Have I messed up chances of getting into our designated school?

[NickNacks]

Ok well it's middle school transition but Secondry Education topic is nearest relevant I could find.

Sorry if this complicated.

Our half of the borough is a two tier system and we have 4 middle schools to choose from. The area is made up a large town and several villages around it. We live in one of the villages.

3 middle schools are in the town, 1 is in another of the villages. This 4th one is the designated school for the first schools in the surrounding villages. These schools are named as a higher admission criteria than the first schools in the town probably because we would all lose out on distance criterias every time.

So one of the town middle school is very very good and therefore very popular. Most people in our village don't bother applying because it usually has a last admitted distance of 0.5mile. This (next) year they are extending the intake from 3 forms to 4 and we are 0.9miles away and have decided to chance it and put this school as our first choice.

We are happy with the designated school so this is our second choice. The other two in the town are ok but distance/direction/friendships/free buses make these less preferable for us.

So basically, has my gamble on the popular school hindered our chances in getting in the designated school? Many thanks.

I think the schools do get that level of information - how many put it down as 1st choice, etc. But they don't know which indivdual children put it down as 1st choice. So it shouldn't affect your chances of getting a place.

Sometimes the information on percentage children who put a school first has even been published, I haven't seen it recently but it was quite interesting when every local school described themselves as "oversubscribed". Every one was because you put your closest school down (unless you were a sibling) so if everything went bizarrely wrong you didn't get the awful school 2 towns away. ( Better the bad school you know than.....)

NickNacks -I agree, it is incredibly complex once you take into account the admissions processed operated by Academies, faith and foundation scgools. And now we learn that wales is different from England.

How can Wales not be subject to a law which affects England?

Haven't you heard of the Welsh Assembly Government? They have devolved powers over education. They set their own Admissions Code which has a number of significant differences from the one used in England.

I can answer what you are talking about manifesting!
Certainly in my LA and therefore I assume that it happens in all LAs, the school can see how many applications have been received for the school and they are split into 1st, 2nd and 3rd preference. So yes the member of staff can say 250 were starting in September, because that is the admission number of the school and therefore have to admit to that and they might know that 185 put down the school as first preference and they would assume quite wrongly that all who put the school as first preference actually got a place. BUT they do not know which pupils, which is the key issue, were given a place only round numbers. They also do not get that information after the admission round has been completed. So short of going and asking each pupil what preference the school was they do not know the answer.

Oh thanks, that makes more sense