Admissions experts - can this be right?

[FlumePlume]

So I received a letter saying ‘miniPlume will be considered for a Specialist Music Place if [Name of School] is listed as their first preference on the Common Application Form’. I thought it didn’t matter where you put the school on the form, and that they wouldn’t know?

If it makes any difference, this is a church school. But we prefer the local super selective grammar, and were going to put that first on the CAF. Of course, we won’t know if dd has scored highly enough to get a place at the grammar until 1 March.

If she doesn’t score highly enough for the grammar, will putting the church school second mean she can’t then get a specialist music place there, and would be looking at her third choice (or lower)? That doesn’t seem to be how the system is meant to work - I thought it was all about where you qualified for a place, and then you were assigned a place based on your order of preferences.

Many congratulations on a music place!

We are doing the form too, my understand is the order is important. If you want the grammar put it first. Then you want this music place second put it second. You will always get your first choice if you are qualified for it then the rest doesnt matter isnt it. If you are not qualified for your first choice(grammar) then you will have this music place because this is your second choice and you are qualified for it. The selective decision was made before 01.03 so if the 11th child put the school on top of the list you still have your 10th place(borrowing admission example) if 1) you wasnt qualified for your first choice AND 2) you have put this school as your second choice. The 11th selective child will only have the one of the 10 places if 1)one of the 10 children ranked above him didnt want their places 2) he put the school as 1st choice.

Plus if you are on the grammar waiting list then you will always on the list depends on the rank of your child mark because you had put it the first choice. Now 1 think I am not too sure that if you didnt get either the first or second selective choice then will you be on both of the school waiting list. It should be to make it fair(but it isnt your case because you already have qualified for your 2nd choice)

Greenleave: not sure I follow that, but you automatically go on tne waiting lists for all schools you listed higher on your preference list than the one you were allocated.

And all waiting lists are held in the order of how you meet the criteria. And offered to the person who most meets the criteria as soon as a place comes up.

So, you could get allocated a place at your third choice. Then a Pava could come up at your second choice, and you accept. You would still be in the waiting list for your first choice.

If you get your third choice and are then offered a waiting list place at your first choice, you come off all waiting lists.

The problem is that many heads do not understand how the system works; hence parents are told, "Unless you put us first you will not be offered a place, because we are always over-subscribed."

Bestseller, your posts really worry me, because what you are saying is happening is absolutely not supposed to happen. I am not saying you are incorrect, I am worrying that an LA is getting this so wrong and obviously over a good many years.
As your school is an admission authority in its own right what should be happening is that the LA send a list of all applicants through to you with all relevant admission criteria information on the list. Under no circumstances should this include what preference they are as a school.
The list may or may not have been sorted in some kind of order but it is then for a committee of the governing body to ensure the order is correct - in faith schools this is frequently about the faith priority status. That confirmed list of pupils in admission order criteria is then sent back to the LA and they use it on their computer system to then allocate school places.
The school will get a list of pupils who are being offered the places about a week before the date where the information is released to parents. Again that list should not have any priority preference on it.
If the preference level is being given to the schools during the admission process then it opens up all sorts of questions about the validity and security of the process which would be a cause for major concern if it is happening.

admission and prh47bridge Thank you both so much! I will wait to see if dd has made it through the first stage of the grammar process before I email the school, as it’s not an issue if she hasn’t made it through.

bestseller You said “However if you're hoping to jump the queue by applying for a specialist place that trumps the usual criteria, it may be possible for them to add the condition that you must put them first.”. This is what worries me - I’m not in any way queue jumping and I’m concerned a school would see it that way. I am using one set of eligibility criteria (musical aptitude) rather than another (church attendance) or still another (distance from school). It’s also concerning to hear that your Head is put out when an application doesn’t list your school first. It introduces an element of emotion into a process that is purposely designed to be entirely mechanical in order to let families express their true preferences.

However if you're hoping to jump the queue by applying for a specialist place that trumps the usual criteria, it may be possible for them to add the condition that you must put them first

No, it is not. Having specialist places is not "jumping the queue". It is simply adding another priority category that comes higher than some other priorities. It is absolutely not permitted for the school to make naming it as first choice a condition for gaining priority in any category.

This is a really clear explanation of equal preference for anyone who's interested:
www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/schools/equal-preference-system

Question for the experts: do the LEA computer programs accommodate multiple student rankings from a single school? In this particular case, would the school send a single ranking that incorporates the priority of the top 10 music students, or would they send two rankings, one with all students ranked (say, in order of distance) and one with some students ranked in order of music score?

What I'm getting at is this: would the computer program know to change the priority of the 11th ranked music student if one of the top 10 did prefer another school?

I think the programme would have to as those music places are ringfenced.

It would be worth checking with your local authority because here, if you don't get in to a school you are not automatically put on their waiting list - you have to ask. It does vary.

I also live in a grammar area (super-selective) and we know the 11+ results before completing the CAF, must be tricky if you don't!

would the computer program know to change the priority of the 11th ranked music student if one of the top 10 did prefer another school

Yes. Systems have to cope with all kinds of complications - fair banding (so if someone drops out they choose the next person in that band), faith (where some schools have a limited number of faith places with the rest being open, so faith applicants are on the waiting list for both faith and open places) and so on.

Interesting thread, thanks. I found it interesting as we were very clearly told that my son had passed the 11+ and would be offered a place as long as we first the school as first choice on his form. I did, obviously, but it didn't occur to me that this wasn't correct/lawful.

Well it was sort of correct Roomba.

If your son was high up enough on the 11 plus list that he would definately be offered a place at the grammar school but you put them 2nd choice and he was subsequently offered a choice at his first choice school then you would not have been offered a grammar place.

But it wouldn't have affected his chances at grammar had you put another school first but not been offered a place there.

And I suspect that may be what has prompted the school on this thread to say what it has. They have probably faced questions in the past from parents who qualified for a music place but missed out because they put their local school as first choice and got a place there. It wasn't that they weren't considered for a music place. They were and they got a place, but they also got a place at their first choice so that is the only place they were offered.

Roomba Schools routinely "mislead" ie lie over this. It's a disgrace.

The excuse is always "oh, but we have to explain that if you put another school first you might get an offer at THAT school rather than ours" Well, of course, that's bl**ding obvious! What parents understand when they hear this statement is "If you don't put us first you won't get in even if you meet the admissions criteria and your first choice school doesn't offer you a place".

It's so dishonest and it's hard to blame parents for not understanding the admissions criteria when schools mislead in this way.

But in Roomba's case she hasn't been misled.

Her DS had passed the 11= and qualified for entry to the school. So would be allocated a place there as long as he put it first, or had no other school placed higher in the list that could offered him a place.

The Grammar were saying they could definitely offer a place, and that this place would be the one allocated to Roomba by the LA as long as Roomba had listed no higher preferences that offered a place.

Where Heads get it wrong is when they say, outside the context of any 11+ exam or aptitude place "if you want a chance of a place at this school you need to put us first".

I’ve worked in school admissions for the Lea and now work in a secondary school and am responsible for admissions. I can see what ranking we are on everyone’s application through the information shared electronically via the Lea, it makes absolutely no difference to whether you are offered a place, we work entirely on criteria and don’t even give your ranking a second thought. 1st or 4th choice, makes no difference to us 🙂