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

@JustEatYourDinner it might be on your internet providers server, email isn't instantaneous communication. Also check your spam / junk folder.

are you able to advise on grammar school appeals too?

Just to confirm what Tiggytape said, yes, I can advise on grammar school appeals.

Strange.

I just logged on and checked the emails sent section. Apparently my allocation was sent yesterday at around 4.45pm?!?! Is that just a batching thing? If it isn't, why haven't I got it?! And why would they send to the day before? And if they know, update the bloody website!! I was thinking they are all running around panicking today to get them out,but they know obviously.....

That is really awful some people knowing and some still waiting.

@JustEatYourDinner I am also overanalysing but with less data!

My distraction is work and yes I'm really focused on that today!

Sorry re giving us hope, normally, but we are applying out of catchment. So hmm. But it means that we have probably got second choice. (Always undersubscribed) as they school they got was our third choice. So we may have got third. But it means that probably we won't get sent of town to the town we don't want if they are accepting out of towners to our town. Which is good. Unless they have a percentage of out of towners allocation. In which case we are no further forward.

God I am sick of myself analyzing!

Omg it's bollocks that the timings are different. Should all go out live at a set time.
I logged on after midnight and saw the results, then got the email confirmation at 3am. Getting the timings right for all LEA's/counties is the least they could do.

I have to spend the whole day in the hell that is soft play so hopefully that will distract me. :/

First choice offered, we're happy.
Sorry for those who didn't get their first option. I hope all the appeals go through smoothly and have a good outcome. Just adds to the unnecessary stress of it all

Yes it's unfair that the results are released at different times. Some children will know before they leave for school and some not. So stressful.

@JustEatYourDinner that really sucks...I would have hoped out of catchment / area admissions were told at the same time. Still as a positive presumably these applicants would be lower down the admissions crieria so you have a good chance?

Just checked online again hoping that someone came into work today and pressed the wrong button...obviously because I'm sure its more sophisticated than that it wasn't there...

So unfair people have found out they have got into our towns schools because their county has released but our county haven't so kids in our town don't know.

We don't get released until this afternoon. Stresss!!

That's good to hear maxz99, have heard similar in our area of London, from 20-40 something on waiting list after 1st round and getting in 2 weeks later at 2nd round.

Keeping fingers crossed, dc2 picked up 2 pennies on the way to school....

Well done to those that got the school they wanted.

BCC emailed last week to say out of 1075 appeals gor sept 2016 only 2.9 were successful - so about 30. That sure feels low

The official statistics for 2016/17 aren't available yet and won't be until September but that is very low. Last year only 2 LAs in the country were that low - Lewisham and Newham. both of which had relatively small numbers of secondary school appeals. It is possible there was a good reason for Birmingham being that low but, if they are that low again this year, I would worry as to whether their appeal panels have been properly trained and are truly independent.

prh47brigde - are you able to advise on grammar school appeals too?

Do you have a breakdown of how many appeals per school? Ours was part of a table in the admissions leaflet.

In the case of Birmingham it would be interesting to see how many of those appeals were for the KE foundation schools.

BCC emailed last week to say out of 1075 appeals gor sept 2016 only 2.9 were successful - so about 30. That sure feels low

My email says

The Headteacher of the school concerned has been informed of this allocation and will make any further arrangements regarding your child's admission. We hope your child settles quickly into their new school.

but I logged in anyway .

No point in appealing as we will have no grounds for it - we knew DS would be in the bottom category for admissions and he wouldn't have got in for the last 2 years either.

That doesn't matter for appeals. Appeals are not just about correcting mistakes. You can win an appeal if you can show that the disadvantage to your son from not attending this school outweighs the disadvantage to the school from having to cope with another pupil. His position in the admission categories is irrelevant.

Appeals are notoriously unsucessful in Birmingham. They even emailed applicants to warn that out of 1000 plus appeals last yr only around 2 percent were successful.

Birmingham is low but not that low. For the 2015/16 academic year they heard 1,063 secondary school appeals of which 8.2% (87) were successful. That is somewhat below the rate for England as a whole - that was 26.3%. At the other end of the scale, in three authorities (Knowsley, Sunderland and Gateshead) over 90% of appeals were successful.

The head said verbally that they would honour applications as if they were still at the school, but the admissions info wasn't changed. That would have never stood up at an appeal

If you could prove the head said that it would have been a very persuasive case for appeal. You had been given a reasonable expectation.

TO ANYONE WHO WANTS ADVICE

I would echo what was said up thread - if you are thinking of appealing and want advice, please start your own thread with the word "appeal" in the thread title. I will keep an eye on this thread but I won't be reading every post so a request for advice on here may be missed. If you start your own thread I will definitely look at it. If I don't respond it is because you have already been given good advice on your thread and I don't have anything to add.

I think we accept by default as well. The email didn't say either way so I am guessing there will be more info once I get the postal confirmation.

Just got our email - DD has got into our first choice (which is where DS goes).