Cardiff High admissions area

[BananaFrenchToast]

Does anyone have any insight into how the Cardiff High admissions round went in 2017? I see news reports from 2016 regarding families in Penylan (for example) in catchment but "missing out" on CH places. There are no similar stories from 2017. Is the issue resolved (maybe 2016 was a bumper year) or are people resigned to the situation? I am moving to Cardiff and have seen some lovely houses in catchment. I'm not dead set on CH but if it's not a realistic expectation I'd rather know so that I can review the likely alternatives before committing. Is there any facility to see how the admissions criteria were applied to a particular intake year? (Where I live now I can see the furthest admission by distance if the distance criteria applied). I'm wary of relying on the Rightmove schoolchecker.

Hi, I live in this area and unfortunately I don't think it has been resolved. It was a problem last year and this year simply because there are so many people applying for places there. My DS is a few years from secondary school but I am keeping a close eye on the situation. I emailed the council and they told me the cut off on distance alone was 1.69 miles last year and 1.61 miles on distance this year. This of course can change, there does seem to be a lot of people currently in catchment moving to be closer. Also this disregards those who have siblings who would get priority or those with special circumstances. By the way the school checker on right move is not accurate, it puts houses closer than us as not inside the admission area, when in fact they would have been. Alternative schools in the area are not great from what I've heard, (Cathays High, Willows and some were offered Eastern High places last year) I am going to research other options more closely as we get to that point though! I hope this helps

I only just noticed that you are moving to Cardiff- I should add it's a great place to live and Penylan/ Roath Park/ Cyncoed are lovely- fantastic parks, great community feel. It's just the schools are very over subscribed (primary and secondary) which is a headache. Other areas with good schools I would suggest are potentially: Radyr, Whitchurch or Penarth. I hope your move goes well

Hi - thanks for the reply, and yes we are looking forward to the move. Since I wrote this post I've had several conversations with the council schools admissions office. They have told me that at the current time (ie with people taking up other options - eg church school, private etc) admissions for 2017 are now up to about 1.75 miles based on walking distance. However, they couldn't tell me anything about expected trends (which I didn't really expect anyway). Except to say that the first round allocations may be more accurate since some of the church schools are joining the main admissions process for 2018 (whereas previously they ran parallel).

Hi, that's interesting to know thank you. I heard that many people in catchment appealed and eventually got a place but that's not really a process I would want to put myself or DS through (we went through this with primary admission and it was pretty stressful!) I guess some would have got in from the waiting list though. Good luck with the move again, Cardiff is a really great place to live

There is a website where you can check the catchment area vs admission area. It gives an idea, but possibly only indicative. It shows that, apart from siblings no one from pen y lan got a place. Nightmare for families there. We decided to send ours to welsh medium and it's a lovely school

Hi Cotton, could you possibly link to the website you mentioned? Sounds useful - we live in catchment but I think we're a bit marginal. A few years off DS going but would like to use the website you mentioned to keep an eye on the situation. Thanks

I'm guessing the website is findaschool on 192.com. It is useful, especially to check trends over time but it doesn't show the whole picture in the following ways:
(1) It gives a maximum distance admitted by walking distance - which is correct - but only reflects the first round of offers. The admissions area grows as people accept church or private places elsewhere.
(2) it draws an admissions map based on this distance. I don't know how they draw the map but it definitely shows a smaller area than the area implied by the admissions distance, even for the first round. I checked some addresses with the admissions office and they confirmed that.

So use the website but accept it has limitations. The council admissions office were super helpful, I'd recommend speaking to them. And there definitely are some admissions from Penylan this year (though admittedly parts of this area are less likely than others to fall within the admissions area).

Thanks Banana, it sounds like you're well on top of this. I'll stick with speaking to the council then, they have been pretty helpful with my enquiries so far. Thanks again and best of luck.

Yes that was it. I'm glad it's not a true picture as it was quite depressing.
Any idea if Cardiff switching to an integrated application with state schools?
I responded to a consultation on it a while back

Sorry, see you said it is in 2018

Is Cardiff High seen as one of the better schools in the area?

Have a DS but out of school age, but drive past CH every morning and wondered if it was contributing to the house prices in the area

Cardiff High is regarded very well and has some of the best results in Cardiff, I just googled the GCSE results for 2017 and got this:

100% pass rate at five GCSEs at A* to G.
98% of pupils achieved five A to C grades with 46% of pupils receiving five A to A Grades

So I can see why people move into the area to get into the school.

To be fair though even without the school it's a pretty nice area to live in, close to Roath and the city centre, the lake and park are lovely too....I miss living in Cardiff.

It's always massively oversubscribed so assume it will be again. Other good ones are Whitchurch High and Corpus Christi and Glantaf if they speak Welsh.
It's a lovely part of town with the park so even tho the school pushes prices up a bit, they would still be v v high comparatively.

CottonSock I think they are switching. Sure I read that somewhere!