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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Anyone else waiting for offers day - March 2nd here?

523 replies

cece · 22/02/2015 11:12

We have put an out of catchment school as first choice. Second choice is our catchment school. Some years we would get into our first choice, some years we would not. So we are anxiously awaiting the email...

OP posts:
CheekyBanana · 02/03/2015 20:56

Just thought I'd post again quickly. In my panicked days if forgotten a quirk that applies to my area of herts. It's lifted my spirits no end.

Well, there's a new school due to open in radlett / borumwood this September. The school has offered 120 provisional places and was oversubscribed. Well, the offers made by the school are IN ADDITION to the county offers made today. That means at 120 children have been allocated two, yes TWO sec school places. The new school are waiting for funding to be signed off, and places will be confirmed.

I don't suppose that ALL will take up the places in the new school, but that's gotta be a glimmer of hope, right?? Also, Headteacher of Watford Grammar Girls has been announced as Exec Headteacher and will oversee the transition - the new schools popularity and credibility appear to have been boosted by Dame Helens involvement. So, my glimmer of hope burns just a little brighter tonight. Yay!! Now it's time for wine!!

TheySaidThat · 02/03/2015 21:08

DD got her first choice (out of 2!) All 7 of the kids in her class who passed the 11+ have got a place at the same grammar school. Phew! Early night tonight!!

Raggydoll · 02/03/2015 21:17

Unless you are out of county fry, and then I think you should check the email as you may, like me, need to formally accept.

MuddhaOfSuburbia · 02/03/2015 21:18

oooh minifingers didn't your ds/dd get a music schol?

I'm sure I remember your name from the auditions thread

we put it second but got our first choice now wishing we'd taken a punt and put it first

base9 · 02/03/2015 21:25

So I should not decline the 4th place offer? How else do the council know that I want a place at one of the other 3? I am in London. How do waiting lists work and how do I.find out if I am on them?

MrsCakesPrecognition · 02/03/2015 21:28

base9 - tiggytape's excellent post of Mon 02-Mar-15 12:21:18 earlier in the thread explains how waiting lists work in detail.
You can (and should) accept a place and still be on the waiting lists for all the schools higher on your preference list.

Original poster
cece · 02/03/2015 21:37

Feeling surprisingly disappointed - we got our second preference.

I should not feel this bad really as DD already goes there and is doing extremely well. I just had my hopes that we'd get first preference as it would suit DS1 so well.

OP posts:
lalalonglegs · 02/03/2015 21:47

cece - I feel exactly the same: my daughter was offered our second preference, it's a very good school but I feel slightly flat (flatter than I anticipated) as I really loved the school that we put as our first preference. I'll wait a few days and go and find out where we are on the waiting list - the council will be up to its ears for this week, I expect.

base9 · 02/03/2015 22:00

Thanks for that. Have read tiggy's post. Will ring to check on waiting lists + prepare an appeal.

Unexpected · 02/03/2015 22:13

Cece I remember you posting about education ages ago and I think you live near me in Surrey? Where were you hoping that your DS would go - not F I presume?

Corygal · 02/03/2015 22:49

I am DELIGHTED even tho I am not a parent - my beloved little mentees, who I mentor as voluntary work, have both got into their fave schools, one of which is near Dulwich College somewhere and specialises in music and the other is the grammar up the road.

They both worked bloody hard, in music as well as academic stuff, relieved it paid off so reliably. Now all I have to do is see whether the third one, age 15, gets into the Brit school, to be announced in a month's time. Is there a thread for that - if not, I am going to start one.

cartoonsaveme · 02/03/2015 22:58

Base9 do not reject unless you are going private or HEd!

LittleFluffyMoo · 02/03/2015 23:13

To those who have offers from Graveney - what was the cut off? DS got his second choice but we're hoping to get in on the waiting list. Might give up that hope if the cut off is way above!

Second choice is fine btw, but we really loved Graveney.

DaffodilDaffodilDaffodil

juicycelebrity · 02/03/2015 23:52

No choices here. Beyond gutted. We've been offered a dreadful school. :( Am genuinely stunned we didn't get our first choice.

LittleFluffyMoo · 03/03/2015 00:04

I'm so sorry juicycelebrity. As someone upstream said, there's a lot of movement on the waiting lists, so please don't feel too down. Brew

Frikadellen · 03/03/2015 00:17

1st choice for dd3. I burst into tears reading it (I had to log into the website from work to get the info and was on phone to the children)

dd 3 was thrilled dancing around going "I am happy I am happy" her best friend is going too we found out later. (she is a sibling though so we figured she would get in)

1st choice is the school that I just in my gut feel is right for dd3 but it was a long shot however paid off to go for it.

DS who is in boys grammar in same city (we are in Kent) was heard going "OMG YOU WILL BE ON MY BUS" making dd3 giggle with clear giddiness :) her siblings are all thrilled for her.

Other close friend got 2nd choice.. they will appeal but are not unhappy they had struggled to decide on what one to put 1st and this is a tight 2nd choice. and last friend has got her 1st choice. So this year it sounds like lots of happy 1st/2nds choices.

Last time for me with the 2ndary application.. Next year the nervous wait will be for dd1's uni applications.. year after that A levels for dd2 (who wants school dd3 has just been allocated for her A levels)

Feeling blessed and lucky today.. I just in my gut know this school is the right one for dd3 and will push her as she needs to be whilst still managing the pastoral part.

juicycelebrity · 03/03/2015 00:26

Thanks LittleFluffyMoo. I really hope so. I'm struggling to get my head around it. Our first choice was a faith school and we are practising of that faith. We pulled our child out of the feeder primary through unresolved bullying which put them from category 2 into category 4. DH has even more of a downer on the faith primary now as he's said if they'd bloody dealt with the bullying and gave proper support, we'd not have taken him out and he'd not have moved down the categories.

No point on dwelling. I've now 4 appeals to get ready. :(

ChaiseLounger · 03/03/2015 06:58

Juicy, am so very sorry to hear this, we too nearly pulled ds1 out of faith, and are considering pulling ds2 out, nothing to do with him, but only because school showed their true colours when they handled it so badly.

But your story makes me reconsider, because as you say, chances of getting in, to faith secondary, if your not in a feeder are (round here at least) almost slim-to-none.

What is the basis of your appeal? That or something else?

Dorisslurkingfriend · 03/03/2015 07:07

Don't know the Graveney cut off I'm afraid - might it be on the paper letter do you think? I know scores of 266 and 261 which have been offered places, if that helps at all.

LittleFluffyMoo · 03/03/2015 08:24

Unfortunately a fair bit higher than us, but I'll scan the letter when we get it, hadn't thought of that, thanks!

var123 · 03/03/2015 09:15

If you don't get into the faith school on appeal (although I hope you do), maybe you have a younger child who is still at the feeder school and will get in to the faith secondary in a year or two. Then your DC1 would rank highly on the waiting list based on having a sibling there?

So, maybe it will take a while but you might get there eventually (and as long as its by the start of the GCSE courses you'll be ok in the end).

JAC25 · 03/03/2015 10:10

Last year we only put one out of catchment area school down. The council totally messed up the application, but our local UKIP Councillor sorted it all out and we got the school we wanted!

LittleFluffyMoo · 03/03/2015 10:16

I'm sorry - I don't understand JAC25, did you only put one school down, or did you put one out of catchment and the rest in catchment? How did your council mess up your application?

richmal3 · 03/03/2015 12:13

My daughter got her third choice, a really poor school we'd only put down as it was the best choice from those she was 100% certain to get into. I rang the admissions team to find out how far the furthest child they admitted lived from her first choice school. The answer was 18.18km. I then put our address and the school's address into AA roadmap and it came out as 18.0km (this website rounds to the nearest tenth of a km, so it could be slightly more or slightly less than 18km, but not as much as 18.1km, if that makes sense).

I rang them again and had a long argument about school gates and school sites. They insisted that the AA site would measure only to the school site, whereas their software measured to the school gates. They wouldn't accept my point that the site must be further away than the gate so if the AA was measuring to the site then the actual distance (to the gate) must be less.

Does anyone have experience of disputing distances? Are there other websites which measure distance? What software do admissions authorities use? I was absolutely devastated that she got allocated a school that none of us are keen on, and it's even worse if it turns out she missed out by a few metres.

YorkshireTeaandCake · 03/03/2015 12:14

We applied for one school only and we, luckily, were offered a place yesterday.
Stress over :-)

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