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

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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...

Yes, apparently. Our head is hiding from us!

I didn't know that and I have been Y6 teacher for several years. Are you sure the HT finds out? Why would they?

Our Head knows about the private offers too.

oh dear. can't remember any of my log on details, password, nothing. better get that checked out!

oh dear. can't remember any of my log on details, password, nothing. better get that checked out!

Not waiting this year, we were all done last year. In Berkshire, our Head told us that they knew a week in advance of Allocation Day.

Also, our 1st choice school sent out letters on the Friday afternoon, to arrive on allocation Monday morning - except Royal Mail was wonderfully efficient that weekend and we received our offer letters on Saturday. No need to check online CAF application. Good luck all those waiting this year.

I just had an email from the allocations system reminding me to check i know my password for Monday morning, and confirming the notification and subsequent appeals process if applicable. Very real!

Another one anxiously waiting here for school news for DS2.

We named 3 preferences, the first 2 are both partially-selective C of E high schools. He did reasonably well in the entrance tests, although not well enough to guarantee a place; we think he has a decent chance of getting into either of those but nothing is certain.
The 3rd choice is a Catholic boys school which I'm not overly keen on but the plus point would be that quite a few of his friends will probably go there.
I've been fairly laid back about it all up to now ("he'll be fine wherever he goes" kind of mentality) but am now starting to feel sick. Also as we had to fill in SIFs for all 3 schools and I handed them in to the offices of each school, I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking, what if the forms ended up buried in piles of paperwork or never got passed to the right department!!
Oh well... 5 and a half nailbiting days to go, we're on the home stretch now. Good luck all.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back to last year when we went through this process for our eldest child, I realised after many conversations with the LA that the wishes of parents were not what they were really concerned with. They have a certain number of school places to allocate, you make your preference and then applying each schools oversubscription criteria, they decide what to offer you. The appeals process is simply a safety net to ensure that any child who overwhelmingly needs to go to a particular school has the chance to do so - it's down to the parent to show that overwhelming need.
To us it was so important a decision that we took all the steps we could to ensure a place at our first choice school. My advice now is to think hard about what you are prepared to do i.e. appeals are difficult (not impossible), time consuming and stress inducing and embrace your allocated school with an open mind.

I am the woman who got ridiculously nervous about primary school allocations even though I was second nearest to school ( 3 minutes walk) . I somehow managed to convince myself that everyone else in DDs year had a sibling and therefore would get offered a place before herm – then there would be no space left ,crazy lady emoticon>. This time I am trying to maintain a bit more perspective. I am very lucky to live in a non selective county where catchment areas tend to be quite wide . First choice school is 9 miles door to door but a 13 minute train journey . as they are their own admissions authority they say they “try” not to turn anyone away – if you don’t get allocated within their published admissions number they have an Admissions meeting and look at overall school numbers , see who has rejected their place ( large number of kids go to private school – if pass entrance tests)- they say they have not rejected anyone who says they want a place form many years….BUT I am still really nervous about it all. Id rather the first choice just said straight away we were in - Catchment last year went to 13.1 miles year before 8.2 so it is anyones guess.

I really like the school as it seems like it gives such a nice well rounded education 2nd choice is a local large girls school which I would be happy with – but I really loved the ethos and everything about 1st choice.

I have looked and last year my LEA sent emails out first thing in the morning so will be logging on from 7.30 am.

To be fair I have never asked my Head if she knows. I just don't understand why they tell the Primary School before the parebts. There is no reason why they should as we don't need to know in advance.

PAN London website has gone live around 5pm in the last couple of years, with emails following later. Last year we had logged in and accepted the place about 3 hours before the email arrived!

I'm seeing our head later - shall I test his poker face?

we have put three down... pass rate 75%, 50% and 33%.

my first choice was the best one obviously. But DDs preferred on is the 33% one.

All will be gutted if she gets the 50% one but it is closest.

Really worried, when we were viewing the schools dd stopped eating for a month till the forms were in!

Tiggytape - so true!

So I casually mentioned to deputy head that this time next week Yr6 would know their secondary schools. By their response they were genuinely unaware of that allocations day was looming.

Not sure what that proves!!

Posted this in Chat last week, but want to know what people on this thread think.

DS has applied to three comprehensives. Both first and second choice schools are allowed to select 10%/15% on the basis of ability in music/performing arts. He got a full scholarship offer from his first choice school and a bursary offer from the second.

Our second choice (the bursary offer) has invited him to come to the school today at 4pm. This is (quoting from letter) a 'celebratory Bursary Tea Party' the purpose of which is for him to 'meet other successful Bursary students' and current year 7 and 8 bursary students to find out about the programme of activities for the next few months and years (they have all sorts of stuff on before they even start in year 7 - barbecues, meet ups etc).

The thing is - it's our second choice, and we don't know if we're going to get an offer from our first choice. The letter makes us feel that ds has definitely got a place at the second choice school..... In which case, do they know he hasn't got a place at his first choice? Or has he got a place at both? But then if he's got a higher ranked school on his CAF then surely the second choice school will have been told he's not taking up his place there?

Without going on a boast-a-thon, ds is pretty talented. He's not at the standard that a lot of private school scholarship students are at (grade 5/6 minimum in one or two instruments) because we haven't pushed him, but he's got distinctions or one mark below for all his grades (he's grade 4 in two instruments), and has placed first in almost every piano competition he's entered right back to when he started. He's a real performer.

I'm blathering now. What's going on do you think?

Have to say, it's a weird thing of the school to do, to host an event the week before places are allocated.

Whoops - meant to add, the point of the boasting was to flag up that he would probably have placed quite highly in both the first and second choice school auditions. The scholarship award letter from the first choice school said that in previous years dc's performing at ds's standard were awarded a place, but they can't know how it will pan out this year because numbers applying for scholarships go up every year.

I feel like my head is going to explode.