What truths in these unnerving application-related comments?

[EugenesAxe]

"There is no point putting it down as a second choice" (about a very oversubscribed school)

"I only put down one school as I was told if you gave other choices then they wouldn't worry so much about not allocating you your first choice if the school was oversubscribed."

The first one I was dubious about as essentially that would make a person's preference part of the selection criteria. The person implied they would rank all people that had listed this school as first preference and allocate places amongst them; as there were always loads people putting it second wouldn't get a look in. My understanding was that the council gave the school names/addresses of anyone that had put it on their form in whichever rank, then these were ranked according to the selection criteria. The council would go down the list allocating places to anyone that had listed it first preference, or who had put it lower but failed to get a place at the preferred school. A waiting list would build up for any people listing as first priority but not getting a place.

The second I just find hard to believe. The ranking isn't provided so the council has breathing space is it? I thought if you only put one down choice there's a risk of you not getting it, and being allocated a place in whichever school still has places after everything's been sorted.

I would be grateful to hear opinions!

Hhhm, depends how it was meant, I sort of see how the first one could be right.

It could mean, as people have said, that they misunderstand that preference has some relevance.

It could mean "we only get three choices, there is no point putting down a heavily oversubscribed school as our second choice as we're unlikely to get in on the admissions criteria. We should put down some 'bankers'".

I think it probably meant the daft first version though.

Hmm I was thinking about this the other day

School no 1 (our local comp) is under subscribed so I know DS will get in if I put his name down.

So do I only put this down or also put choice 2 (0ver subscribed) and choice 3 (very over subscribed)

My friend said "im not putting down the others as they can then put it down as a rejected request for a place, is that true or is the "rejection" only if they are choice 1?

I do know that No 2 put DS1 down as a "rejection" even though it was only his second choice school

What good does your friend thinks it does to have 'rejected' a place?

The council doesn't really need to play hard ball with the appeal. The parents are very unlikely to win. They got their first choice. The selective school is now full. The panel can't award a place and force the selective school to take additional pupils on the basis that the parents didn't understand the system, especially since it will have been explained in the LA's literature. If a parent asked me for advice with such an appeal I would tell them that they could give it a try but should expect to lose.

When schools were allowed to use "first preference first" as a system it was a nightmare for parents. Now it is very straightforward. No gaming the system required. Simply put your preferences in your actual order of preference (but make sure at least one of them is a school you where you have a realistic chance of getting a place).

Unfortunately this myth seems to be very persistent. It doesn't help that some schools perpetuate this myth when talking to prospective parents. They should know better.

Yup -we had a school (church one 'so we do our own admissions') hint that they had to be first. Load of bollocks all round, thankfully we knew that.

The myth I found very worrying around here is that the LA 'has' to give you one of your four choices. So people were listing the school they wanted, plus three that they didn't stand a hope in hell of getting into (effective catchments of 0.4 of a mile, living 1.5 miles away) because 'then they have to give me my first choice really'. Most got away with it, but some got burned by being allocated totally different schools when there were others for which they would have met the admissions criteria and would have been happy with.

Also the myth that, if you don't get into any of your preferences, you will automatically be given your closest school instead.

Contrast - was that to me? She didn't reject a place our children wanted our local under subscribed school, another school slightly further away was a better school but is now pretty much neck and neck but is in a more prestigious town so you have the snob factor

We have both distance and siblings on our side with under subscribed school 1, neither with over subscribed 2 - so is there any point in putting down choice 2 & 3 just so they can put on next years prospectus "we rejected X amount of applications" when they weren't first choice anyway?

Sorry BlueSky - Yes, I was asking you. I didn't understand what your friend meant by "im not putting down the others as they can then put it down as a rejected request for a place" I thought the 'they' you meant was the LA and she thought that there was some benefit or detriment from that. I get now that you mean the oversubscribed school boasting! I suspect that the school talks about everyone who put them anywhere on the form - that's how universities, etc would talk even though everyone puts down 5 (or is it 6? Rather a lot of years ago now) and only takes up one

The other myth I have heard is that if you put the same school down lots of times it increases your chance of getting in..l.

Tiggy - From the reference to comp I think BlueSky is talking about a secondary school. Obviously where a school takes maybe 200 children each year, those sort of statistical blips are unlikely, though I take your point totally overall. I know a parent who only put down one school for primary as she was a sibling. I thought it was nuts. If for any reason she hadn't got in, she would have been allocated a school on the other side of town, instead of one of the three close ones where combining a school run might have been possible whilst she waited on the waiting list!

One problem is that some parents don't read through the information booklet and rely on what other parents and [some] schools tell them. Another difficulty is that the readability level of the booklets is higher than than that of the general population, and so is almost incomprehensible to some parents; not just recent arrivals but also people whose first language is English. Ideally each primary school would have a member of staff who could go through the CAF forms with parents to ensure they were filled in correctly.

Yeah it is secondary - I cant even begin to imagine how stressful it must be to struggle to get the primary you want, at least by the time they get to secondary they are better equipped to deal with being thrown a curve ball.

This is a rural school where children are bussed in from some distance because the town schools are over subscribed.

OK maybe put down 2 & 3 but it seems a bit misleading to allow choice 2 & 3 to brag about rejection when they weren't first choice anyway - this helps them perpetuate the myth they are somehow better and means next year the scrabble for places there over an equally good/if not better under subscribed school will continue.

tiggy, thank you for your explanations here. I'm beginning to think about schools for DS1 so this has been really useful.

Is there any way to remedy DeWe's situation?
It seems daft!

"Is there any way to remedy DeWe's situation?
It seems daft!"

Why? The main criteria, once you get past siblings and faith criteria, is distance from home to school. All DeWe is seeing is the effect of different people in the class living in different places.

DeWe - I posted a follow up 'thought' but lack of phone signal has fucked it up and now I've not posted, but I think it could be linked to your comment. Thinking about it has given me a headfuck.

Anyway, it was to tiggy in relation to her comment on offers. Presumably, a school will make an offer to the first 30 or 60 children meeting the criteria. Not all of those places will be taken, releasing places to people that did not initially receive an offer. Are there subsequent allocation runs for all children not getting their first choice, to see if they do now qualify, until all places have been taken - or is this just too much admin?!

I realise now we must have been under the tyranny of first preference because you were always advised to go for a place at one of the better church comps if there was any doubt of getting the 11+, because if you failed you went to the local really shitty comp. It's the only thing I remember having a fear of at the time! Not the actual exam.

"Presumably, a school will make an offer to the first 30 or 60 children meeting the criteria. Not all of those places will be taken, releasing places to people that did not initially receive an offer. Are there subsequent allocation runs for all children not getting their first choice, to see if they do now qualify, "

Yes.

Here's the basic algorithm.

Each school is given a list of all the children that applied, irrespective of the preference. They put that list into order, using their criteria (looked after, faith, distance). They give that list back to the authority.

For each school, the authority then looks at the top n people in the list the school has returned, where n is the number of places. Some of them will be first preference applications. They get their places, and are removed from the system. Some will have been in the first n at other schools, and therefore giving them their first preference frees up a place at a another. The other applicants are shuffled up, and some of them will be first preferences and will therefore be given a place and removed from the system.

This process continues until repeating it doesn't alter any allocations. Everyone that can be given a first preference now has it.

The process is then repeated for the second preferences: everyone holding a place at their second preference school is allocated to that school and taken out of the system, there's a shuffling up, repeat until nothing changes. Then third, and so on.

This is why "catchment areas" don't for practical purposes exist as anything other than an artefact. Once the process has completed, you can locate the child who is furthest from the school and draw a circle. But it's not possible to identify that distance until the process has completed.

There is a whole load of movement at most schools after the offers come out, as parents accept and reject places. My DS was accepted at Secondary from place 25 on the waiting list.

Cheers friday16!

slightly different in some areas - catchment does have some meaning. Here, you are in a catchment for a school. you still might not get it, but you have priority over people not in catchment. However, if you don't get your catchment school, you are then in a higher priority group for other schools in the city, ahead of people on distance grounds. (in all case, LAC, siblings, etc are above them; this is just for the cases where none of that applies and it's purely based on catchment/distance).

however in a previous discussion, phr47 suggested that these rules might actually be breaking the admissions code, and would be open to testing if someone wanted.

"Here, you are in a catchment for a school. you still might not get it, but you have priority over people not in catchment."

Yeah, sorry, my mistake. Catchments are still legal (2012 Schools Admission Code, section 1.14) but in my city they're extremely rare. Here, when people talk of "catchment areas" they are usually living in their own childhoods, when catchment and feeders were the main criteria. The few schools that still have a defined catchment have a last child admitted substantially further out, and therefore the effect is almost non-existent: anyone who gets an offer on catchment would have had an offer on distance anyway. There's one school which has a "siblings in catchment" category but not "siblings out of catchment", which can make for some issues. Out of interest, where are catchments a significant part of the process?