Waiting for that secondary school letter (1st march?)

Congratulations to everyone who has had good news already. I am so

Good luck everyone - let's report back on Monday for back-patting / hand-holding depending on the outcomes

Congratulations Petunia and Grimma.

Fingers crossed.... only 3 more days....

Congrats Grimma! Gald you can have a good weekend celebrating, you obviously have a very enighthtened and compassionate LA! LOL @ the 7.59 alarm!

congratulations GrimmaTheNome and petunia. Well done to your DC!!!

Our results were available on-line at 8pm, DH had the alarm clock set for 7:59

DDs got her out-of-catchement grammar school place! Yay!

Congratulations petunia!

I hope that I am posting similar good news on Monday!

I am another one waiting with baited breath - our problem is that our nearest schools are under one council, while we are across the border in another so we miss out on the catchment points, no siblings either and schools are heavily oversubscribed.

Would be overjoyed if 1st or 2nd choice (but sensibly thinking we have no chance), 3rd choice is good too - apparently improving all the time and just had a shedload of money spent on it to improve the facilities BUT 4th choice which is in our district has just been put into special measures

We are moving in April to 3rd choice catchment area so I suppose there is always the appeals procedure.

We had our letter this morning and we've got a place at the school we wanted. I'm one Happy Mummy!
Good Luck to everyone for Monday.

titchy, apparently it crashed last year - a friend of a friend couldn't get on till after 8, so don't hold your breath

Our LEA says results available from 7am on Tuesday on the on-line admissions site (London one), and emailed sometime before noon the same day. What's the betting the admissions site crashes at 7am?

Belledechoco - congratulations to you and your DS, its nice to hear some good news!

Glad that you mentioned the password, onemoremum - will need to go and find where I wrote mine down!

I've just looked at our county council admissions website and it says 'if you applied online you be able to check the outcome of your request on offer day by logging in to the online admission service'

Not sure what time it will be available though..

Will be obsessively checking from the moment I get up!

That's rubbish creditcrunched. Here they used the carrot of finding out earlier to encourage more people to apply online.

It's a bit stupid really because I still had to post my council tax bill and a utility bill to the council to prove my address ( since the council tax bill comes from the council) plus an aptitude test form direct to the relevant school so was hardly a paper-free system!

Can't imagine me getting much work done on Monday afternoon anyway!

I am jealous onemoremum. Apparently here in north london we have to wait until Tuesday. They said the notifications would be sent by post on monday, but emails only on Tuesday

Aargh nearly there now.

We have decided definitely to go for the state school if we get a place, but that has upped the stress even more and am now worrying myself stupid with what-ifs?

Apparently we will find out mid-afternoon on Monday, not sure if that means by email or some method of logging on to the council website (where the hell did I write that password down.....)

any news Soup - have a friend whose ds was hoping to get in to one of same I think . Letter due today/tomorrow.

This will be us this time next year for 13+ - eek !

Ds was offered a place, we recieved the letter this morning.

Xenia- That is very true. If I could afford to put one of my DC through private education it would be DS1 who is the one who finds learning hard.

DD is very bright. We have only one school in our LEA which is a grammer school. I considered applying to it for DD, but as there are roughly 600 DC going for 120 places she would have needed some tuition on how to do the tests to stand a chance at a place.

I could not justify paying for lessons to "coach" my DD to pass an entrance exam when my DS was struggling to read and write. DD is very happy in her state school, and as she is banded in top set, the majority of her lessons are taught at a faster pace anyway. Maybe her GCSE levels might have been slightly higher if she had gone to the Grammer school but I believe she is getting a good education.

Ironically, DD is in an all girls school otherwise I wouldnt be worrying about DS, as the sibling rule would apply.

And as someone with 3 children now in their 20s... it really doesn't matter anything like it seems at the time. In some ways they are born how they are, at least 50% in my view. I'm certainly more relaxed about my younger twins.

The comment above about trying to find a good vocational school is very interesting. There are private schools for the not so bright. It's been aruged if you have a bright child and aren't very well off they will probably do okay in many places but it's the not so bright for whom it perhaps most pays off to pay fees or educate at home or some other plan like music scholarship to choir school or whatever.

That's interesting, admission and reassuring

It's strange, as much as you know deep down that it is all community gossip, you can't help worrying whether any of it is true so it's good to be reminded how the system really works...

SparklyGothKat 12:40pm I will have paced a hole in the carpet by then! I was hoping for an email at 1 minute past midnight!!!

I was here last year, we knew that Ds1 would get our first choice as he was accepted under 'medical and social needs' and we were informed in the feb that we had been successful, and he would be allocated a place, but there was still the 'what ifs'

Someone asked about online applications, we recieved the email at about 12:40pm. I sat refreshing my email inbox from 12 noon.

Ds sat the 11+ equivalent for a private secondary last week, he did really well aparantly, had an interview with the head of year 7 on Friday and was asked to come back to have a look around (it's been nearly a year since we went to have a nose, he admitted he couldn't remember alot) and to have another interview with the headmaster. They didn't have any bursaries left as he sat the exam late and scholarships are at the head's discretion so we will have to wait and see. It's nerve wrecking though, no grammar school here.

I really do hope you all get the right schools for your children

The rumours are just old wives tales that may have happened years ago. The current process of equal preference means that no school( including those schools that are their own admission authority) knows where else you have put down as a preference or in what order. The only people who know are the LA as they will allocate a place at the highest possible preference school where you are within the number of available places.

What that means is that you should put down as your first preference the school you most want but that you should include in your preferences the local catchment school. Even if it is your last preference you will be higher up the list on this school than potentially others and you should, with luck, get a place at the school. However if you are also able to be offered a place at one of your other more favoured preferences then this is what the offer will be.

busymummy3 - wise words!

You are quite right, we should all really try and forget about it until offer day - no amount of worrying is going to make any difference now!

gingertoo that is exactly why you should not listen to any of these rumours and old wives tales. pick your 3 schools put them down in order of your preference on form submit your form forget all about it until approx 1st march (national offer day ) every time you hear one of these tales walk away from the huddle at the schoolgates! do not partake in the conversation as you will end up full of doubts and worries. that is what i did with my dd1 who is now in secondary school and what i am in process of doing with ds. not long to go now!