Hell hath no fury like a middle-class parent scorned

Hallgerda - yes, I suppose the cyclone idea is about right. I know several 13 yr olds making their way to the Richmond area every day.
RosaLux - you lived a stone's throw from Graveney!! Ds1 will have to sit the Wandsworth test for that. I think if you are really close by to the school, then generally (not always) you are fine, it's just that there are so few schools full stop. Our closest secondary is a Catholic Girls one, and although ds1 would look charming in the plaid kilt uniform, I'm not sure they will consider him.

I'd probably be walking around like those parents if we hadn't upped sticks and moved out of London - nearly all of ds's former classmates failed to get into the secondary school they chose..now you've got me thinking of the Butterkist ad Unquiet

TBH at first we were a bit middle class parent scorned over dd's primary school allocation. We didn't agree with how the route was calculated and were up in arms, straight on the phone to the headmaster of our preferred school, appeal submitted asap, wrote to the MP etc etc

We have withdrawn our appeal though - there is no point flogging that particupar expired nag. Our grounds for appeal weren't anything that the appeal panel can rule on so why go through all the stress?

We are just going to have to live with the fact that things didn't go our way.

I see where UQD is coming from - the truth is that not everyone gets what they want - there just isn't the room in the preferred schools. You just have to live with that. You don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.

Okay. A misinterpretation on my part.

I don't think UQD is pleased. Just not surprised.

UQD, why are you so pleased about the parents' disappointment?

where I live there isn't really a choice - most rural areas are like that - the choice is the local school or personally transport you child miles in another direction.

I hope when mine get to that stage that the local school is ok - otherwise it will be time for difficult decisions on our part.

Good point Seeker. I guess people deluded themselves that because they wanted something it meant they had a choice about whether or not they would get it.

Is Wandsworth one of the boroughs some of you are talking about? We moved from there a few years ago. We used to live a stone's throw from Graveney school, so I always assumed she would go there, but I take it we could have been looking at bussing DD1 halfway across London. The bog standard comprehensive is now not looking too bad after all.

It's funny that at no time has any official Government document talked about "parental choice" It has always -and I know, because I worked for the Department for Education in its many manifestation for years - been "parental preference". You can say where you would like your child to go, and if you meet the criteria and there is a place, you will get in. If not, not.

I like Hallgerda's sedate cyclone image - a bit like the wind that blew the nannies away before Mary Poppins dropped in under her brolly

Has it always been like this in London or are there more children now?

well, we'll be moving way before secondary because 300 children didn't get a place in any secondary school in my borough this year. Council's response? Looking into it...

Agree that choice purely illusory. I'd just like an automatic place at a local school which provided a safe if mediocre environment. Not much to ask, surely.

The whole 'choice' thing really bugs me. It is just a way of giving parents the illusion of having control over the process when in fact, REAL choice is impossible until all schools are good schools. If your so-called choice is between a good school or a crap school then that is no choice at all.
However DD1 and all her 63 schoolmates will be going to our local 'just about good enough' catchment school in September because we have NO choice.

And to be honest, I think we'd all do better if we dropped this "child didn't get in" and "we didn't get in" way of talking. It implies that there is some kind of deserving going on. The correct thing to say is "there wasn't a place." It's not some test of our chlid's unworthiness.

They don't have a choice. Can't believe how many times I've said that. They have a preference.

gawd you shouldn't crow

Ah, wilbur, there's a sort of sedate cyclone lifting them up and transporting them round a clockwise circle round London. So the ones from your borough (W, I presume) who can't find a local school end up as the "not local, definitely lowering the tone..." children on the Richmond secondary threads. And quite a few from my borough (L) end up in yours, likewise doubtless lowering the tone...

It is terrible really, the secondary thing. There are about a zillion primary schools in our borough and only about 9 secondaries. I know the secondaries are bigger, but still there are piles of kids with no local school at all, let alone a 2nd choice. What do they do with these kids? Do they recycle them? Where do they go, where, where?

Choice is a pathetic fallacy (apologies to Ruskin) because obviously not all pupils can't all go to the outstanding school. But if the league tables were abandoned and children had to attend their nearest school, there would still be inequality, just slightly redistributed. Unless we're talking massive educational restructuring...

I htink when my children are old enough for secondary schools I'm leaving the UK

do you mean that parents should have a choice? they are told they do have choices , but when it comes down to it, not much of a choice.