got into their first choice (but may have got into their second or third). Also there are some really small catchment areas, and parents who will put down their kids for those schools even though they might live a couple of miles away, just in case.

Kingston has grammar schools too but I think people are now talking about the Coombe schools quite positively and I believe there are a couple more.

Which borough has mostly selective schools? Barnet and Sutton? Even those have good non-selective schools, surely?

Parents put down crazy, unrealistic choices, though.
There are lots of very popular schools; lots of parents put the super-popular schools as first choice - they can't all physically fit in ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34778514
London schools' overperformance in pictures. Partly probably due to funding discrepancy tbf. And also due to high proportion of immigrants who do much better.

Don't most people talk about 'preference' rather than 'choice'?

Ie, 'First preference school'.

Maybe instead of choice the form should say, "Wish List"?

But using the language "choice" suggests, to many parents, that they will get that choice. They put a school first in their list, and expect to get it because that is their "choice". Unfortunately that's not the case.

Pedantic I know t4gnut, but having a chance to choose from a few schools and express preference as to which one you'd like, is a still a choice.

You seem to really not be able to see that there are some really diverse areas of the UK that are just as diverse as some areas of London.

I have lived in a 'diverse' part of London btw until recently and my DH was born and bred there and his family still are.

London is far an away the most ethnically diverse area of the UK. There are a couple of boroughs whose ethnic make up is similar to the rest of the UK, but nowhere which is less diverse than the average. And by 'diverse' I mean 'diverse'. Other areas of the UK where there are large numbers of people from ethnic minorities living are still less diverse than London. In my youngest's class there are children from: Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Vietnam, Portugal, Pakistan, India, Somalia..... White British born children are a minority at their school.

If I moved to Surrey where my mum lives there would only be about 3 schools which it would be worth my while applying to, but only one where my dc's would stand a chance of getting in. As it was my dc had a good chance of getting any one of at least half a dozen choices.

Choice is a common misconception - you don't choose, you express a preference.

Friends of ours live in a small market town. They have zero choice because there is only one secondary. We had a chance of (from memory) around 10 different schools. So we had far more choice in lots of ways. Pluses and minus wherever you live!

t4gnut On many levels I agree with you about London. Some bits are still good but the overcrowding and pollution are not. We live next to an open green space which makes things a little better.

I would move tomorrow but DD really loves her school so that makes it very difficult. As soon as she is a little older I'll move a bit further out and she can commute to school. I had a 20 minute train journey to school from when I was 14 and I'm sure she'll be able to do the same. Lots of her friends do commute already but generally with an older sibling so I'm just waiting for a couple of years.

I absolutely loved London for many years and couldn't imagine wanting to live anywhere else but I do now.

There are some very diverse areas outside of London.

There are also some very non diverse areas in London or are you going to say they don't exist?

London isn't the best all and end all.

"We do have people of all races and cultures as the norm outside London you know...."

Yes - my mum lives in that sort of town. They have a few Indian people (run the local takeaway) and a black family live over the road from her. Just the one, mind.

Re: 'stabby' - my mum lives in a massively desirable large village in Surrey . It's absolutely beautiful, no litter, thriving local shops, beautiful common where there are wild deer, 20 minutes to some of the most beautiful open countryside in the UK. It's in the top centile for income. There have been three murders in the village in the past 6 years. Two mums and a young student. There are murders where I live - stabbings. But they are all gang-related, and as a m/c, middle-age woman I very much doubt that I'm at any more risk in my inner city area than I would be in my mother's village.

Oranges - yes, there are good and poor schools in London, but educationally the region as a whole significantly outperforms the rest of the UK, especially in relation to the poorest children.

No and nor would I want to! Horrible place, grossly over-rated. Has some of the worst pollution levels in the UK and health reports have placed it at dangerous levels for child development.

Live in a medium sized town in south - prior to which 'oop north'. Know of two people who've been victims of crime in 30 years (break ins). London is just a bit too stabby for my liking.

We do have people of all races and cultures as the norm outside London you know....

T4gnut - you sound angry about London. Have you moved and are now feeling left out? ;-)

Of course though you are right - pollution is terrible. Though TBH traffic can be hideous outside of London too. Anywhere you get lots of cars you get lots of pollution. But lots of cars generally goes hand in hand with lots of economic activity, and much as many people would like to be in an area where there is no traffic, most people need to work, and the work tends to be in areas where the traffic is also!

As for crime - as you said that I had a vision on you clutching your pearls. I've lived in a seriously deprived part of London for 14 years and so far the worst I've had to deal with is a phone being nicked from my car. Once, 7 years ago.

In any case, like a lot of Londoners, we aren't a Caucasian family. There's no way I'd move my kids to somewhere where they'd be the only ethnic in the village. We love the racial diversity of London. It feels like the future here.

London schools are the best in the country

Pretty sure there are good and bad schools in London just as there are in the rest of the country.