City of London Girls withdrawing offers

Just to add, whilst I'd like to go along to the offer holders' day tomorrow and ask for an explanation of what went so wrong, I am still so upset that I don't think I could hold it together. And I don't want to spoil the event for the girls who got places and are probably blissfully unaware of the mill that others have been put through.

It means people are name changing and making posts that look like they are by different people when they are by the same person.

Just to say that after radio-silence since Wednesday's 'retracted emails' fiasco I finally had an email this morning from CLGS asking if I still planned to attend tomorrow's offer holders' morning given that places were all filled. I replied asking for an indication of the length of the waiting list to help me judge if this was worthwhile. Not heard back.

They seem poor at responding to emails - wonder if this is normal?
(I had to Google sock-puppeting and am still a bit hazy - are MNHQ saying that people on the thread are adopting more than one identity? Or are they able to impersonate a genuine user's identity?)

I've now heard of a North London prep school warning about acceptance practices at CLGS and Channing.. These are schools with long track record of sending to both.. Maybe no-one listens to their child's prep school, maybe it adds to the allure given how alpha North London can be about schools.

Either way, it's tough on the girls.

I thought CLSG would grab the Museum of London space since they are moving to Smithfield. But apparently that’s already been earmarked for something else.

Surely the underground prep thing can't go ahead, can it? No natural light? Can that be legal? And who would send their daughter to such a place?

I don't know how (efficiency? good judgement? decency?)... but they do. We have a CLS(boys) offer and rang them up this morning to double-check it was non-explosive and they were emphatic that it was a "firm" offer valid until March 5th. Also, you could get through to them by phone, which is another one up on the Girls' school.

LondonUSmum I agree. Same can be said of so many other schools that are oversubscribed but still manage to execute a fairer admission system.

I saw the mention of City Boys, makes me curious how they avoid the exploding offers assuming they have similar constraints of CLGS?

Lotsofsighing - yes, schools in London are pretty good in general but the really good ones have shrinking catchment areas. If we had not gone private then dd would have had to go to a school that’s been put into special measures.

And interesting about SHHS - I think it used to mainly attract girls from the Hampstead area but now lots of others are applying.

SHHS apparently had an increase of 40% in their applications this year. I don't know whether it's that people are applying to more schools or that it's become more attractive due to its building works being over. But yes they do have a huge overlap with City and Channing and yet seem to be managing (as do UCS, City Boys, Francis Holland etc).

I'm sure that people have accepted to buy themselves time. For example, I know of a family who had applied to City but were also waiting on a scholarship from Forest details of which were sent the following week. I don't know what they did.

It is intriguing to know what is going on. I think that there has been some commentary that it is all caused by people applying to so many schools these days. I can see that this causes real difficulty for schools in determining how many they might be first choice for, but everyone can only go to one school, so it does not really explain why they are getting such a high % of acceptances - if anything you would expect this to result in a lower % acceptance rate, unless the schools have over-compensated by massively increasing their offers. I certainly had the impression that CLSG did not like having to use exploding offers last year, so I would expect them to have reduced the number of offers they made compared to last year if anything.

I can believe people might accept CLSG or Channing quickly to book a slot and then wait to see if they get a grammar school offer, but i cant beleive people are really accepting more than one private school just to buy more time to decide between them - you would expect that a parent who is sufficently aware of the issue of exploding offers to know to accept their offer quickly would also have given consideration to preference in advance. I appreciate there is the issue of not getting DC overly invested in a particular school at a time when it is not certain, but people manage that issue in the state sector all the time.

As mentioned above, the City position this year and last might be explained (altohugh not necessarily justified!) by the widening of their "catchment" - people are prepared to travel further to shcool than they used to be (DD has girls inher glass who travel more than 20 miles) and City themselves have clearly indicated they are expecting more applicants from East London and Essex.
I am not sure about the surge in Channing's popularity as I dont know anyone at the school. Maybe it is a knock on from City, with parents being spooked by what happened at City and getting their acceptances in quickly, or maybe there are other factors at play.

I can imagine some schools can be more relaxed as they have room for an extra class in the year if they need it (and that might be the case of City in a couple of years if they proceed with their underground prep school - they would presumably then get back the 4 or 5 classrooms currently used by the prep!). Maybe the boys schools can be a bit more relaxed as they have a 13 plus intake too and have the ability to flex a bit between the two.

Interesting to know how SHHS manage it, for example. My impression is that SHHS's popularity has increased in recent years with North London parents who might traditionally have sent their DC to City (because of the shift in City's intake leaving less space for North London girls), and generally you would expect them to have similar factors at play as Channing and City given the overlap in their "catchment".

Or people are throwing money at it and paying deposits for more than one school. I'm not convinced that more people are going private in places like Islington given how much the state schools have improved in London.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true that there is much bigger demand for places than in past years and that schools like Channing have been taken by surprise. There has been a huge change in demographics in some parts of Islington, for example, which I think has contributed to that. In my street for example, the people who had kids starting secondary 6 or 7 years ago were sending them to local state secondaries - even in that short time as house prices have gone up the people who are now sending their kids to secondary school or are about to are much wealthier and looking at independent schools.

Polly Channing withdrew offers towards the end of last week.

I'm not sure I agree with you Greenleave about the solution being to make it more transparent. What about they don't do it all like other schools? But I do agree with you that if both City and Channing are going to persist with this system, they need to change their offers-to-places ratio and give a fixed deadline for a decision rather than just as and when.

I don't agree with the personal attacks on other posters but at the same time I thought that some of the defences of the schools' practices were a little callous.

Read all posts just now and the only 2 things City needs to do is to post their admission policy in writing in their website plus any communication letters to potential candidates in BOLD and do not overly offer places so that parents have at least 3 working days after receiving offers to make decision or being able to make the deposit transferred(some parents do not check their email every hour/day). And some posters here are showing a disgusting attitude in attacking Pradaqueen, mumsnet should delete these posts. We have a close friend’s daughter who just left the school last year after 10 years going to the school (and junior school) and very happy with the school. We consider to apply for our daughter this year too (however not first choice due to distance)and hope the school make their admission policy crystal clear NOW, if not we wont even bother to apply, which is a shame as we have no doubt that it is a good school(cant say its great anymore after these couple of years admission chaos).

Are Channing withdrawing offers or have they just warned that they might?

We didn't rush to accept as we hadn't even yet had an offer from one school (which eventually came with a scholarship) and frankly we didn't want to make a decision based on being bullied.

Oh well, looks like we'll have to accept the school that will be 5k cheaper or the one about way above Channing in the league tables. Or our local state school which follows a tightly controlled admissions procedure.

I was fortunate coming from a state primary [having read the letter which clearly did say offers would be withdrawn if they reached their target ) to pay the deposit on time to secure a place but was disappointed to receive the email cancelling the offer morning due to all the places having been secured. No mention of any staff absence. It does seem extremely pressurised for the parents to make these decisions without a second visit given the financial implications. Channing stated in the email that they had unprecedented demand for their places and possibly did not expect the take up of all places within the short timeframe as this was different to historic norms. It is understandable that schools over offer as the children are applying for multiple schools but there does need to less over offering with very short time periods to accept [ e.g 5 days ]and a longer waiting list to make this a fairer process.

And the original offer letter said:
'If you and your daughter wish to visit the school again, before making your decision, you are welcome to visit on...' etc etc (my italics)

Yes Backing we weren't expecting a champagne reception.

Oh that’s really bad. Staff shortages my arse. The kids only want another look around and a glass of squash. Indeed other schools have basically said that’s what you get - obviously because it’s term time for most. No expectation of anything involved - just a look round and to ask a few questions. This is one big mess.

Definitely not but nice try Notagain
Just another person a bit disappointed how this thread has turned out.