Is it too soon to start a 1st March (secondary school allocation day) support thread?

@tiggytape thanks for that. I'm not too worried about Herts taking away the 1/3 offer and replacing it with one higher up our preference list. Everything will be a step towards what we want.

I'm still not clear how the Herts schools form their lists. This is particularly true for our first choice school which in addition to proportional places offered by parish, has a lottery for all children in each parish.

So trying to put my thoughts into concise questions.

If there are 2 children from different parishs which gets priority over the other? If its done proportionally and say 90% of applicants are town and 10% villages for 10 places on the list town will have 9 and villages 1 and so in which order / which parish / village are these given out? If you end up subdividing villages you will end up with 0.something of a child and so are you bottom of the list?

Also if for one school, children in a particular parish are allocated randomly do you keep the same number / place at each CI run? Or is the lottery rerun each time?

I think the whole process is as clear as mud! And very poorly explained in all the materials I've seen.

Oh well 10 days to go and counting. Hopefully all of this will be moot and we'll get our first choice first time.

We're on tenterhooks this year, and it was 9 years since dd1 moved to secondary school.
We are hoping for one of our top two choices, our first choice is a bit unusual in how the places are allocated and our second choice has never been oversubscribed before but it had an outstanding ofsted a year ago so who knows for this year.

The primary schools get the lists as well.

Yes wangxiaosara that's what I meant by school, sorry I should have specified secondary - ironically I know some of the staff there but not the lady who deals with admissions sadly

Trb17 lists are to be released to secondary schools, I doubt primary schools would know.

Yes teddygirlonce our LA states that they will release the finalised lists to the schools wk/c 20th too so I'm thinking many must be the same. I'd be very happy if someone pressed a button a bit early and released them to put me out of my misery.

If I was a teacher BubbleBed I doubt I would be able to stop myself from giving sneaky thumbs up to parents if I knew good news.

Ha ha JustEatYourDinner I might check mine again this weekend just to be safe.

The secondary will know which child has been allocated a place at their school by Monday as LA sends the list to them to do the final check on the 18th. The list will be checked and send back to LA before the 1st March.

You have all made me log in and check I am set with passwords!

HT certainly knew the outcome of the entrance exams way before we did. How mine kept a straight face to my flapping in front of him is still beyond me!

teddygirlonce I read once about an LA that had a computer glitch that released the results early. If only ha ha. But then I'd worry the glitch gave the wrong results so I can't win

Thisdoesnotgeteasier I'm sure I'll check my confirmation email a few more times myself yet so I'm just as bad.

atheistmantis I've logged in too a couple of weeks ago because I was worried I'd not written down the password! Then I was worried logging in now might cause a problem! Hope you manage to get the IT issue sorted soon.

I tried to reset my password for the admissions service yesterday, it complained that I couldn't use safari so I tried chrome, again it complained so I tried Firefox and chrome with the same results. I tried edge, again it complained that I needed to use Internet explorer. I tried IE and it still complained that I needed to use IE 😡

Offers are sent out and accepted online so quite what we are supposed to do is beyond me. Technical 'support' say I must be mistaken and was not actually using IE...idiots.

Trb17 you are definitely not alone. We are supposedly in the front line of the catchment area for an excellent school but I keep double checking I applied properly. Every blooming week. This is daft but I do it anyway.

Glad I'm not alone Acornantics. Fingers crossed for you too

Trb I did that yesterday too! The closer it gets to March 1st, the more my nerves are jangling! Hoping you hear what you want to hear, when the time comes

Thanks @Acornantics ... I'm feeling the same. We should get our first choice on distance as we live about 0.6 from the school and people further usually get in. However I'm terrified that something's gone wrong with the application or that there'll be some problem. I check the email confirmation from the LA at least once a week to make sure it was right. Madness I know.

We're waiting to hear too, hopefully first choice as we 'rank' in the faith, sibling and distance categories, which are set by the school in that order. Just feeling nervous because had to appeal a few years ago as the school and LA made mistakes with our application and we ended up with no school place offered at all; my sensible head says it won't happen this time, but I won't settle until we know for certain.

Tiggytape, PRH, Admissions and the rest of the experts on here were so helpful when we were going through the appeal, I will never forget how kind they were and generous with their time. I'd also recommend anyone going through the appeal process to get a copy of 'How to Win Your School Appeal', I found it invaluable in helping me prepare the paperwork and word the appeal appropriately.