Anyone nervous for primary school admission results?

[ThisIsTheEndgame]

State primary admission results are.out this week. We have to wait for a letter, how retro, as we did a paper application for a deferred Reception start (DD is 5 in July, some minor additional needs). Really really hope we get a place at the friendly local school a 5 minute walk away! Anyone else waiting and want to chew their nails with me?

Oh drat. Just seen above to call the LA to find out!

Re- BikeRunSki

Thank's for your reply, in Scotland our children go to the nearest school we don't need to apply,
Your system sound's very stressful,
Good Luck everyone.

Does that apply to catholic/Muslim parents who would prefer a religious education? How does that work?

Catholic children need to provide evidence (i.e. baptism certificate which will be checked). The admissions criteria is usually that Catholics from within the Parish will get a place over Catholics who live outside of the parish (irrespective of whether or not it is their nearest school). Children who are not Catholics can generally get a place if there are spaces left over. Sometimes a non-Catholic child with a sibling in the school already might get a place...or a Catholic child who doesn't live in the parish might not get a place. It all depends on supply and demand.

@AppleKatie - non-baptised children can apply to faith schools, but are generally lower priority than those who are part of the faith. My DC’s CoE school has priority categories for Parishioners of the church the school is tied to, then other baptised CoE children.

So exactly the same as England then.

Oh sorry, that is in England! I thought you were a Scottish person asking about his faith schools work in England.

😂 is!

Bloody autocorrect ‘Ha!’ Obv.

@AsianTiger

"I wish to appeal"

On what grounds do you want to appeal ? You can't appeal solely because you don't like what you've been allocated. (Well, you can, but you will just be ignored and the appeal will automatically fail). You need a reason to appeal.

You can only appeal on 3 grounds

• giving your child a place will not increase the class size above the limit
• the admission arrangements have not been properly followed
• the admission criteria do not comply with the school admissions code

For the first, the school will have offered you a place if their number is less than the admissions limit

For the second, you will need some sort of proof

For the third, you will in all probability need someone who has read the admissions code, the schools admissions criteria and can point out where one varies from the other.

You CANNOT appeal if you simply don't like what you have been allocated. Sadly, this is 80% of appeals, and a complete waste of everyone's time (well, not mine, as I get paid to present the Council's case to the panel but certainly yours.)

@Eastie17

I've been engaged in a bit of a debate with another local mum as she is convinced that the oversubscribed school DD got into a couple of years ago has been able to circumvent the system and select pupils even though admission is controlled by our borough's learning trust

Is this school an academy ? Because the schools trust or LA may co-ordinate admissions, but if it is the latter, it will still be responsible for it's own admissions. The LA will send a list of applicants, the academy will rank them up to the end of the number of applicants, and will return these to the LA, and we will admit those on the list in order (who haven't been offered a place they have placed higher on the list elsewhere). The ranking will include social/medical, siblings, children of teachers etc ranked in order of the admissions criteria.

Some academies don't want children who won't benefit their KS4 results and will think of ingenious ways of admitting "clever" children and excluding "stupid" ones. But this is comparatively rare, and usually the subject of scurrilous gossip rather than reality.

@BikeRunSki

Some C of E schools actually reserve 50% of their places for children who are NOT admitted on faith grounds. I do know some C of E schools where not a single child was admitted on faith grounds, because there were no C of E applicants. It's more common that Catholic schools will offer 100% of places on religious grounds, and will strenuously resist admitting non-Catholics, even when there are spaces. But I also know a couple of Catholic schools who will take all comers.

Does anyone know if putting extra words on your application about why you want to go to a school makes any difference for an average applicant not someone with social / medical needs etc? I didn't think they looked at anything except siblings / in catchment / distance but one of my normally very with-it friends was convinced she needed to write something and they'd use it to help assess whether or not to admit you?

I don’t think it makes any difference, no.

Teddy- I don’t know, but I did write a few sentences about why we wanted dd to go to our first choice school, and we got it. If I’m honest I think we would have got that school regardless, because of our location, but who knows.

You will find lots of ‘theories’ are spoken about. A mom at the park yesterday was convinced the school places are allocated on a first come first serve basis so she sent her application of last October, she didn’t wait until the cut off date in January. I didn’t know her so didn’t want to be rude but I think that’s a load of rubbish.

Thing is, if schools were allowed to have a subjective input to admissions in that way they wouldn’t be looking a couple of paragraphs on the application. They’d do it properly with interviews and things.

Teddyreddy - I've always wondered if the additional information written in an application is actually taken into consideration.

When I submitted my dd's preferences, I had stated the fact that we would be reliant on public transport if allocated a school that wasn't in walking distance (we don't have a car). Our first preference school required an additional supplementary form to be completed, in which I stated that my place of work was a 5 minutes walk from the school and I emphasised that the family had a strong interest in music (the school has a big music ethos and the feeder secondary school offers music scholarships).

I don't know if adding any of this information made a difference but fortunately my dd was offered her first preference.

All this talk of "choice" on this thread is doing my nut. Your local authority has to place your child in a school. You get to say what is your preference between these but all they have to do is to place your child in a school and allocate by preference if that is possible. Nothing is your 'first choice school'. If you want to choose a school that is applying to a private school. This misuse of language is leading to people being pissed off about not getting their 'choice' when all the authority is doing is following a designated flowchart of allocations according to the application criteria. Please please don't just appeal because you just don't like the outcome. It's a waste of precious public resources.

Forgot to mention that the first preference school doesn't have a catchment area and has random allocation within it's criteria. Supposedly the school use a calculation or algorithm to determine who meets the initial allocation pool and then they randomly allocate the places.

"Teddyreddy - I've always wondered if the additional information written in an application is actually taken into consideration"

In most cases it isn't.

It is occasionally of use to highlight relevant information such as:

"When we moved, DC1 was placed in school XYZ by you under the Fair Access Protcol, as there were no vacancies in the area. You agreed that younger siblings would be considered as catchment siblings despite address, so we are correct to apply in category B. Your email of XDate confirms this

"Applicant has mobility issues and all our listed preferences are fully accessible. itnwoyid be unreasonable to offer her a school which was not accessible'

On my form I had to put additional information along the lines of if we weren't to be allocated any of the three preferences then there were two schools that DD couldn't be allocated to because of a significant issue with their father and his older child and step child attend those two schools. When they rang me about it they did say that of it came down to us being allocated by them that they wouldnt allocate either of those two.

I was crying because i did not get any of my 5 preferences instead i got a school i did not choose can anyone help?

Nat George, can you give a bit more information?

Thanks for the clarification. I have to admit I struggled to picture how it would work if the additional information was considered other than where it added important extra facts - it would end up being someone in the council reading and effectively ranking hundreds of short statements in an almost entirely subjective process....

I was crying because i did not get any of my 5 preferences instead i got a school i did not choose can anyone help?

Were the 5 choices realistic choices where you satisfied the admissions criteria ? Did you put down a religious school when you are not of the religion concerned ? Did you put any schools nearby to where you live ? The council has given you the nearest school that has places. I would suggest you accept the place offered firstly, and then let us know more about your circumstances, so we can ascertain whether an appeal is possible, and on what grounds. I'd also ask to go - if you are not automatically there - on the waiting list of the school(s) you wanted. There will be a fair bit of movement between now and Sept 1st, but, to give you an idea, if you are below, say 50th on the waiting list, it's probably not going to happen. It depends where you live.