Should I put as first choice a school my son has no chance of getting into?

[GreenVelvet]

Because he is well out of the catchment area and it is a very, very oversubscribed school?

I know it sounds a daft dilemma. But my son told me today his friends in our small neighbourhood were applying there which made no sense to me . But I suppose they have nothing to lose if they put it on their list. If they put it as a first choice and the answer is no, they can still go straight to their second, third choices etc assuming they get a "yes" there?

But something about putting a school as first choice you have almost zero chance of getting into feels weird to me .

[RandomMess]

The danger of not putting that down as no.6 is that she could be allocated a school just as bad but on the opposite edge of the LEA area you live in...

So awful school with a long journey...

[steppemum]

blimey threetomatoes, you have 6 choices??? We get 3.

We have struggled with the form, as ds passed for grammar but not enough to guarantee a place (although it is, say 90% likely he will get it)

school 2 is great school, but we are a bit far away, plenty of kids from here go there, but it is borderline. But then again last year they added a class to accommodate all the applicants.

school 3 is also a bit far away, also borderline.

All 3 schools are in different LEA.

Wouldn't touch local schools with a barge pole. We hoping that if we don't get 1 or 2 we will appeal, and should get in to 1 on appeal (fingers crossed) We really worried about not putting a guaranteed school as no.3, but the only guaranteed school is our closest, and any school is better than that.

Can I just repeat again, it doesn't matter which order you put the school, the system doesn't work like that.

[bunjies]

We've done the same thing for dd. Her 1st choice is unlikely to be successful but at least 2nd choice is still good & as her brother goes there she's pretty much guaranteed a place.

[steppemum]

tiggytape

I agree.
but in our case the 2 worst schools in our city (which isn't that big) are the 2 closest schools to us
So they are the most likely to have places anyway, and they are the only schools I would be 'guaranteed' to get a place in, if I put them on my form.
So in a way we have nothing to loose. If we put them down, we get them. If we don't put them down we probably would get them. If they give us places in another school across town, then that would be a better school than either of these.

The other side of it is knowing your area. This year there are about 170 too many secondary places in our city and the schools have all been heavily giving out flyers and trying to woo parents. This is partly because this year is quite a low birthrate. So we are not in an area with a massive pressure and oversubscription on places.

The schools we have put down as 1, 2 and 3 have all said there is a very good chance that we would get a place. They anticipate people from our area getting places, but no guarantees.

[steppemum]

that is a very good way of putting it

our true preference is ''any school in a 7 mile radius that isn't one of the two closest to my house!''



I am still astonished at the school gate misinformation. The number of people who still think that the order on the form matters, or that if they put one school then they have to be given it.

I am jealous of getting 6 choices though. I wish we could have had 4/5 never mind 6.

[RandomMess]

But in London where you get 6 choices you can put down your 6 nearest non-faith schools (because you're not the right faith) and still not get into any of them as the shortage of places is so chronic...

[steppemum]

yes that's true, 6 non choices is not much of a choice.

[steppemum]

'over a mile'

that sounds like a close school to me!

[ForeverProcrastinating]

Can someone clarify who makes the decision, please - school or LEA? One HT said he has some influence, other said it was nothing to do with them.

Down here in Somerset we only have 3 choices. I have done as the form said, put my 3 choices down in order of preference. If we get none of them and just a place at local 'not over my dead body' school, I will go to appeal willingly, and re appeal as necessary. We don't have any other options available so I shall just fight tooth and nail to get (one of) the schools we want. There seem to be many variables that we parents have no knowledge about i.e. low/high birth years, how many extra's a school can accommodate without jeopardizing the classes and more. Also a fair bit of chopping and changing seems to go on at the eleventh hour.

[FiscalCliffRocksThisTown]

How bad are these "terrible schools"? What makes them so awful? Low GCSE grades? Violence? Are they "failing schools" ?Quite how bad are they?

Are there really that many awful schools? All comps around here are decent, Some good, some outstanding. Some less desired because of " rougher estates" being part of catchment, but that's it.

Anyway, I am sure you will get into one of your top-5 ones, it IS a significantly low birth year after all.

[EllenJanesthickerknickers]

The order you put school in does matter if you are lucky enough to qualify for more than one school. In that case you will get your higher preference. Schools never know in what order your preferences have been made, though, so just put them in your true preference order.

[EllenJanesthickerknickers]

[steppemum]

That makes more sense 3toms!

Ellen - yes it comes into effect in that if you are accepted by 2 schools, you will get offered a place at the one higher up your list.

But there is still a 'school gate' myth that school A will only accept people who put them first, or that school B will fill up with first place applicants and so if you put them second there will be no places left and so on.

As tiggy says it is LEA that offers place. School doesn't know if you have put them 1st or 6th