Got last choice secondary school, hate it, - turn it down?

[TeenToTwenties]

Click bait sorry. I haven't got a child starting secondary. I only have a lay interest in this from reading the boards over the years.

Of course I and anyone else would be totally unreasonable to turn down my offered school unless I already have a place at a private school or I really would be willing to home educate

Accepting an offered school does not impact your chance of a successful appeal.
Most areas you automatically go on the wait list for higher preferences but check rules for your area.
You can get appeals advice on the Secondary education board.

Very stupid and ill-informed.

Then you’ll get given the nearest school with a space if your choice is unavailable. This is not a god strategy. Putting down fewer schools does not up your chance of getting the one you do put down.

Honestly its not how it works. We got our first choices for all three of the children,at 3 different schools. This is because we met the criteria each time more than other children who didn't get a place.
If high had just put our top place each time I could have said the same as you. My DSs who lives about a minute away from us didn't get a place for the same school. She had only put it down, and as a result got offered a place miles away. Heated, eventually get at a place at taskle on the waiting list.But only in november. So for 2 months he had to do a terrible commute, rather than go to one of the other local schools.

I remember someone at the council telling me to reject the school place we were offered, as it wasn't the school that all siblings were going to.

Then I was told they shouldn't ever give that advice and that I was supposed to accept and appeal, as now we had no place for September!

Panicked few days but it worked out in the end.

People saying "well it worked for us" surely cannot be that thick 🥲

If they do this you are in a good position

If the school is over a certain distance away then you qualify for free travel to the school from your home address

We had this and because it involved getting a taxi we got the school of our choice despite being told we wouldn’t have grounds for appeal. The. call to say we had our choice of school came within a few hours after I had explained that we would accept their choice but could we get the form to apply for a taxi to the school

The schools I chose were our nearest schools, however because-of the layout of catchment areasm the school we had been given was in our catchment area but miles away.. Whilst the nearest 2 were in 2 different areas

Seems they are!!

I know a family who only put one school down, didn’t get it and were allocated an awful school miles away.
They refused the place and in September when all his mates were starting year 7, he was at home because the situation still wasn’t resolved. I’m not entirely sure how but in the end they did get the school of their choice but it caused ridiculous levels of stress and might not have worked out so favourably.

That said, there are some patronising attitudes on here talking down to people who clearly have a good understanding of the admissions criteria of their local schools. I did put down 3 options for my dc2 but I knew we’d be getting option 1 as we were in catchment and had a sibling at the school so as good as guaranteed a place based on all previous admissions data. I had less chance of getting option 2 and 3 anyway which were just the next nearest schools.

🤣🤣

So what, you think you got in on...vibes?

Either you've misunderstood the criteria or the LA has made a mistake in applying them and those living closer should have appealed on that basis. It's not just you "took a gamble and it paid off".

"That said, there are some patronising attitudes on here talking down to people who clearly have a good understanding of the admissions criteria of their local schools."

I agree. I live in a city which has a population of over 200,000 people and has 13 secondary schools to choose from. I think it's worthwhile looking at how many people do get their first choice.

The local paper reported that 83.8% of pupils were allocated to their first choice school. A further 10.4% got their second choice and 2.7% got their third choice.

This leaves 3.1% that didn't get one of their three preferences.

However, there is one single school in the city that is probably largely driving most of those not getting their first choice. It is very heavily oversubscribed indeed. It was reported last year that the school accepted only 36% of those who put it as first choice. So there are 2.7 applications for every place.

Everybody is very aware that this particular school is very oversubscribed indeed. If you take the figures for that school out of the equation then the numbers getting their first choice school in the city are over 90%.

It all seems unnecessarily stressful. Why not do it the same way as Scotland? Ie you don’t have to apply, you’re just automatically signed up for your catchment school. Would people be against this way?

My DD2 only wanted me to put one school down but I refused (luckily she got her first choice) . Our LA covers a large area and there was no way I was risking getting a school miles away.

That would have a massive impact on the housing market in certain areas.

It didn’t “work”! You’d have got in anyway - read what I wrote.

@soccermum10 did they ring you and the. Because you stood firm got the place or did you get it because of where you were on th waitlist

look there are so many different rules for different local authorities and schools within that each application is different

what you need to be is realistic and informed. Putting down more than one school for DS (I did because it by and large is the sensible choice) was pointless because he was going to get his first choice but for others around here multiple is the way forward otherwise you end up with a school you don’t want

The key is this (and what the OP is saying)

1. the local authority has a duty to find you a school place
2. it has to be within certain parameters (which are different for primary such as distance) I.e. it has to be a realistic choice to get to for your child
3. it doesn’t (unlike what soccer mum is saying) have to be your choice unless waitlist movement occurs
4. if you reject the place the obligation to educate your child stops - it ends
5. if you don’t get the school you want and there are no grounds for appeal accept it and work with the school(s) you do want and have put down on waitlist

Don’t get me started on the admissions process. In My Glorious Reign there will be fair banding and a ballot.

They don’t have to give you ANY of the schools on your requested list

We were given one we would never have selected. Very poorly performing school, very bad reputation and with around 20% of their maximum intake then currently attending.

I believe they are doing a lot better now however I wasn’t prepared to have my child as one of their test cases in a new intake

I appealed and we got our first choice in the end - however I will say we had an exceptional and unique set of circumstances that allowed us to do so easily including my son being a SEN child

The difficulty is that so much of England is so much more densely populated that Scotland. There is inherently uncertainty in knowing how many children are living in each catchment (and therefore how many school places are needed each year), and this is exacerbated when housing is very dense and where certain schools in a town / city have a better reputation causing families to move into catchment.

An ‘all children in catchment admitted’ policy would potentially mean a huge process of school extension building for some schools (or all schools being built oversized then areas mothballed) while others become empty. Ultimately, the English system (under a veneer of apparent parental choice) is designed to balance school place supply and demand across each area.

On the ‘only put one choice down’, the point is that the outcome if you do so is NEVER better than if you had filled in the whole form.

The outcome is sometimes the same as it would have been, and sometimes worse, but it can never be better.

We had some parents who thought they were guaranteed a school due to sibling policy. That year the category was oversubscribed and not all siblings got a place. I would always be very weary of thinking you had definitely secured a place.

That can definitely happen when there is a distinction between ‘siblings in catchment’, which come above ‘others in catchment’, which in turn have priority over ‘siblings not in catchment’.

Very much this.

This doesn't sound unlike our area. Except I think the first option is always higher - over 90% I think.

The most heavily subscribed school is the one DS has.

The council public the criteria, distance and number of appeals for each school every year. It naturally varies every year, but you have a very good idea of whether you are going to meet the criteria for each or not. These have been stable for years for the majority of the schools.

You really need to know and understand this way ahead of applying - as much as anything so you have realistic expectations for what you do put down. It's pointless putting down other options to avoid the local school in the vain hope of getting in, because you just aren't going to get other choices.

Far from being stupid putting down just one choice where I am, it's understanding process and what options are available to you in the first place. DS just wouldnt meet the criteria for most other schools. Except the ones with bad reputations miles away.

Understanding how the system works is the crucial bit. You can put down 4 choices not understanding the criteria and end up with a shit option that you didn't want.

Putting down a second choice 'just in case' isn't really a substitute for doing your homework and understanding the process in the first place.

That said, there are some patronising attitudes on here talking down to people who clearly have a good understanding of the admissions criteria of their local schools

Agreed. There genuinely is very little point in putting more than one school down where I live, because a quirk of the area/catchment means that, bar extremely exceptional circumstances, whatever school you put down you’re going to get that one. I did put 6 choices, but it didn’t make any difference.
As it is, the one school we are basically guaranteed a place at is shit so mine have gone to an independent school.

How many times, I did not misunderstand the criteria.