how to find a place in oversubscribed school mid year

[Spanielmad]

Hello, we might be moving house in the coming year - to south Buckinghamshire. My kids are about to start Y6 and Y8. If we move in the middle of the school year how are we supposed to find school places? Pretty much ALL 'good/outstanding' secondary schools and grammar schools are oversubscribed. So even if we find a house near a good school how do I get my kids in??
thanks !!

thanks for the pm - much appreciated! :)
Yes, DH's work is moving. We either move along or he lives in a hotel/rented-room during the week.... Not moving is still an option as we are fairly happy where we are and the comprehensive is ok and not oversubscribed. But a weekend-marriage ain't everything...

There are less pricey parts of Marlow, Bourne End etc, but you may struggle to get more than a modest plot.

Some of Burnham is lovely but PP is right, Burnham Academy is awful so it's a gamble to move there if your DC don't get into grammar school. Not sure about other Burnham comps.

Also my DD is bright, in the top 5 in her year and higher level for English and above average for Maths but she still didn't pass the 11+. They've made it much harder.

Berks grammar schools (Langley, Upton Court, Herschel, St Bernard's- Catholic) aren't single sex like the Bucks ones mostly are.

Bourne End isn't catchment for GMS though I don't think - I assume it's catchment for Bourne End Academy.

Oh late entry tests vary from school to school - I think for yr 8 SWBGS is curriculum based.

This is the last year of Bucks using CEM for 11+ - it is v pressurised and brutal. You need to be quick and have wide vocabulary. The excessive tutoring is more of an exception then the norm.

I'd forget about grammars unless your kids have been in a system geared towards the tests.
It isn't that they are hard or that your kids won't be able to do the work, but there is a knack to them and teaching methods in south bucks are all geared to that.
I think many comps in bucks are fine though.
Where I live there are lots and lots of prep schools too so kids are set up from very early.

Ktown I disagree- Bucks primaries are not allowed to prep for the 11+ - of course the prep schools can and do - several having this as their main USP. Bucks has no comps - they are all Grammars and Uppers.

Yes Ollycat is right there, they don't teach it in Primary only at Private schools. Nearly everyone in YR5 tutors or at least buys the books to practise at home.

Another who would recommend visiting the eleven plus forum. you can search on there too - ie grammara in xyz and usually somebody has posted on it.

The advice on here and there has helped me so much, especially recently during a hideous appeal.

I never thought my twin boys would be attending different schools in September, but I am adapting. It might be worth entertaining that notion. Besides, if you get one into a preferred comp and it operates the sibling rule, then presumably the other will follow.

Please don't think Oxon schools don't have VI forms. For example, Thame and Wheatley both come under South Oxfordshire District Council and both have VI forms.