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').

I put down first choice only. I was so adamant that I would never send my child to my closest school that I didn't put it down as my 2nd choice. I then had a big panic close to the closing date, that she would get an even worse school the other side of our town, that I had to go in and add it on (it was in the days before internet applications). She got her first choice though.

Can I just ask how you find out things like what the furthest away successful application was, and whether the school is oversubscribed etc?

Not relevant to me yet, but useful for planning for the future.

Thanks Tiggy. I can't find it on the website (though there are lots of other stats there), so guess the council doesn't publish it.

Is that true about every year group being bigger ? I know DD's year is big anyway because they have a bulge class.

Thanks all, useful thoughts here & glad to see it has been helpful to others too.

I submitted today with 3 choices only, knowing it is probably 99% certain he will go to #1 so the others are probably superfluous.

cactus my council website has this info too, but as tiggy says, it is very deeply buried. If you want, tell us your council name and I'll take the challenge of attempting to find it!

Can anyone see Lambeth's?

Their website is really hard to find anything within!

No, I can find the equivalent section on Lambeth's website to where I find it he info on my local council website but the info is not there.

I would request it from the council.