Nervous about Secondary School allocations out this week!

Thank you! Was contemplating whether it was worth staying up but will try and get some sleep, though I'm fizzing with anticipation!

Surrey are also part of London eAdmissions, so post 5pm.

Anyone know what time Surrey tends to send out their emails?

Nope. Just checked. It was even later than I remembered! Closer to 8.30pm!!

Write?
@ExiledinIslington, I’m sure this years local cohort is smaller than last years. I don’t think there was a bun fight for reception places for this years children. Good luck. Parli is lovely.

thanks the talk of midnight and 6am was making me wonder if I should stay up

London is from 5pm if that helps

What time are the allocations emailed?

The council website says the evening of 1 March?

Anyone know what time evening normally is?

Thanks Camdenish! 🤞

CamdenishAs you can tell from name I live nearish you. DD's 1st choice is Parli, we live 1.5 miles away. She would have got a place by July in 2019 but not in 2020. I know she won't get an offer there tomorrow so we'll be hoping waiting lists move. I do hope this year is a smaller cohort!!!

@Stokey I’ve looked in my last years diary. Don’t right off hope till the first week of the summer holidays .

[quote BunsyGirl]@ChildOfFriday For DC’s first choice you have to live within 12.5 miles to get an “in catchment” place. Only a small number of places are allocated for “out of catchment” boys and they require an even higher score. They make the exam harder and harder each year because the competition is so great and that’s the only way they can distinguish between candidates. It is incredibly difficult. We sent DN who got all 9’s at GCSE a copy of a recent test and she was like “oh my God”!!![/quote]
I don't dispute that- as I said I wasn't trying to undermine the difficulty of the exam or of getting in I just wanted to clarify that the definition of super selective isn't the difficulty of the exam, but the method of selection. I believe there are grammars in Kent that are super selective but use the same exam as the 'standard' grammars, with the difference being that the super selectives select by score and the others by distance (providing you are over the pass mark). Some, like yours, have catchments and some disregard distance completely and just go by score.

@ChildOfFriday For DC’s first choice you have to live within 12.5 miles to get an “in catchment” place. Only a small number of places are allocated for “out of catchment” boys and they require an even higher score. They make the exam harder and harder each year because the competition is so great and that’s the only way they can distinguish between candidates. It is incredibly difficult. We sent DN who got all 9’s at GCSE a copy of a recent test and she was like “oh my God”!!!

[quote BunsyGirl]@starbrightstarlight8888 Yes, there is. Commonly known as the 11 plus but it is not the same exam for every school/area. The exam my DS took is notoriously hard because the schools that we applied for are “super selective”.[/quote]
As I understand it, super selective means that the schools select primarily by score (so someone who lives further away from the school but scores very highly will get in before someone who lives next door to it with a lower score) as opposed to having a set pass mark and then allocating places to everyone who gets above this mark by distance, regardless of whether the score is bang on the pass mark or far higher than it. It doesn't relate to the difficulty of the exam as far as I know, though I agree that it is very difficult to get into a super selective grammar and don't mean to undermine that at all! Best of luck to your DC

@starbrightstarlight8888 Yes, there is. Commonly known as the 11 plus but it is not the same exam for every school/area. The exam my DS took is notoriously hard because the schools that we applied for are “super selective”.

[quote BunsyGirl]@starbrightstarlight8888 A type of academically selective state school. They used to be very common before they were largely abolished in the 60’s/70’s. Some counties retained a lot of them while others, like the one I live in, only kept a few. As a result, in my county, it’s very hard to get a place.[/quote]
Thank you. So there's a test to get in I presume?

@BunsyGirl really good luck for your DD too, it's so competitive!

@Camdenish, thanks that's helpful to know. We're a bit further out but still would have similar criteria affecting us. Given we've got a good local option, I think if we haven't heard by the summer holidays, we'll decide to stick, although will be keen to see how much the waiting list moves.

Re waiting lists: by law, admissions year waiting lists have to be held until at least the 31 December of that year (so Dec 2021). After that, admissions authorities can choose what they do - some continue keeping a list until the end of yr7, some all through secondary, some swap to no list. Usually schools opt for the LA to keep the list to start with, as this is much easier all round for initial allocations, but they don't have to. Some then take it over themselves later.

However, exactly how waiting lists and new offers are differs. Some LAs will run "rolling lists" where places are given out as they are declined, whereas some have set dates on which further "rounds" of places are offered.

Waiting lists in my area of London seemed to move much less last year and last-distance-offered was smaller.

Movement happened early April and then the last week of the summer term and then the first two weeks of the new school year. But my anecdata is based around a bit of London where some people play the independent v certain prestigious state school game and may be irrelevant elsewhere.

Last year was a large cohort though and adding to that the COVID financial worries that maybe makes sense. Some waiting lists grew after 1 March.

I would say that I know children very happy in lower choice schools and others unhappy and removed from their first choice school. A year on and it seems unimportant although it was awfully stressful at the time.

@starbrightstarlight8888 A type of academically selective state school. They used to be very common before they were largely abolished in the 60’s/70’s. Some counties retained a lot of them while others, like the one I live in, only kept a few. As a result, in my county, it’s very hard to get a place.

@Stokey I have everything crossed for you. My DS would have got into his first choice on 1 March last year but only by two marks and I know that a lot more have taken the 11plus in our area this year.

Our local comp is so bad that my friend who works at the school told me not to send my DCs there We have a second choice grammar that I would be happy with (but it’s much further away) and a third choice faith comp which is a reasonable school but it’s in the next county (even though we are in catchment) and DS would only know one person there - she’s a girl so he probably wouldn’t even talk to her . He’s not keen on it as it’s neither academic nor sporty and he’s both.

Is it the 1st March everywhere?

What are grammar schools? We don't have them in my part of England