Secondary school places - tips for making the best of it

[HolyShet]

Allocation Day today

A few of us on the other thread didn't get the places we wanted.

DD got third preference of three (our safety net option). It just doesn't feel right for her. Lots of people happy with it, but feels too small, curriculum and world view a bit limited. And it's a faith school where we have none. We will stay on waiting lists but in the meantime need to be positive

Thought I would shout out for any good examples of where it all turned out for the best.

and ways to support DD really.

Oh that's interesting because that is exactly what our admissions letter says. "Waiting lists are open until deadline for appeals". Then closed and only those who appeal are kept on it. Is that not allowed? We are bloody miles down ours so virtually no chance anyway.

Also to be put on waiting lists here you have to do a "change of preference" so does that sound usual?

We got school 3

We took a punt on something out of Borough for 2nd choice

I wanted to be put on waiting list for a school we didn't name - if we'd had more slots we'd have put it above the one we got but needed a safety net. So the lovely man in admissions said we had to fill in a change of preference form to swap them. We're a lot higher up the waitlist for that than our first choice which I've resigned myself to giving up on.

tiggy - re appeals is GCSE choices something worth appealing on or a bit flimsy?

tiggy thankyou, that's all really helpful.

The school SENDCo has already messaged me and said she's putting together a report for us to present at appeal. There aren't any other professionals involved.Partly because at the moment she doesn't need it, but also because school do it all. The Learning Mentor is incredibly skilled, we're lucky to have her.

tiggy - thanks for that information about GCSEs. In DD's case, our allocated school does not do triple science, and she is very good at science. Also she's extremely computer literate, and we travel a lot to France but it looks like at her allocated school she can only do a language if she doesn't do computer science. Our #1 school does do the separate sciences, as well as a subject (engineering) she could very likely be interested in, and there appears to be no restriction on doing computing and a language.

We have several other fairly strong arguments too, but it's good to know we can use that one as well!

Good luck everyone.

yes, thanks @tiggytape

I've emailed the man in admissions, changed preferences, keeping currently offered school on the form just in case, and saying I would like DD to be added to the list for another school too.

I've asked them to clarify re the waiting lists over appeal phase. Is there a document I can refer to?

Thankyou tiggy. That is so useful. I appreciate it.

MY DC has not got any place, I applied for 5 schools , our local council (Kingston) says at this moment we are unable to offer any school place and your child is in the waiting list for all schools applied. My DC is 24th place on the waiting list of our first choice , all other 4 choices DC is more than 60th place. Our first choice is very popular school. we live just 1.5 Km away, last year cut of was 2 km, this year 1.2 Km. Do you think we have any chance of getting our first choice ? 24th is place (our first choice) . Thank you.

@tiggytape
Thank you very much for your reply. Our fist choice school takes 180 students per year.(our waiting list place is 24). My DC is the only child and we have not got any faith link.

Can you please explain when you say " Do you suspect an error"? what type of error ? only thing I can think of is how they measured the distance? do you know any website that I can check distance to school.?

( School admission criteria says -who live nearest to the school, as measured by a
straight line from the home address to the nearest school gate. All distances will be measured using
School Admission’s computerised geographical information system).

tiggytape, thank you ever so much for your very detailed message. We are on waiting list for 5 schools now. our waiting list positions are 24,64,60,29, and 97.

Should we appeal ? or wait ? what is the advantage of appeal?

Thank you so much