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?

That's what happens every year tiggytape - we have a village near here that is (effectively) between three major towns. The village used to have a secondary school but it was shut down and the site sold for housing.

The net effect is that if you are a child living in that village, it is essential that you put down all six choices that you would find acceptable, in descending order. If you waste your choices the chances are you will end up with the unpopular school ten miles away, so better to list a school as choice 6 rather than get landed with the school that nobody wants. The village used to be in what was called the outer catchment for the faith school, meaning that IF you followed all the rules you had a slim chance (but as good as anyone in the outer catchment) of getting a place. The catchment has now been re-drawn so the village no longer qualifies.

It's sad, but every single year the local paper features children who have been allocated the unpopular school ten miles away and whose parents are desperately unhappy. In some of those cases they didn't list six schools or only listed the faith school "because X really really wanted to go to a Christian school."

Can I ask a quick question? Choice no 4 is a banker a s 2 mins walk away and the school my dd wants to attend. I ppreferred 3 other schools so listed them 1-3. I am now regretting choice 3.
If we get choice 3 can we go on waiting list for choice 4?
My mistake so I obviously wouldn't appeal etc. I would still prefer options 1 & 2 so hope we get one of those.

Yes I think so molly, I think you accept 3 then go on the waiting list for 4.

Molly, you can go on the waiting list for lower preference schools, but you have to request it.

You automatically go on the waiting lists for higher preference schools.

Does anyone with experience of waiting lists know......do you get told where you are on the waiting list for a particular school?

Thank you both. That makes me feel better as we'd be high up on the waiting list due to distance. I was worried I had let my dd down with putting choice 3 school before the one she actually wants to go to!

One question, when we do find out offers, will we just know if you got into the school you placed highest or will you find out about schools you put lower down although you already got a place at say your first choice?

I assume you only find out about your first choice, as your subsequent choices will have been allocated to others? I kind of imagine it works like a cascade system, where you only proceed to the next level if you don't get your higher ranked school (so the lower ranked school isn't considered). But er that could be totally wrong....

Waiting nervously here. After a disastrous experience with a boys grammar school for ds1, dd has put the girls grammar as first choice, but I'm just not sure about it. Roll on March 3rd, so that at least we know what we are dealing with!

Exactly Animals at least once you know you can start dealing with it all.

Why can't we just find out tomorrow??? Going to be a wk of stress!

Journey: You only get one offer, there are no other offers. They allocate you the place in the school highest up your list that was able to offer you a place. If a school lower down your list would also have been able to offer, that place 'falls in' as soon as a higher preference offers you a place and goes to the next person on that schools list - and so on.

At least now for the Herts Consortium tests we get the marks our children achieved before we make the application. This is very recent, and avoids a lot of unnecessary heartache (IMO). At least now you have an idea whether your child stands a chance rather than blindly applying for places.

Yes I can imagine it's a mammoth exercise, especially when your application is going to more than one county.

But actually I'm also heartened to hear that checks are made. One of my friends received a letter to a person she had never heard of but at her address, which was stamped with the name of her DD' s school. She took it into the school, and to cut a long story short, somebody else had deliberately used her address to apply for a place. Can't believe somebody would be so cheeky!

I guess the person who applied didn't know my friend had a DD already at the school and maybe thought it would all be done by email? I was surprised the school hadn't noticed the applicant had the same address as an existing pupil, but then why would they unless they were specifically alert to it? This was about three years ago.

I feel for you all, it seems a long wait. I was waiting two years ago, our first choice was a very good comp less than a mile from our house that most of the primary school go to. The second was a failing academy four miles away.

Opened that email and discovered my DDs had been given the failing academy, didn't help that it was their birthday too . They were very upset. I had to accept the places at the academy and went on the waiting list for the comp. If I remember rightly I was told their place on the list at end of March/beginning of April. It did move though, we went down the list for a while. I was on the verge of appealing when I had a phone call to say they were both in, i think this was early May.

However, don't be too disheartened if you don't get your first choice as this 'amazing' comp is struggling a bit at the moment, not such a good Ofsted this year, lots of teachers leaving and the 'failing' academy has turned itself around with a new head and is doing extremely well.

tiggytape - I'm glad to hear it! It's horrible that the checks have to be made, but absolutely the right thing to do.

sandyballs thanks for sharing your experience especially with regard to the waiting list.

I thought it was a national day - 1st is the Saturday which sounds unlikely. Ah, was it Monday 1st last year? Maybe an error.