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 .

[steppemum]

NO! You stand same chance if you have put it 1st or 6th

example
John has put school A first, but lives 3 miles away
Jane has put school A 2nd, but lives very close.

School gets sent list of all the names of all the kids regardless of 1st, 2nd etc.

School looks at kids plus criteria. Both Jack and Jane are eligible, they go on the schools list which is ordered according to criteria (siblings, looked after kids, faith kids, and then distance or whatever their criteria is.)
Jane goes at no.20 on the list and Jack as no. 300, because of distance. School has 170 places.

LEA gets school list back.

Jane could be offered a place at school A. LEA look at her form and find she prefers school Z. She can't be offered place at school Z, as she is too far away compared to others, so she is offered place at school A.

John cannot be offered place at school A as there are only 170 places and he is no. 300, he is no. 30 for his 2nd choice school so is offered that one.


It isn't first choices and then second choices, all the choices are all considered at the same time. Then if you qualify for more than one school (eg your first and fourth choices) the LEA looks at your form and sees which one you prefer. Offers you the place at first choice place and cancels the place at school no. four.

[steppemum]

sorry NO was a bit shouty

how about No!

[ForeverProcrastinating]

Thank you, tiggytape, that is mainly what I thought. Going on the last figs I can find on a quick trawl, in Sept 12, 96.1% of children got their first choice of school, with 98.8% getting 1 of their 3. I'm fine with all three of my choices, I just listed my preferences as instructed. My 1st choice let in 15 more than their PAN, so total out of catchment allocated places was 44. We have a chance and we can appeal twice, many others have and have been successful. I have sweated over this for so long now, but application is now submitted and I'm not going to worry away the next 5 months.

[steppemum]

I saw those figures too forever. I always got the impression that loads of kids got 2nd/3rd choices or worse.and I was really surprised to see how many got their first choice.
I know the figures are slightly less good for London (not sure if yours are the London figures or the country as a whole, if they are are for London, then the figures for out of London are even better)

I was surprised by some of the things we discovered in the process too, our second choice has a pan of 170, and they took in 300 last year, basically agreed to take in a whole extra class, and by doing so accommodated all the children who had put them first (I think others got their first choice schools anyway) I hadn't realised that a school could/would do that.

In a way the long wait is easier than short wait. We had 7 days between tests and result for 11+ and it was awful. Much easier to think forget about it until March!

(but I will be on here agonising at the end of Feb!

[ForeverProcrastinating]

Somerset figs, steppe. HT of our first choice said persistence pays, at least 15 over PAN were admitted (I know personally of 1 more recently) and a sizable amount were out of catchment and bottom of criteria, IYSWIM.

[ForeverProcrastinating]

Interesting comment re the whole extra class, we had something along the same lines going on down here. As I said before, we only know what we know.

[ClayDavis]

I think what threetomatoes meant was that they would get it because it was number 1 on their list compared to the other schools they put on their list not where it was on other people's list.

So technically a school might fill up with people who put it at number 1 if all the people who put it lower on their list also qualified for a school they had a higher preference for. I think it's more likely to happen if people are encouraged to 'put a school first because you won't get in otherwise' because a far greater proportion of their applicants will have put it as first choice.

[HSMMaCM]

DD's school was like noblegiraffe said. Massively over subscribed the year DD applied, so the following year loads of people didn't bother to try and get in and it was undersubscribed.

[ClayDavis]

I did mean to add it was unlikely but technically possible. Although that does depend on where you live. Here, you are unlikely to not be given your first choice of secondary school so most schools are actually filled or almost filled by people who put it first. Very different for family of mine living in London.

I wasn't thinking of people who had been given good advice to have guaranteed school somewhere on their list. More like the thread a few weeks back where the HT had implied at an induction meeting that you had to put the school first in order to get in or where there are widespread myths in the community about 'first preference first'. That gets corrected on MN, it doesn't always outside of this forum and people end up putting a popular school first because they think they should or not putting it at all because they think they won't stand a chance of getting in if they don't put it first.

[MinesAPintOfBlood]

Can I do a simplified explanation?

There are 2 schools a mile apart, 1 and 2. Each school can take 2 pupils this year.

Then there are 3 potential pupils:
A who lives opposite school 1 and would rather go there
B who lives opposite school 2 and would rather go there
C lives 2 miles further up the road from 2 and wants to go to 1

Because they are sensible they all also list their second choice of school.

In the first allocation round the schools order every person who applied by the allocation rules. These are purely distance as no siblings:
1: A, B, C (only A&B would get in)
2: B, A, C (only B&A would get in)

As A and B both have two place on offer they take their highest preference and remove their applications to any lower schools. Thus leaves us with:
1: A, C
2: B, C

C now had 2 places offered so rejects their lowest offer (and takes school 1).

Its just that instead of multiple rounds of people bidding for lots of schools then rejecting offers every time they get more than 1 its done in a single form.

Disclaimer: written on phone screen so sorry for typos.

[ChippyMinton]

Lots of over-analysing going on here!

The simple message is;
List the schools in your preferred order.
And include your 'safe bet' as the final choice.

BTW miracles do happen. Last year I put:

1. The school that had been our preference for several years, but now a long shot due to our primary no longer being a feeder, and only sibs plusa small handful on distance getting places
   
2. Our favourite but an even longer shot - only 2 sibs from our primary have got a place in the last 7 years
   
3. Our 'safe bet'.
   
   DC was offered 2), due to a combination of it being the lowest year for ages, but most signicantly, a new school opening some way from us but that diverted man of the competing families. I nearly fell off my chair! A handful of others that had bothered to put it on their forms also got places. Most didn't, and are kicking themselves.
   Interestingly, this year, I saw most of the current Yr6 at the open evening at school 2, and it's firmly back in parents' sights.

[Retroformica]

Have you seen the school?

Use your parental choice to choose the right school for your son regardless of friends/catchment/gcse results. Do consider transportation though.

There is no way my son is going to our catchment school! It's not even in our list.

[Retroformica]

Ps. Only a third of children in our catchment area go to the local catchment school.