London Admissions - Do you think schools know what position you put them on your list ?

[drosophila]

I suspect they do. I know they are not meant to but I really really think they know whether you have put them no1 or not.

"The popular school in our city (the only 1 of 9 that got grade 1) told me we would only have a chance of getting in if we put them as no 1 prefereence"

That's right, but not for the reason you imply.

You will be allocated to the first school in your list for which you meet the criteria. So if you put down a very popular school as anything other than first, with less in demand schools higher up, the chance are you will meet the entry requirement for the school you did put first, so that's where you're going.

Failure to understand the admission system is getting more and more depressing, because people seem to want to believe what they're told at the school gate, with an added helping of "the LEA are lying", rather than the facts. You should put the schools down in order of preference. End of. You will be allocated to the first school whose criteria you meet.

So, for example, in an area with an 11+ like Birmingham, if you put down a good local comp first and a grammar school second, then you're going to the comp irrespective of whether you pass the exam. That's not because the grammar are discarding applications which don't put them first, it's because you go to the first school whose admission criteria you meet.

Exactly, tokyonambu.

that's wot I said innit

I think the difficulty with admissions is not necessarily not understanding the criteria but just not knowing, for sure, whether you will be successful or not

so I have sent in mine - admissions lady spoke to me and said based on last year's admissions, we would get a place at our first preference school but obviously they can't guarantee it as it could be a lot more popular than last year and then you might not get in....it's that uncertainty before you apply and then having to wait 5 months to find out!

"I think the difficulty with admissions is not necessarily not understanding the criteria but just not knowing, for sure, whether you will be successful or not"

But that doesn't really matter, provided you believe the system works as advertised.

I've recounted this before, but it stands repetition.

I live on the fringes of the catchment for a popular comp (comp A): we're usually the last road, or sometimes one beyond, depending on the number of siblings that year. I live in the catchment of another, slightly less popular, comp (comp B), which some parents (rightly or wrongly, in my view wrongly, don't like as much as the first one). And this being Birmingham, there's the 11+ grammars.

It's routine to hear of people not entering their children for the 11+ because "I don't know if she'll pass, and you need to put comp A first to get in''. Which is simply bollocks. There is no reason not to put down four fantasy schools you won't get into without divine intervention, one you might just and a sure thing sixth. So putting down four selective schools in descending order of entry requirement, comp A and comp B, in that order, gives you precisely the same chance of getting into comp A as had you put it first, given your child doesn't score well enough in the exam. First, fifth preference: it doesn't matter.

Endless calculations of "I shouldn't put that on the form because it's not certain I'll get in" only matter if you end up not putting down a school that you would both accept and definitely get into as your last preference. That's mad: you get allocated city-wide. But assuming there is a backstop, you don't need to worry as to how likely you are to get it.

There is no gaming of the form: you just put them down in the order of preference. It really is that simple.

yes I know what you are saying but you don't seem to have the rather unique problem that we have in london where schools seem to either be 'sink' or 'swim' schools and if they are 'swim' schools it is v hard to get in and if they are 'sink' schools you know damn well if you don't get into your 1st preference, you will be offered one of those.

I put down 4 schools (happen to be the 4 closest to me) as they are the only 4 acceptable ones to me. I have a chance with my 1st preference. I have no chance with position 2-4 unless a meteor flies down from outer space and destroys half the borough. In fact, I nearly only put a first preference on my form.

If I don't get into any of those, I know the borough just allocate you a place at 1 of 2 other schools, neither of which I'd like a place at nor do I particularly want dd going to iyswim.

So in many ways, it isn't a choice. There are no sure things in London unless you are on the doorstep or quite happy to opt for a poor school from the outset.

(and I know poor schools can improve etc. etc. but you know what I mean....)

I know exactly what you mean, foxinsocks, but it's still as tokyonambu says. If you only realistically have a chance of getting into one of your four named schools, it doesn't matter whether you put it 1st or 4th on your list as it will still be the only one at which you're offered a place.

I agree there is a problem in London (and other places too no doubt) where the number of schools that are acceptable AND likely to offer your child a place can be very small. But that's a very different problem from this conspiracy theory that schools will discriminate against applicants who don't put them first on the list.

Oh sure yes, I don't buy into the conspiracy :)

There are two Very Sought After schools in our borough. They are madly over-subscribed. And show off about this, natch. But the reason they are so madly over-subscribed is people - perfectly competent, literate, intelligent people who are friends of mine, ffs - who think 'oh well what the hell - and put them down even though they live at about double the distance from the furthest away kid given a place in any given year.

I am not putting them on my list next year .

"who think 'oh well what the hell - and put them down even though they live at about double the distance from the furthest away kid given a place in any given year."

If (as here) there are six slots on the form, you may as well. There's the school you want, which you put first. Maybe another, which you put second. There's the school you could tolerate and would get into, which you put last. Then there's the other three or four slots. You could leave them blank. You could write in random schools you might get into.

But to cite one example, the local good comp managed to build some extra accommodation and hire some more staff in the period between the open days and entry adjudication, increasing from 6 form intake to 7 form intake. Which in turn pushed the boundary out quite substantially. I know people who didn't put it down who were pretty sick about that, because they would in fact have got in.

Regarding the advice from head teachers which some have quoted, part of the problem is that many head teachers don't understand how the admission system works. After all, the schools have little or no involvement in it.

LA controlled schools generally have no involvement in the process at all. As far as they are concerned all that happens is that they receive a list of children who are being admitted. The exception would be any LA controlled selective schools that administer their own entry test. If there are any such schools they would have to tell the LA which children had passed the test.

Academies and most faith schools get a list of children who have applied for admission to the school. They have to rank the children according to their admission criteria and send the ranked list back to the LA. They are not allowed to give priority to children based on whether or not they were first preference. In order to avoid any suspicion of this, LAs are not allowed to tell the school which preference they were for each child.

Many head teachers (including some local to me) still believe that children naming their school as first choice get priority. They therefore tell parents that they need to make the school first choice to stand any chance of getting in. However, that isn't how the system works. Your chances of getting a place at a particular school are the same regardless of whether you make it your first choice or your last choice.

As Tokyonambu says, there is no gaming of the system. You simply put the schools in preference order. Put your dream school first and make your last choice an unpopular school where you've got a good chance of getting in.

As far as I'm aware, schools know because they get a spreadsheet of sorts stating the preference. They get to know how many children have selected them as first choice or second choice ( so they know how popular they are with local parents due to oversubscription) and which kids have been allocated a place who didn't choose them at all. Not sure it matters though

prh47bridge - Is that the same for all areas or just London?

Just about to do my DD's application and now I'm getting cold feet in case they all know where I've placed them in order of preference.

One of the school we are thinking of applying to, do a Random allocation. First they put kids into different ability bands and then someone from outside the school effectively picks names out of a hat. How will that work in the Pan London system. The random nature would mean that they will be making their initial offers to people who may have placed them 6th on their list. It seems that this would mean an awful lot of pulling names out of hats.

There is no catchement area.

The school or whoever is carrying out the random allocation makes a list according to the admission criteria, so sorted by bands first, then pick names out of the hat within those bands. Kids would have a number 1 through to e.g. 850 (the number who applied). That list would be supplied to the LA admission team. They then apply the preferences and all those who qualified for one of their higher ranked school would be deleted from list until you have a final list and waiting list.

As all applicants are ranked in that list, you don't need to do the name pulling more than once.

Thanks.

BrainMash, the School Admissions Code forbids admissions authorities from being told the parents' order of preference. This was because in the first year of co-ordinated admissions across England there were a few schools which decided to give first preference in their admissions policies to parents who put that school as their no.1 preference. Parents objected to that and the govt/Ombudsman agreed.

Here's why: let's invent School A and imagine there's a family that lives two streets away from it, so they are certain of a place on proximity. They are going to apply to School A but also to a grammar school several miles away which allocates places on ability. Their chances of getting a place there are not brilliant but they want to give it a go. In a co-ordinated admissions system, if they put School A first on the list and the grammar school second, no matter how well their child does in the grammar school test she won't get an offer of a place because School A's offer
will take precedence. So what they would like to do is put the grammar school first and A second. Then if she passes the test she gets an offer from the grammar school and if not she gets a place at A.

If A gives preference to families that rank it first, however, that puts this family in a spot. They completely lose out on their grammar school place if they put A first, but if they put it second they might not get a place at either school, if A fills up on first preferences.

It's fairer for admissions authorities to do all the allocating blind, as the Code now requires.

BrainMash ~ Yes it is the same everywhere.

I'm so pleased to hear that - for exactly those reasons. The school we've chosen first we're very unlikely to get a place at - I was a bit worried that I'd scuppered my chances of getting a place at schools 2 or 3 too. Phew! Thanks for replying.

My son went to a state primary in Hackney and got into Latymer with no tutoring. My daughter at same primary did not get through the first stage of Latymer test. It all depends on the child first, then the support (usually parental), then the school so try not to panic if your choked does not get into a high- achieving school. They can be motivated by other means! Good luck everyone - the 5 month wait is agonizing but bear in mind mid- term transfer is a lot easier if your child (not you!) is really unhappy at the school they have been allocated.

people say no. la say no. schools sa no. headmaster says no.

HOWEVER...

being a statistician (boring i know) it would take one hell of the computer to do a optimisation schedule on each childs six school choices. I mean its impossible to do this for 50,000 kids or so in London (though I was assured that the computer works for a week before throwing out results - what gives compfort, but the lady did not know how to answer how do you deal with schools outside of the London area).

Overall, the schools do not know, but by the very element of the date that they get the application in, they can tell which order the applications came, meaning the preferenes.

HOWEVER - i can also assure you that it makes no difference in the final result, as the computer will correct any mistakes. So yes the headmaster will know if you put the school first, but he will learn about it AFTER he has made you an offer, so it makes no difference to me.

Thanks, kris

kris123 - I am not sure what you mean when you say "by the very element of the date that they get the application in, they can tell which order the applications came, meaning the preferences". The LA gets all the applications. LA schools have no involvement in the process at all. Schools that are their own admission authority will receive a list of applicants to rank. They will be sent the entire list at one time. So there is no way the school can infer anything from the date they get the application in - if they get the applications at all, they get them all on the same date.

Also, there is no attempt to do an optimisation schedule. That isn't how it works. The process is (in a very much simplified form):

• the applications are sorted to produce a list of applicants for each school

• for each school in turn, the applicants are sorted according to the school's admission criteria. The LA does this for all state schools. Academies, most faith schools, etc. sort the list themselves

• the first n pupils at each school have a place at that school where n is the admission number

• some pupils will now have a place at more than one school. They keep the place at their highest preference but remain on the list for any higher preferences, so if they have places 2nd and 4th preferences they will keep the place at their 2nd preference and stay on the list for their 1st preference. Any other places they have go to the next child on the list for that school. Keep going until no child has more than one place

• there will now be some children without a place. They are given a place at the nearest school with places available

It is intended to be a simple process that parents can understand.

thank you.