Offers Day 1st March 2012

[gazzalw]

Anyone else feeling like we do about the impending Offers Day?

Not at all a foregone conclusion that DS will get into any of first five choices (all selective, two 11+ passes, one 11+ result due this coming week) so rather up in the air.... Sixth choice is okayish but DS has talked it down to the point that he is now desperately hoping it's not his one and only choice! Otherwise DS is being quite mature about considering that he could end up at any of the schools and is already thinking about which friends from primary school he is likely to stay in touch with etc.....

It all feels a bit as if life is on hold till 1st March.....

Thanks for the information! Did you DC get into the school you are after when you appealed?

we did!
and Ds1 is doing really well..

Hi Ingles2 - I remember you from last years thread. Felt so sorry for you when you received the blank email but I'm so glad to hear it all worked out! :)

It's our first time going through this whole process so anxiously awaiting the 1st March.

Good to hear Ingles2 - what's the back story involving that blank email?!

wow mumwithtwokids, you have a fantastic memory Thankyou
gazzalw in Kent, you can apply online and receive your 11+ and SCAF decisions online.
The Lea tell you the email arrives from 4pm, but can be anytime that night... So, we get to offers day, we get an email really quickly with all the info except for the line with the name of the school, which is totally blank! Their system had crashed and sent out all these blank emails..
Eventually we get another email with the info, and it was our last choice school! Not a good day that one!
Anyway...fingers crossed for everyone this year,... I hope you all get the school you want.

Oh no, how hideous....getting your sixth choice place and having to wait even long for the 'correct' version of the email....

If they send the emails out alphabetically as they seemed to do with one of the grammar schools' 11+ results earlier this week we will be waiting all evening?????

Do you think someone (or possibly a small team) in each Borough has the onerous task of manually checking the data in each email before they are all sent out....

Do errors ever occur - apart from sending out the emails without the all-important information included - presuming someone got mouse happy that day!

Hi all, just wanted to wish you luck for this year. We had the offer day horrors last year so I sympathise!

Judging by our experience last year even if you don't get your first choice you can still end up with the best solution.
Dd did the 11+ but wasn't offered a grammar on offer day, in fact she was offered our last choice which we were hugely unhappy about as there were some pretty awful revelations about the school after choices were made.....
We rejected the offer after finding a place at a rural school outside our area. Dd was then offered a place at her 2nd choice grammar..... But the school transport was withdrawn by that school so we couldn't physically get her there. Then we were offered her 3rd choice grammar....... Same transport issue!
She is now thriving at the small rural school, she is in the grammar stream and her cat results were off the scale. She has a lovely new group of friends and the school is just lovely. Her class sizes are 15 max and all the teachers know each child.
So, even if you don't get the results you want, don't think it's the end of the world, sometimes the school you never even considered can turn out to be the best choice.

I have a DD going to secondary this Sept so also got March 1st marked on the calendar.

Have put our local school as our first choice, so feeling optimistic that she will get in. Although I preferred our second choice school but there were issues with getting her there.

Miniwedge, sounds as if your daughter did indeed get the best option - encouraging words in one way...but awful really that she couldn't get to the grammar schools for which she was offered a place - because of cutbacks with school transport - that's not very fair....

Well, we have decided that the only way not to go completely mad is to have an open mind, even though we and DS have preferences.. Nothing is certain in this life and schools are definitely no exception to this!

Less than six weeks to go - it is difficult not to focus on it though. I guess by the time half-term comes around it won't really be much of a wait at all!

Slightly nervous here. DD was always going to go to our catchment upper school . However due to bullying last year she decided she wanted a fresh start so we went school hunting. We have put a school that is turning around down as first choice, which would have been fine , apart from it was oversuscribed for the first time ever last year.

I am nearly certain that if we go to appeal we will get a place as bullying happened after a cock up at school meant some children had access to confidential medical info about DD. But I don't want the stress of waiting until July and the stress of going to appeal board, through no fault of our own. Am just hoping there will be a scrabble to get into our catchment school as a brand new building and that will take the pressure off DD's first choice.

You sound as if you've mad the right decision for your daughter.... It is pretty rubbish that no-one seems able to confidently think they have a dead-cert 1st choice place for their DCs....

The problem is that although there are definitely trends with schools, there can be anomalous blips that are totally unexplained and unexpected which just throw selection criteria out of kilter...

Yes, know what you mean about the appeals process....it just prolongs the agony with no guarantee of success.... We are doing an Ostrich impression at the moment about the appeals process - can't even cross that bridge till it comes to it.....

I think the waiting lists and appeal process might be the most stressful stage for many. Apparantly there is loads of to-ing and fro-ing after offer day, and some parents leave it until really late to decide between a grammar place and a private school place, or accept a private school place and don't remember to decline the state place.

When DS started Primary a couple of places became available in the first weeks because of parents who had accepted the place and then moved house over the summer without letting the school know.

Yes, Blu, we had that hideous experience with primary school (the Council refused to acknowledge that is was a problem with people holding onto multiple places simultaneously but then miraculously changed their system the next year so that all applications, faith school or otherwise, had to be detailed on the same form) and struggling to get DS a place - we didn't get offered a place at our 1st choice school till mid August. Wouldn't want to have to go through that again....

Yes, think that the Councils should insist that they are made aware of all applications being made, even to private schools, on the CAF form, so that they could elicit some response as to whether the state school place accepted is still required....

I think a very tiny minority of parents have a selfish approach to this horrid secondary school lottery (as long as their children are okay they don't care about anyone else) and many people fail to consider the wider implications - i.e. being selfish for one's own child's future impacts on many, many other DCs' choices and stresses lots of parents!

I can fully see, having looked at the trends for what's going on on the thread on Trinity/Whitgift that is running at the moment, that there are going to be a significant number of parents within the M25 considering both state and private secondary school provision. As there's not much of a time difference twixt offers' days, it is highly likely that some will accept (and I am not blaming anyone just pointing out that it is likely to happen), a grammar school or other state school place (if offered) whilst mulling over (and possibly more likely to prefer) the private school options/possibility of bursaries/scholarships etc.... so the whole thing will go pear-shaped really from Offers Day.... HMMM!

To some extent the London and surrounding area Boroughs probably should be more proactive in actually determining whether people have also applied for private school places - then they could actually just send out an email - every fortnight or so - from 1st March just to remind parents to let them know if they go down the private school route and to relinquish the state school option. It is all extra work for them but in the end it might actually ease months of confusion and reduce the number of time-consuming, costly and stressful appeals!

Sorry rant over!

Oh, rant away, gazz.

I'm not sure it's practical to have private / state communication within the system. Private schools couldn't pass on details of applications because it would contravene confidentiality, surely? Parents wouldn't want to declare it because they would believe that the state places would not then be allocated fairly, or simply see it as not the states business. It would have to be optional, as disclosure couldn't be enforced or policed...can you imagine the little Parking Enforcement cars with cameras on top being redeployed during admissions season to take pictures of families entering private schools? It doesn't seem to fit well with our view of Human Rights in the UK, does it?

The heartening side of all this, though, is that it isn't over til the fat lady sings, and there is still loads of potential for places to become available even if the news is bad on National Offer Day.

Some of us will be able to breathe a sigh of relief while others are only just starting on the hamster wheel of stress...

Hey Blu - Yes I have a feeling we will be starting the hamster wheel of stress come the 1st of March :)

Gosh - I really must get on with some work, just find myself constantly glued to this forum in the hope that someone has news. If this carries on I'll be fired come results day :o

We only have 3 choices in Herts. One of ours was "used" as first place for selective comp with 65 out of 180 places awarded by exam, the rest by proximity to school/sibling etc. Will join you all on 1 March for cry on shoulders from others who understand this pain!!!

Well Mumsnetters we've successfully managed to
waste pass three week (musing) over Offers Day so it's now only a matter of five weeks to go now- let's keep up the good work...

Hmmm having just been reminded about Surrey parents now having six rather than three choices I'm feeling again....

StressedSian let's try to keep (oops I nearly wrote grim which is a Freudian slip and a half!) - think that we just have to float on calm till Offers day then will be downing !

Thanks gazzalw- appreciate your support and good to know I am not alone!

We didn't use all our preferences.
Only 3 out of 6.
I hope that isn't a decision that will come back and bite us!

Hopefully not Blu - you seemed quite sure of your first choice from what I can recall.....

In an ideal world no-one should really have to put down six school choices.... I slightly raise an eyebrow at Surrey parents needing six choices - surely once one get into leafy, affluent Surrey the schools are significantly better and it's not the same as having to scrabble around trying to find six half-decent/mediocre schools (not always the case for everyone in London but definitely for some...)?

I've just booked the 1st of March as holiday. Would definitely rather be at home on this day than at work.

Custadcake - you are wrong! Surrey has NOTHING like that in its admissions criteria and never has! For most schools after siblings the criteria is nearest school, but if oversubscribed in this category it goes on distance to said school as the tie-breaker. Fairly normal I'd have said! (A handful of Surrey schools do have catchment and feeder schools though).

Oh and there are crap schools in Surrey too!