National Offer Day - 1st March. Anybody else anxious?

I’m on absolute tenterhooks waiting for Tuesday.

Choice 1 - faith school, we’re not religious/baptised but it’s a great school. Last 3 years admissions they took a good number of “other” children and we’d have got in, so I’m feeling fairly positive for this year but who knows?!
Choice 2 - about 50% chance of getting in based on last few years.
Choice 3 - closest school, should be ok.

But I’m tying myself in knots wondering if this will be an anomaly year and we won’t get any of the 3 and get given a terrible school instead.

Also we are wanting to move house closer to school 1 (for Covid/job related reasons we couldn’t move last year) and we’ve seen a PERFECT house that won’t hang around long so ideally we want to get school 1 on Tuesday, put our house on the market straight away and try and get the perfect house. It’s so stressful and nerve wracking!

Info doesn't get released til 5pm here. I think they press the button and run away from the office 🤣😂
With primary it was quicker to log back on to the admissions portal at 5 than wait for the email which arrived around 6:30.

Do you reckon its better they know before school or after?

No hope of looking at midnight here. Results get released in the evening so you can’t ring up the admissions office until you’ve had a chance to sleep on it

I am super nervous. I thought initially we had a good chance for our first choice, as last year we would have easily got a place. Last year appears to have been a mad moment though and there’s no obvious reason why the offer area was so much wider. I’m worried this year it will return to form and we won’t get a place.

I liked our guaranteed back up when we looked round. But it’s an academy and seems to be becoming one of those super strict academies which is putting me off massively. I really hope we do get our first choice but I’m not hopeful at the moment.

Having been here last year my advice is don't look at midnight! It is the most unbelievably awful level of stress if you don't get your first choice. We didn't, we were given our catchment school which was less than ideal, putting it politely. It took three weeks on the waiting list for the one we wanted (an out of catchment academy) to be able to say yes he's got a place, and we are very lucky that our local authority actually answers the phone and you can speak to people, find out where on the waiting list you are (as the council ran the academy admissions procedure), but my god it's so stressful. There's also lots of movement as others have said, so just take a deep breath, and lots of advice from some excellent people on here. Good luck!

[quote boyblue]@greyinganddecaying tbh everyone seems fine. No one I know with kids in less desirable schools is scrambling around trying to move them. Once DC are settled I think people realise that unless a school is truely awful, kids can do well if they apply themselves. I do know of a few in Manchester who have been less impressed with the super strict / academic / low on pastoral side type schools.[/quote]
Thanks - that’s good to know. Looking forward to the wait being over so we know where we stand.

@greyinganddecaying tbh everyone seems fine. No one I know with kids in less desirable schools is scrambling around trying to move them. Once DC are settled I think people realise that unless a school is truely awful, kids can do well if they apply themselves. I do know of a few in Manchester who have been less impressed with the super strict / academic / low on pastoral side type schools.

[quote boyblue]@greyinganddecaying In Trafford lots go to grammars. Then there are a few very popular comps on distance then some less desirable ones. The comps are on area / distance etc. [/quote]
Sorry that was a typo - how are your friends kids getting on in these schools?

Do we just get an email with the offer?

@greyinganddecaying In Trafford lots go to grammars. Then there are a few very popular comps on distance then some less desirable ones. The comps are on area / distance etc.

OP, completely terrified and anxious, for exactly the same reasons.
Fed up of the whole waiting game, but equally terrified of offer day!
DD is a mess, too, and has been anxious for months.

OP Trafford I assume. I have friends with kids at the 'less desirable scjiiodz

Starting to get super anxious now.
Dd1 chose girls school as her first choice but they do fair banding entry so no idea if she stands a chance. All we know is which band she's in and if there are fewer than 30 siblings or people living closer she'll get in. There's a possibility of more places if the other bands don't fill up.
2nd choice is over subscribed and we are realistically too far away unless there's a weird anomaly.
3rd choice is across the road so hopefully guaranteed coz I can't actually remember what we put as 4th choice....
Keep trying to remind myself it's not the end of the world & we will find her the right school even if it's not on Tuesday.

I feel your pain everyone. This was us 2 years ago.

I just wanted to say that whatever offer you get on 1st March, that is just the beginning!

For dd1, we got offered our 6th choice. We were absolutely gutted. That moved to 5th choice. Then 3rd choice was offered in April. Then 4th choice in July.

So the moral of the story is that the waiting lists can and do still move right up to September. Don't lose hope on getting a higher preference school 😉

Good luck. I work in Admissions and also have a DD in secondary so I know the fear.

Weirdly in my area of the NW we are down on numbers this year so can’t have been a high birth area everywhere.

It's a horrible wait for 1 March. I wish you all well.

GM borough with grammars? Hate the system so much. If the selectives didn't take so many out of borough pupils then there would be enough spaces for us all.

That's the one - and completely agree. Just hope we don't end up somewhere miles away.

Joining for the wait. First choice is our local outstanding boys school which we would have got a place at the last 10 yrs but this year they have changed the admissions criteria and put DS's primary school in a different feeder school group making it now unlikely that we will get a place on first round allocations. Second choice is our local comp but it is 3 times the distance of the boys school but we are virtually guaranteed a place as we live in the priority area. Resigned myself to choice two and waiting it out on the continued interest list for first choice. DS is our second but his older sister goes to the outstanding local girls school.

Ah I think you're near to me OP. We are the same, no chance at getting into the most popular school where most if DS friends are going. I've also heard it's a big intake year, so we might end up somewhere we really don't want to be.

Our first preference school has confirmed a substantial bulge intake for 2022 but it is still hugely oversubscribed. Nervously counting down the days to next Tuesday.

Fingers crossed for you. It's a horrible wait