50th on waiting list???? Any chance?

[SmellTheGlove]

Just that really. I have no idea how fast we might move up the list. There were 1000 applicants for 180 places. We were out of catchment by 148m. Outer London. That's for our first choice. For our second choice we are 168th. We actually applied under special circumstances even though we hoped we were in catchment (we would have been last year), but obviously that wasn't enough. It will still form the basis of my appeal though. DS suffers from anxiety and has been on the SEN register for most of his school career because of it. Saw CAHMS when he was younger but they were useless. I am a safeguarding lead in a primary and know he wouldn't meet threshold for CAHMS now. I'm being very very positive in front of DS about him still having a chance of getting in and also about the potential school, even though it is not a good alternative. Meanwhile I keep bursting into tears!

Sorry copied fro my response on another thread.

Waiting lists can move significantly over the next few months with parents declining places due to change of circumstances, successful appeals elsewhere, moving house etc. It is impossible to say by how much as it will vary from school to school. If there are any successful appeals that take the school over PAN the waiting list will not move again until the school goes below PAN again. On the first day of school in September there can sometimes be a number of" no shows" so (if below PAN) you could potentially see the waiting list move again. When schools use over subscription criteria to rank waiting list order you can sometimes move down the list if a student comes onto the list that ranks higher up the criteria (eg someone who places the child's name on the list next week but lives closer to the school).

There is always a chance because it does not mean that 50 have to reject places before you are offered one. It simply means that 50 other parents have said that they would like to be on the waiting list even though they might have accepted a perfectly good school. As parents and pupils get more confident of their allocated school it is not unusual for the many parents to say no we now do not want the place. So as time goes on you might shoot up the list.

To be honest SmellTheGlove 50th sounds pretty promising! DD is >100th on the list for our 1st preference school and am feeling quite pessimistic about it. There's lots of movement on the lists, especially in London where there are so many schools relatively close together.

not sure if all areas are the same, but, here there is no point in checking waiting lists until after the 15th march as that is when all acceptance or declines have to be in, you could suddenly shoot up the list but saying that you could go down too

Thank you for replying! I know it's hard to judge at the moment - the borough admissions person said to phone back after the 25th March after second offers to get a better sense of where we are. She also warned me we might go down. DS was quite upset last night after his school did a little activity where they got all the year 6s to get into groups according to what secondary they were going to - he was with one other girl in his class who he doesn't really get on with. So although I'm being positive at home it's starting to get to him at school.

For a 180 intake i would say your chances are very very slim. Our school is the same size and they never got above single figures from the waitlist.

Ugh, that’s a crappy exercise from the primary school, the should be looking ahead to secondary school as a new start, not harping On about who else will be going, sure lots of kids are eager to leave behind the cliques and loyalties of primary anyway.

Try to keep an open mind for a bit, I get what a PP says about little movement on waitlists but this is London where lots of choice cheek by jowl and lots of private provision can mean a lot more movement on wait lists and it doesn’t sound like you were far geographically from the cutoff so I don’t see how lots of new people can leapfrog you.

Good luck

That's really thoughtless of the primary. I'd definitely mention it - the harm is done now but it might make them rethink in future years. There's a child in DD's class who would have burst into tears on the spot!

Why is that some schools cannot see that what they are doing is not at all positive. Given how much movement there is in some areas one has to ask why the primary school needed to start grouping them together so quickly, if at all.

I thought it was a bit off! They are normally pretty good with that sort of thing so it took me by surprise. But then many things surprise me in education and I say that as a very experienced teacher .

Not sure - we were 25th on list for a London grammar, 180 entry, offered in July, around 30-35 offered by first week September. Moved rurally to 165 entry school list moving around one a week but we joined list in May so could have moved a lot faster before.

People could be on 6 lists where we were so sometimes they move fast. Ours was big movement March and April, almost nothing then until open day then 5 places more in 1 week then last week August / first week September another 5 or so. Good luck! People do change in year 7 too so if you don't get in and still want school its worth a shot staying on list. Sometimes schools can surprise you, it may not be as bad as you think. With good parental support most schools are OK.

Mine was 45 at Dame Alice Owen's for intake of 200 (I think) and he got a place within a fortnight. In North London plenty take DAOS/QEB/Latimer exams, get places then inexplicably go for the privates so there can be a lot of movement quickly.

What a terrible idea of the primary. You'll have a much better idea where your ds is on the list later in March, when people have turned down their offers for other schools. It might look much more positive then.

Do you know any parents from previous years? They might have a fairly good idea how much movement there is likely to be, it ranges from virtually none to a large part of the cohort.

Thank you for all your helpful replies! I've spoken to quite a few parents from last year's cohort who said there was a lot of movement - and that the last distance ended up being an extra 400m. A different year but gives me a bit more hope. I know I need to be patient. It doesn't help that I suffer from depression and anxiety myself, which is usually well managed but this sort of thing can be difficult. So I really appreciate your words of wisdom.