2018 ‘bulge year’ or sign of things to come?

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My DD is currently in year 7 with DS in year 4. DD is at a good secondary and we are slightly out of catchment (approx .8 shortest distance). For 6 years of 7 DS would have easily got a place at the same school based on sibling with a number of non-catchment, non-siblings also offered places - 35 last year and furthest distance .9 however this year not all out of catchment children with a sibling were offered a place meaning that no none catchment, no sibling places were offered. Just wondering whether this is a one-off bulge year or sign of things to come and we may have to move closer to the school i.e in catchment to guarantee a place. Has anyone else noticed a similar situation this year?

My DD is currently in year 7 with DS in year 4. DD is at a good secondary and we are slightly out of catchment (approx .8 shortest distance). For 6 years of 7 DS would have easily got a place at the same school based on sibling with a number of non-catchment, non-siblings also offered places - 35 last year and furthest distance .9 however this year not all out of catchment children with a sibling were offered a place meaning that no none catchment, no sibling places were offered. Just wondering whether this is a one-off bulge year or sign of things to come and we may have to move closer to the school i.e in catchment to guarantee a place. Has anyone else noticed a similar situation this year?

2018 is the beginning of a bulge in secondary school admissions here (Sheffield) but the peak of the bulge comes in 2019. Those of us with children born in the relevant years (2007/2008/2009) were sent letters by the LEA before primary admissions warning us of this.

There was a dip in the birth rate just after the millennium and then it rose each year after that.

There was a similar dip in the mid-1970s so could be a generational thing.

Near us it's not a bulge year at all. In fact, the catchment for the school I work in has a steadily decreasing roll in our feeder primaries. Just a few miles away they have steadily increasing numbers, so those schools are expanding while ours is shrinking.

So imo it's a local thing, rather than necessarily a national thing. How easy is it too her access to birth rates for each year in your area? Maybe have a look at those to see what you can predict.

I don't think the birth rate will return to the levels seen before the oral contraceptive pill became available.

It's more that there was a dip which is now levelling out.

Next year is a bulge year round here, then it starts to settle, barring any new builds.

I agree next year is a bulge year around here as well (one form entry generally in dd's school but for the first time in years there are two Y5 classes). Same is true in neighbouring LA. But we also have massive amounts of houses being built locally so who knows about future numbers.

Outer SE London primary here. In 2011 when DD started we had 9 bulge classes (70 primaries/Infant in total). in 2018 we had 20 bulge classes to squeeze in and several primaries went from 2 form to 3 form entries permanetly.

We are lucky that 2 new secondaries are open and 2 further hope for permission for the 2019 intake.

Its the first bulge year here. In my ds previous primary school it was massively oversubscribed for his year, they offer 30 places but 100 children applied. My DD was 2 years above and her class was just 18 children and 2 of those moved to the area mid year. They had 12 spaces available in her year.

Ive just applied for DS high school place and the school he was offered takes 200 (approx.) but they have 4 days of appeals and are were oversubscribed by over 120 children. DD went to that school 2 years ago and there were 0 appeals and her year still has 25 places available.

Its a huge bulge here with very little house building to account for the increase in numbers (less than 1000 new houses across the entire area over 10 years).

This is interesting, the school has always been over subscribed and desirable in comparison to other local schools which could in part explain the places offered. There haven’t been any new estates or huge influx of people it could just be one of those things. When things calm down in the next few weeks following people having offers I will call the council.

Here we have a large current year 6 and it seems to go down to year 3 and then evens out.

They have even scrapped the new secondary planned as it won't be needed.

So yes, I would say your DS could have problems getting a place.

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