LA offered seat in Greig City Academy(year 7, in-year application), Kindly share inputs

[mecounscious]

Hi everyone,
We are new to country and planned to find house near Alexandra Park School in Haringey. As per our research, this school and area quite good and area is also nice.There are other good schools nearby, so we rented a house within catchement of APS. We are on waiting list #1. Since there is no seat available in APS, so council is offering Greig City Academy(that was not in our preffered list). We need more inputs for Greig and what if we don't accept place in Greig and wait for APS?

Thank you in advance!

You are never no. 1 on the waiting list. It's not about how long you are on the list but about how closely you meet the admissions criteria. So, for example, someone moved into the area after you and were closer to the school, they would take the next available place. Your dc could wait a long time for a place so it's probably best to accept the offer and keep on the waiting list.

I mean the OP could be number 1 on the list - but yes, someone moving nearer would leapfrog; and ofc there may never be a vacancy in the year.

I don't know the schools, so no idea how mobile the population is - some schools have a lot of in-year movement, others less.

If you don't accept the offered place @mecounscious, your child will have no school place. The LA have done what they need to do by offering a place. If you reject it, you either have to send them private or home educate. So I would certainly accept the place while staying on the WL. Are there any other schools you like - you can be on multiple WLs.

My DC has been at Greig City for several years and has had a very positive experience. It is a big mixed comprehensive and suffers from a historic reputation for being rough which is partly to do with the school’s very broad intake. Students travel from all over north London. It has really high aspirations for all its pupils, regardless of academic ability, an amazing extracurricular offer and very good improvers scores. My DC had plenty of other options and chose Greig, and so far this is looking like the right decision. DM me if I can help further.

I looked at Greig at their open day in October, and really liked the school. The Head is very well experienced and has a good firm but fair approach - teachers seem happy and respect him. The pupils showing us around were lovely normal teens, I didn’t feel they had been forced to say anything they didn’t feel. The school has amazing extracurricular activities - sailing, robotics, beekeeping and more. They offer Mandarin as a foreign language. All very positive, and while it is a faith school (Church of England) they welcome all faiths and none, and have a much wider social demographic than APS because of the wider catchment area.