Secondary school admissions form - consequences of only 3 choices?

[Chewbecca]

Can anyone explain the logic to me of needing to fill all 5 spaces on the form please (as has been suggested ) what are potential consequences of not doing so?

My catchment school will be my 3rd choice and, checking past stats, appears to always take children living where we do, the cut off is much further away than I am (& it is done on 'shortest walking distance').

Filling in your fourth and fifth choices will have no impact if you are right and get your third choice, or first or second. If you are wrong for any reason, for example lots of siblings in this year group, then you may be allocated a distant school not of your choosing. You can't lose anything by putting five and you may gain, which is why it is seen as sensible.

We have the option to list 6 schools. There are only 3 in my area that I would want to let my DD attend. Surely there is no point in filling extra spaces with schools that I have no intention of my DD attending?

Seeline - We have the option to list 6 schools. There are only 3 in my area that I would want to let my DD attend. Surely there is no point in filling extra spaces with schools that I have no intention of my DD attending? Are you confident you will get a place for your DD at one of the 3 you are happy with? If not you have a choice of listing a preference for the schools you don't like or leaving it up to the LA to allocated you one of them or even one that you don't like and is miles away.

It's down to what you will do if your DD doesn't get any of the 3 you prefer - HE or private?

Thanks Mum - we are reasonably confident that we would get into one of the 3, but not certain. We will hopefully have indy options too, but the entrance exams for those are way after the deadline for state applications.
I just felt it was probably better to get something we hadn't asked for at all, and deal with it on that basis if it happens, rather to end up somewhere we really didn't want, but then couldn't do anything about because we had said we did want it on the application form.
God I'm stressed

We can put up to 5 choices. First choice is the catchment school although as there are defined catchment areas the catchment school isn't actually the nearest one. Will also put the nearest school and another fairly near one. I feel I should put other schools down as well but looking at previous years I can't see DS not being allocated one of the 3 choices and very likely to be the catchment school.

What does it hurt to put in extra choices? Which schools would work for you either because of distance or transport links if you didn't get your first 3 choices? Even if it meant your child had a school place that was easy to get to while you appealed or went on the waiting lists for your preferred schools.

If you don't fill in the extra spaces you are essentially saying 'I'm not bothered which school we get so whatever is left is fine'. They're are upsets in admissions every year so I think it would be best to use those extra choices as an insurance policy.

If you feel that you wouldn't send your child to any other school that is fine, but you may have to home educate if you don't get one of your 3 choices and decline the LEAs offer.

Remember your 4th and 5th choices will not affect your first three choices or your likelihood of being successful with them.

Not sure we ever put more than one. Rural area, undersubscribed schools.

Only two secondaries that are vaguely possible and one is out of county, so no bus.

Seeline you can still appeal and apply to other schools and go on their wiaitng lista even if you get your fourth or fifth choice. There isn't a downside to putting least worst options, and every year there are MN threads where people haven't got the school they thought they were a dead cert for. So there is no reason not to fill the spaces - better a school close to home than one impossible to get to, even if you are planning on holding the place only till waiting lists shift elsewhere? It won't affect the chance of getting the schools you do want. Good luck everyone -it is a stressful time!

Seeline rather to end up somewhere we really didn't want, but then couldn't do anything about because we had said we did want it on the application form. Whether you list the school or not, it will make no difference to what you can do about it. Even if you list the school you will still be able to appeal to demonstrate that one of your preferred schools is more suitable for your DC. I don't think you can argue against being allocated a school place at a school you didn't list as a preference (unless you can demonstrate a specific need for one of the schools you do prefer).

If you don't list them you may still be allocated one of them by the LA.

Where not listing them may disadvantage you, assuming one of them is your nearest school, is if you get allocated a school 3 or more miles away, you will not be able to claim for transport costs as this will only be granted if you did not get your nearest school after putting it as one of your preferred options.

If private is an option, you are not obliged to take the state school place offered so again it will do no harm to list the schools. Not listing the schools will not increase your chance of getting one of your preferred schools.

If you don't identify 5 preferred schools it will not give you a stronger argument for the LA to place your child in one of the ones you want. Their only obligation is to allocate a school place. If they do that, whether to your satisfaction or not, they have met their obligation and they are not obliged to find you an alternative.

We only get three choices which comes with its own issues...for example I haven't selected a chool that uses fair banding as I thought it was a waste of a choice as there is no way of measuring your child's chances of getting in.

But I would imagine if you have 6 choices and only use 3 then if you don't get one of your first 3 then you could be allocated a school wherever there is a place. Probably not much of an issue if you're fairly certain you will get one of the 3.

We get three choices but I've only ever put one school down.

We only have 3 choices on our form.

I shall probably only put 1 down as ds has an offer from an independent school.

"but then couldn't do anything about because we had said we did want it on the application form"

If you are not confident that you will get a place at one of your preferred schools, your options if you get a school you don't like are exactly the same whether you had listed it or not. They don't turn round and say 'but you listed that school, you said you wanted it, so that's it, that's your lot!". You have exactly the same options to go in the waiting lists of all your higher choices, to appeal all your higher choices etc. and none of those will be affected by the fact that you listed - and then accepted - a place at a school you don't like.

If you are confident that you will go private or home ed if you don't get a preferred school, then it's fine not to use your choices. What you could do is list more 'long shots' at the top of your list and put your most failsafe option lower down, with some nearby dead certs at the very end. As long as you list the schools in the exact order that you really would prefer them.

We only used 3 of our 6 choices, but we knew we were in catchment for our top 2 preferences, and the third allocates on a lottery.

"...for example I haven't selected a chool that uses fair banding as I thought it was a waste of a choice as there is no way of measuring your child's chances of getting in."

But within each band they usually allocate on distance, and they usually give the last distance for each band in previous years. In our area the top band has the widest catchment and the lowest band the tightest because that is the band that allocates most places to priorities higher than distance. Apart from that the 'bands' seem to be fairly evenly spaced amongst the population so distance remains fairly stable and not much different overall from a non-banded intake.

CadmiumRed ah so it might work better in some areas then. This particular school doesn't seem very transparent at all - no data regarding the bands sizes, just that there are 5. You're not told what band your child is in either if I remember correctly although I do remember them saying that once the bands are determined they allocate places randomly within those bands. It just all seemed very vague!

Just checked, the bands are equal sizes, but places are via random allocation within those bands.

I'd have put it down if we had four choices but seemed to much of a gamble.

Clayhead - are you 100% certain that your DC will get in?

Some people only put one down thinking that it will mean that they will get a space when what actually happens is you get any old school which has place if you are unsuccessful with first choice.
As others have said best to put maximum numbers of choices

Assuming clayhead lives near to me there are only a couple of schools in the area (one is a catholic grammar one is in a neighbouring authirity) that are over subscribed

I'm only putting one choice down! DS is ( disregarding a virtually impossible series of events) guaranteed a place at my catchment school. He also won't get place at any other local school (barring an even more impossible series of events).

I choose not to waste my time on the deeply unlikely.

It'd probably take less time to fill in the name of a few more schools than write an MN post.

If you're absolutely certain of a place at one of the schools you've listed, fine - otherwise there is no downside to filling in all the options in order of least worst.

I have put down one choice too. It is our catchment school, we are in catchment. We are in a rural area so the boundaries will not change. Sending him to any other school would be a complete nightmare for us (and for the council, as they would have to arrange transport).

There's no downside to filling in extra options - but also no point if you can work out from the admissions criteria that your child has a statistical probability only of actually getting into the school.

I put only 1 down. We are in catchment, they have taken all catchment kids every year for last three years, if we don't get it (and prob even if we do) we will go private. Seemed silly to write down other schools we simply have no intention of sending DS to.