How many parents don't really have a school "choice"?

[BedsitBob]

DS is in Y5 so thinking about 2ndary school. There is lots of discussion on MN about what to look for in a good school, making decisions between 2 schools etc.

However, the situation where we are is that actually there is no choice to be made. We are in a town with catchment areas with priority given to living in catchment and attending feeder schools.

Considering schools in our town (or reasonable striking distance outside) we have

• our catchment school (with priority to DC from primary school DS attends) which DS is 99.999999999999% likely to get into

• about 5 other perfectly fine (at cursory glance) schools, all of which he has approximate 0.000000000001% chance of getting into

• the town's undersubscribed, badly failing academy which would be a complete nightmare to get to anyway.

I can't see any point in doing other than writing our catchment school for Choice 1 and leaving the rest of the form blank. But apparently that is a huge no-no on MN! Should I really be looking at the no-chance-of-getting-into schools to pick out the one I like best?

Surely we can't be the only people who really don't have a genuine realistic choice?

We effectively had no choice for secondary. Only one school near enough for DDs to get to without us providing transport. We're in a small town and DDs could walk to and from school.

All lternative schools are either a couple of bus rides away, and would take AGES (plus we'd have to pay), or in other small towns with a very limited bus service, which would also require several changes (and not at the right times for school).

you are right.

but it is no skin off your nose to write any of the other schools as no 2,3,4 etc on the form.

If there is any possible reason why you don't get into school 1, you won't end up at the failing academy

We had no choice. 1 secondary school in this area. Others 10 - 15 miles away in different towns (with crap transport links). Our no-choice school is Ofsted Outstanding and brilliant for D1. For D2 it was rubbish but she had nowhere else to go. So having no choice could be great or disasterous.

We started looking at the end of year 4. We visited 4 schools. We are catholic and my dd's attend a feeder school which we were guaranteed. In previous years people from our road got into all 4 schools.

We get 3 choices here. We put our choices 1 academy school based on church attendance but priority for Church of England, 2 academy less than a mile away, 3 catholic school.

We got our 3rd choice the Catholic school which has just failed it's ofsted.

We appealed for the church academy but didn't get in.

If we weren't catholic we would have got our nearest school on our road but it is dire. I am glad we got the catholic school over that. Hopefully it will now improve.

Many people do not have a choice. My neighbour a non - catholic is moving as they don't want the dire school.

If you only put your first choice down and they don't have a space for your DC then you run the risk of being given the badly failing, awkward to get to academy.

Definitely look at the no chance of getting into schools because if they are better than the rubbish one, and you put them on the list you will at least have a chance for those. The good ones will be oversubscribed. ?

As an indication, where we are there is one good school in walking distance, several good but further away schools, and three absolutely dreadful, failing school in walking distance. All those schools last year had between two and four times as many applications (at all preference choices) as they had spaces. One failing miserably school had less than half as many applications as they had spaces, another had just over the amount they had places for, so everyone who only put down one choice but didn't get it will have been stuck in the worst of them. We put down only the schools we were prepared for DD to go to and got our 2nd choice but today she is 8th on the waiting list for her 1st choice (which is 8 miles away). She was 31st a week after offers. If she had been offered any of the rubbish schools then we would have continued to home educate until a place came up at one of her choices, but that doesn't work for or suit everyone.

It all depends on how much you want to try to avoid your DS ending up in the failing school. From what you say he 'should' get into the catchment school but I know of someone less than 1 mile away from our nearest good school that hasn't got in because it was massively over-subscribed this year.

We have no choice either, All the kids go to the village school though this school is closing after the holidays and they will be going to a new school. After that they will go onto the catchment highschool which is the only one in the area.

don't leave blank spaces because you may end up with place in that Academy
fill in spaces with those reminding better schools with the knowledge that he may get to any of them and you may be stuck

I only put one school on the form. There was zero point putting any other, because we were the wrong faith/not in the catchement/whatever.

DS got in. We'd have been totally stuffed if he hadn't, but if he hadn't got in there, he wouldn't have got in anywhere. (Which was, indeed, the result for some of his primary classmates.)

I'm in London...

Only one Secondary in our town. It didn't work out for DS1 so we moved him. He now goes to one 12 miles away, on the school bus, but we have to drive him 6 miles to the stop and pay for the bus.

We had no choice. There are plenty of secondary schools in our area but there are a shortage of places and most have a religious requirement. Being godless heathens, we knew that it did not matter which school we applied for we would be allocated the only school in the area that did not demand attendance at a church of some kind.

The one we ended up at was number 6 on our list (surprise surprise) and does not have the best of OFSTED reports, but DD is thriving in a community that is incredibly mixed.

You see I don't get the rationale of those saying "put down the schools you have no chance of getting into and you will have a chance of getting into them" and "if you don't put down the schools you have no chance of getting into, you'll just get the failing academy".

If we have no chance of getting into a school we won't get into it. (Yes, I realise statistical anomalies happen, but it would need a gigantic enormous one for us to get into any of the "won't get into" schools. ).

IF we don't get into our catchment school (which again, would require huge statistical anomaly), there is no possible school apart from the failing academy because even a statistician would be hardpushed to come up with a scenario that meant we failed to get into our catchment school but did get into a "no-chance" school.

But, on the other hand if we don't get into our catchment school this will only be because there is a huge spaces shortage locally and probably even the failing academy won't have places!

Choice caries hugely ime. If you have a good enough school on your doorstep, go for it, avoid all the angst.
We opted partly through choice, partly thro necessity, to go out of area for an outstanding school rather than the " good" one locally so are paying considerable transport premium as well as being limited work wise due to school run. But lucky enough to be able to afford this and we thought it necessary to give dd the best education. Horses for courses.

I think the general advice to fill out the choices, is probably an idea that having a single message covers everyone whether or no it matters. Listing all your choices helps:

a) where there is a bit of choice you might get it
b) in places where you might need all choices to get any school at all
c) and in places where listing more than one school won't make any difference, filling them in is not that onerous and it keeps the message clearer

There is a tendency on MN to assume that admission issues in parts of cities (particularly London) are the same in other places and this tends to dominate posting.

Only one "choice" of secondary here. The next nearest state secondary is about 20 miles away.

Where we live 99% of children either go to their catchment school or go private. I'd only apply out of catchment if there was a very good reason because if we got it my ds would live far away from all his school friends who would all live close to each other and therefore be in the same after scho clubs, scouts, sports clubs etc. I think there's a lot to be said for attending catchment schools in terms of community building.

I think that "choice" in education is a bad thing for most of society and the root of much inequality. It should only be necessary for children with very unusual support needs or very specific talents.

But.... I would still put down a second and third choice in case of something dramatic and weird happening (eg the school burns down or is closed for some reason).

I only put one school down on my DS's secondary school application. It was our catchment school and it has never been known for any child living in our village not to get a place. It is the best high school in the area (of a mediocre bunch) so I would have appealed/home educated while on waiting list rather than send him to any of the others.

We live in the London suburbs. In our area, there are two groups of people with choice. The first are those with the £££££ to opt out of the state system. The second are the religiously observant, who can choose the state founded religious options or take the local comp.

Those without access to an extra £100K+ over the coming years, or piety have to accept the local comp.

Everyone gets into catchment school here (Scotland) and unless you're choosing the Catholic system or the one specialist language school in the city (we chose that, as dcs were in the attached primary they got an automatic allocation without needing a placing request), everyone goes to the local one or the next one over

It just doesn't seem to be as angsty here. No putting choices in order, you accept offered school and do a placing request if you want something different. No Free Schools, no Acadamies, no Grammar system, no 11+, no sats! and most importantly! no Gove.

I don't really see why it can't be as simple elsewhere, maybe I'm missing something??

Where we are you generally have the choice of your catchment school. But some years not everyone in catchment has got in. If there are enough of them, they'll open a bulge class up at two neighbouring schools where they have the extra space to.

Hence why I would put down my catchment school then the neighbouring schools. I did meet someone who just put the catchment school and nothing else - didn't get it and didn't get into the bulge class at the neighbouring schools because she didn't put them down on the list. She was randomly allocated a school miles away.

So for us it makes sense to fill in all the choices. Even though realistically, if I put the neighbouring school first, I probably wouldn't get it. I'd get my catchment school if there was space.

So choice here, just a fairly poor secondary with no library and various other limitations, so we're moving to a town which has a choice of two very good ones.

Main difference is that our current town has a private school but the new town doesn't, so in current town all the parents who can possibly afford it go for the private, whereas in the other town going private means commuting so state is the default options.

typo, sorry - I mean NO choice here.

Our local secondary is the only school for 50 miles!! We're adopting the philosophy that a good student should thrive anywhere (and a few prayers for good measure!)

OP - I think you are saying you have options of catchment school (A), 5 other OK schools B, C,D,E, F and failing academy G. A to F are full every year with the only spare places at G.
This however does not mean that all schools A to F fill up each year with catchment children. The children of catchment G probably apply for all schools in the area in order to avoid school G. Thus causing all the other schools to be full.
If there was to be a popolation boom in catchment and you do not get a place at school A and have not applied for any other school you will be allocated the only school with places after everyone elses preferrances have been looked at eg, school G. If you apply for eg school B and this school does not fill up on catchment children the remaining places are usually allocated according to distance, so if you live closer to school B than the children in school G catchment then you stand a chance of a place there.
So my recommendation would be to consider any other school that is closer to you than it is to the children of the failing academy as your chances of a place there may not be as slight as you think.

If you think you might want to appeal you need to have put the school you want to appeal to first on the form. If you only put one, and don't get it, they can offer you any school anywhere. So if there's any doubt, you need to make your wishes clear.

Just be thankful you don't live in an 11+ area!