Croydon indie Parents Whitgift/Trinity etc - when did you turn down Yr 7 state school place?

[Doittoday]

DC is on the waiting lists for Riddlesdown, and lots of parents from previous years have cheerfully told me that it will all be OK as the lists will move lots once the children going to the independent schools release their places.

At the moment though the lists don't seem to have shifted very much, especially not the ability one. Am I right in thinking that the independent schools have all long since made their offers, and anyone with a private school place would have cancelled their state place by now? Or is it normal for parents to hold on to them for a while longer just in case?!?

If loads of movement seems genuinely likely that would be great, but otherwise I'm wondering if it would be better to treat Riddlesdown as a very long shot and get on with purchasing the uniform, and embracing the settling in days, for the school he has been allocated?

The deadline was a long time ago, but to get a better idea you could perhaps ask admissions at Riddlesdown about movement in previous years to predict what might happen this year? Data might be available on places offered under admissions criteria on National Offers Day vs final offers? Good luck!

Some (bloody selfish) parents hang onto their state place until September 'just in case', so places could still come up. At the same time, this is a massive birth year, so places everywhere are much more squeezed than normal. I don't know your area, but I would talk to the schools involved to try to get a feel.

Yes LaughAtGildedButterflies, I agree the massive birth year is aproblem. I called the school but they were (understandably) reluctant to make any predictions as apparently twice as many children as last year sat for the ability test, so they have more than 100 extra who passed.

Do you know what place you are on the list?

ime most people do it once school finishes for the summer as, generally, thats when they think ok we're gping for it and im unlikely to get made redundant or whatever now over the summer. So there may be a bit more movement in June. Do you know what number he is on the list? I've always heard anecdotally that if youre in the first 10 you should get in on movement but after that its unlikely. Don't know how accurate that is though.

That would be good calpop! But no, he is not in the top 10 at the moment.

We declined ours immediately- i.e. within a minute of receiving an offer. I'm probably a bit more efficient than most but I'd expect most do it relatively soon. The only delay might be if waiting for a grammar place.

In my son's year, around 2/3 (I.e. 40 children) will go to Riddlesdown. Only 4 had private offers with 3 accepting (so a relatively small amount) and I imagine those parents would do the decent thing.