March 3 Sceondary results/Waiting

[AdventureTime]

This is my first post and I'd like to kick start he waiting thread.
DD hoping to get 1st choice grammar but has completely forgot about it all.
How's the anxiety/nervousness/ overall wait?

Oh no, Zebra.

Wow!! What a stressful eve! Congrats to everyone that got what they wanted- we did!

Great news goldie81

And you shred!! We'll both be at parmiters then :)

Congratulations Shred & goldie! Would you mind posting the scores that got your Parmiters places so we can see how close/far off we were?

Want my dd got 262 & think shred said earlier 260.
What school did you get?

St Clement Danes which we're happy with. It'll be interesting to see the cutoff scores for all the schools as they're published.

Oh cool! Well done. Yes I'd be very interested but will be a while I think

SCD is a great school WantToKnowNow. From what I can see, 254 didn't get in and 259 did, so the current cut off is somewhere between those marks.

Wow!! That's a huge increase from last yr then!

It is, and also scarily close to ds's mark.......we thought we had a good buffer zone, but just goes to show you never can tell.

Exactly! It's scary how much pressure these kids are under. Have you accepted place shred? I have!! Wow that's it! All sorted. Now seems a part of my life worrying is missing

Can I ask a waiting list question?

We got our second choice (which is great, first was a long shot and dd really likes #2), and I have to tick a box to say whether we want to stay on the waiting list for #1 or not.

I'd kind of assumed that if you then got to the top, you would be offered a place, and could decide then whether to swap or not - because getting the offer in April would obviously be a lot different to getting it in September. But the wording on the form: "If it is possible to offer a place at your preferred school then the place at the school named in this letter will be withdrawn" must mean that if you get a place from the waiting list, then that's it, that's your place, and your other place will be offered to someone else.

Is it always that absolute? I mean, if someone hates the school and leaves at October half term and you're top of the waiting list, they can't MAKE you change school then, surely!

(This is all hypothetical as it's vanishingly unlikely to happen -although she's higher up the waiting list than I expected and it has thrown me! - and dh says just leave her on it, don't worry it will never happen, but I'd like to be sure of the process.)

Tiggytape, that's such a lovely and helpful message - thank you.

In Kent and other areas lots of people haven't got any of the schools they asked for this year but they have still been found an alternative and it is very annoying that some London boroughs don't feel the need to do the same.

I think I am sort of glad not to be offered a school I didn't apply for, as anything near enough with a place still open is not going to be a great option at this stage.

In the meantime:
Did you use all 6 options on your form?
Did you list a local school that you felt certain of getting into based on last year's distances?
Do you have any sibling or faith links that you think they might have overlooked?
Get in touch with the council and make sure you are on the waiting list for all 6 schools. You can also ask to be added to lists of schools you did not originally apply for.

Used 5 of the 6 options. Was assured by school this would be absolutely fine.
We definitely live close enough to the first choice school based on last year's distance. From everyone at school, we were assumed to be the most likely to get a place at this secondary..... People who live further away have got in, so I don't understand.
I listed a school we live right next door to as my backup!
No sibling or faith links but should have got in on an open place to first choice.

Luckily our (primary) school is being helpful and are going to find out about waiting lists for me directly with the first choice secondary, with whom they have excellent links.

The borough must find you a place and they will but I appreciate the stress this must be causing.
It's awful, and poor dd is so upset. Hateful system.

Thanks again Tiggy. Yes, distance is a factor for the open places at this school. The distance is measured as the crow flies this year, and we are much closer than anyone else from the primary who applied for opens.

I just phoned the council and they were supremely unhelpful and wholly unsympathetic. Wouldn't release waiting list info as it changes too much so is unrealistic for next few weeks. Wouldn't tell me why we didn't get accepted - I have to wait until this evening to see letter apparently. When I flagged the distance thing, the woman said "Well all the others must have done better than her in the banding tests then" UNBELIEVABLE

I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with the council today. Hopefully the letter will give me a little more info, and school might be able to uncover a little more... I really hope you're right and that there is a mistake. How are they able to accommodate extra pupils though, through the appeals process, do you have any idea?

Well, just discovered a few things which are a bit shocking.
ds got his first choice grammar place. Pass mark is 216. Ds got 222 and school told us he should be fine as they usually manage to take everyone who passes.
Found out last night that the cut off was 221! He scraped in and loads of kids who passed, and would have normally got a place, haven't got in.

Then we found out that his back up second choice was too far away for other kids who live close to us and so we wouldn't have got that either.

zebra, how does the banding work? Are you sure the further away kids aren't siblings? It sounds odd, especially as you didn't get your back up either. Do you think they have your address wrong?

Wow, that's nerve-racking stuff steppemum. But he's in and that's all that matters.

How do you know the pass mark is 216? Doesn't it vary from year to year?

It looks like all the cut-offs are higher this year.

So sorry hear that zebra Your poor dd

Apologies if I've missed this, but can you phone the schools direct to find out about waiting lists if your council aren't helping?

zebra I wish you all the best with the waiting list and/or appeal. I think that if your chosen school has previously accommodated extra pupils then you can use that as a factor in the appeal, so definitely try and find out what has happened in previous years.

steppemum it seems to have happened everywhere I know of. In Herts the cut off seems to have jumped massively, and there will be some very disappointed children this morning who got scores that would have easily got in any other year.

I wonder if it's just a particularly high scoring year or a general trend that scores are going up year by year...?

Oh and our back up plan of a Bucks grammar, ds having passed the 11+ there? No. Just checked the allocation distances and for the first time ever, our "safe" choice, which has always had spare places (even allocating places as far afield as Manchester!) didn't have enough places for everyone, so we would have missed out on distance. Like you steppemum we are feeling immensely relieved this morning but also very puzzled by the outcomes.

Zebra - how very upsetting.

It does sound as if something technical has gone wrong - or at the very least if you are so close you should do very well out of the waiting lists.

If the school uses fair banding, it is possible that the people who live closer were competing for places in a different band. I am sure it varies, but in DS's school the top band has the bigest 'catchment' and Band 3 has the smallest because apparantly a higher proportion of the priority criteria applicants (statemented, SEN. looked after) tend to be in Band 3. The Band 3 catchment is about half that of Band 1. So you need to ask what band your dd was put in and the respective distances for bands.

Fingers crossed that you get something sorted out very soon.