Trafford secondary schools LEA choices form 2018 entrance

[Lis4liz]

Our son is going to be taking Trafford grammar schools entrance exams in the next few weeks, we are in catchment for Alty boys and Sale Grammar but what old like to know is where we should put non-grammar school on the LEA form - Wellington School to be precise, we are also in catchment for Wellington. Should we put 4 grammar schools in the first 4 spaces and then put Wellington 5th? Would we have any hope of getting in? We know Wellington is a great school and there will plenty of people putting it first on the form. Should we forego putting Strtford and Urmston Grammar schools in places 3/4 and move Wellington higher up the list? Anyone who has any experience of this I'd be grateful to know.

My ds went through the journey last year, we live in Stretford. You don't have to submit your LEA form until the end of October, you will receive your ds' entrance test result by mid October. So you do have about more than a week to make your mind up.

Where you put Wellington on the preference list will not affect the way it is treated. All admission authorities have to use the equal preference scheme. What this means is that for each school you put down, a list of all the applicants will be generated in admission order criteria. The LA, Trafford, will then look at the list for the school that you have put as first preference and see where you are on the list. If that is within the number of places that the school can offer, then you will be offered a place. If they cannot offer a place at preference school 1, then they will look at preference 2 and so on until there is a place that can be offered.
The issue for you is that the 4 grammars that you may want your child to go to have an entrance exam and if your child does not pass the exam then you will have wasted 4 of your 6 preference applications. That is why the previous poster is correct in saying you might want to ensure that your child did pass the test before putting the school down as one of your preferences.
If your child does pass the tests then you can make a decision on what order to put them down in and put Wellington as 5th preference, you will still be offered a place if you are high enough up the admission criteria order list. What you probably need to do, having expressed a preference for 5 very popular schools is put down a school which is more realistically likely to be a place you will be offered at as your 6th preference.

As pp says you'll have the entrance exams results before you have to send your form in.

If you are in catchment for AGSB and your son passes, he will get a place. Same for SGS. You just put them in order of preference once you know what his options are.

Stretford Grammar has gone downhill a bit over the past few years. I would put Urmston Grammar above Stretford.