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Original poster

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

286 replies

ToxicGirl · 23/02/2022 15:22

I feel like a woman on the edge. Am unbelievably anxious about 1st March. Made my peace a long time ago with the fact DD won't get a place at our nearest secondary (within easy walking distance) because it's so oversubscribed. All her friends and most other children from her school will go there. We live a tiny bit further away and just won't get in, particularly as I understand it's a big birth year.

Would be happy with either our 2nd or 3rd choice schools. They're further away and not as popular but we'd have got a place at them in previous years as we're in catchment and just within the distance they usually offer.

However our LA has warned of unprecedented pressure on school places this year and said that the schools are likely to be significantly oversubscribed. I'm worried that we now won't get a place at the schools that would previously have been 'bankers'. Our other preferences are too far away. We won't get a place at them. Just put them down because there was nowhere else.

There are a couple of hugely undersubscribed and really poorly performing schools in neighbouring towns within the borough. From everything I've read and from looking at Y6 leavers destination info from previous years, I'm absolutely convinced we'll be allocated one of them. They're the schools people get allocated when they only put one choice down and don't get it.

I'm so anxious about it. Can't think about anything else and am driving DH mad. Am managing to hide it from DD but know she'll fall apart on Tuesday. She's prepared to go to school without her friends but not to a completely unknown school in another area.

It's going to be a long few days...

OP posts:
Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:46

@ToxicGirl thanks I'm sure it will. I've only heard good things about AC so that actually doesn't concern me I think it was more of a surprise than anything.

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:45

@greyinganddecaying I've heard very good things about SH. My sil goes in there as part of her job and rates it very highly especially with the pastoral care. The reality is that schools like SH have a not great reputation based on the time I was at school (20 years ago!) just like AC is still known as GL but catchment changes and the demographics have changed so much that reputation doesn't do the schools any justice anymore.

Original poster
ToxicGirl · 01/03/2022 14:43

@Anna197264 you're not the only person I've heard of that didn't get Wellington this year, despite being very close. Sounds like the AoM catchment was similar.

I've got lots of friends with kids that are really happy with AC. Hope it works out ok for you.

OP posts:
greyinganddecaying · 01/03/2022 14:41

Yes I was concerned that we may end up in Urmston/Stretford as I knew it was going to be a big year.

What's annoying me now is that we thought SH looked ok and DS was happy to go, but other people have been really sniffy about it which is putting him off.

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:40

I really can't wait to get my DD home she was so overwhelmed this morning bless her.

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:38

Yep lots of SH this year too. One of my friends has been allocated an urmston school so I consider us to be lucky with AC. Just need to decide if it's worth appealing or not

greyinganddecaying · 01/03/2022 14:38

I've heard of people close to Wellington not getting AC but SH instead. I think AC must have a tiny radius this year as many people who would have got in other years have missed out.

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:37

@ToxicGirl where did you get if you don't mind me asking?

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:34

@ToxicGirl our catchment is Wellington but we got AC. tbh I'm happy with AC but I'll see what my DD says. I think we were just surprised x
Hope you got what you wanted. Sorry I've not read the full thread x

Original poster
ToxicGirl · 01/03/2022 14:29

@Anna197264

I've just spoken to admissions. We are 0.864 miles away and catchment closed at 0.847 miles. She just said it was an unprecedented year. Also the admissions policy puts other criteria first over catchment so people on care plans/staff children/siblings.
I've also heard of some very unexpected outcomes in Trafford.

Do you mind sharing which school the catchment closed at 0.847 for? Was it AoM or Wellington? Just wondering how far off we were!

OP posts:
Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:24

I've just spoken to admissions. We are 0.864 miles away and catchment closed at 0.847 miles. She just said it was an unprecedented year. Also the admissions policy puts other criteria first over catchment so people on care plans/staff children/siblings.

Comedycook · 01/03/2022 14:20

Still waiting in London. I'm actually shaking!

tigerbear · 01/03/2022 14:18

@Anna197264 that’s absolutely crazy, your first choice school must have a tiny catchment 😔

Anna197264 · 01/03/2022 14:16

I'm in trafford. We didn't get our closest school which is less than a mile away. Got our second choice which is double the distance. It's absolutely insane this year. I'm hearing of some really strange school allocations.

ChildrenGrowingUpTooFast · 01/03/2022 13:29

It’s not complicated in England the school doesn’t have enough places for catchment children. We got our first choice catchment school and always known we will get it. No different from Scotland I guess.

wendz86 · 01/03/2022 12:38

Hertfordshire came out just after 12, got our first choice which was our closest so all good.

tigerbear · 01/03/2022 12:37

@Sweetbabydust1989 same.
We’ve put 5 options down, and I’m not confident of getting any of them 😱

Sweetbabydust1989 · 01/03/2022 12:22

@tigerbear they need to hurry up now feeling so sick with worry especially if he doesn't get 1 of the 3 we put down.

tigerbear · 01/03/2022 12:20

@Sweetbabydust1989 yup, am so, so anxious.
@BettySundaes exactly that scenario is what I’m most scared of also!

Hersetta427 · 01/03/2022 12:15

Herts allocations are out. DS got our first choice. Very happy as it was touch and go due to change in feeder school groupings. Very happy family.

ukborn · 01/03/2022 11:39

A few years ago now but my son didn't get into my of the schools we applied to. The four closest, one being a religious school.ñ, all oversubscribed. We were offered a place other side of borough that I'd never heard of. We went private in the end.
I had heard of a couple who were offered places only gif them to be withdrawn - too late for second round too.
I don't get it - where I grew up (in US) you HAD to go to your nearest school. And we all did - never heard of anyone not getting in no matter how many kids born in a year.

Sweetbabydust1989 · 01/03/2022 11:37

@tigerbear I am in the south east ours done get released until after 5pm x

Sweetbabydust1989 · 01/03/2022 11:35

Hope you all got the schools you wanted ours don't get released until 5pm so still hot hours to wait anxious is an understatement!!!

Africa2go · 01/03/2022 11:21

Africa2go

@boyblue Every year DC in my area 6 miles away and not in Trafford get places in all of the except ABS. (Urmston but too far for people to put down). They run the school bus service for them all*

Thats probably because the catchment area for the schools (except AGSB) is more than 6 miles - AGGS is 8 miles from the school, for Loreto and St Ambrose the catchments are massive. AGSB has a very small catchment. So those schools are not under-subscribed as you say, they just take pupils from a wider catchment.

I only quote the Trafford LA web site

@boyblue The Trafford website shows the places offered for 2021 and the applicants - in every case for the grammars, there were more than double the number of applicants (and thats once the 11+ scores were known, so only people who have passed) - in some cases, massively more (e.g. Sale Grammar, 180 places offered, 1158 applicants, Urmston Grammar, 150 places, 1064 applicants). They're not under-subscribed. I know it sounds pedantic but anyone reading this post might waste a choice in future years if they put a grammar down thinking its under-subscribed - they're not.

BettySundaes · 01/03/2022 11:04

@HappyAsASandboy

We've been offered a random school that we didn't apply to. It's not so far away, and I think will be fine, but I feel really deflated about spending time looking round six schools and carefully ranking them, to be given a random. We only had an outside chance of our first two choices, but thought we'd get our third choice. If we didn't get the third choice I thought we'd get our undersubscribed catchment school, but seemingly not. Maybe it's not undersubscribed this year.

Going to be a complicated conversation with the DC in the morning Sad

Wow - its stories like this that make me nervous - we also have our nearest comp supposedly as a "banker" ranked in fourth place.
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