Moving to Chelmsford

[3Tmama]

Will be moving to Chelmsford in the summer with family. DD will be starting Y10 for secondary school. What are the secondary school like in the area. We will most likely live around Moulsham, Great Badow or Chelmer Village area. All updates of the area and school are very much appreciated.

With the exception of Hylands, all the secondary schools seem to be well thought of and popular. The process for applying for a mid-year place in Essex secondary schools is that you apply to each school individually, so if I were you, even though you cannot apply yet for a September place, I would start contacting schools in the New Year to find out about their KS3 / KS4 policy - when do they choose options / start work on the GCSE syllabus - as this is likely to be as much of an issue as whether a school actually has a place. There is a new secondary school, Beaulieu Park, which will alleviate pressure on places in the city, but it only opened this year, with year 7, so has no higher year group places to offer.

For year 10, it may be a case of taking any place available, going on the Continuing Interest list for the preferred / best fit school(s) and also appealing , but being prepared just to go with what you can get.

In case you haven't yet looked, the secondary school admissions booklet for 2020 is here:
assets.ctfassets.net/knkzaf64jx5x/CEzlE4SyHkIafZbQko7Q5/8e4ac5db3706399733c70ce9d8aedec9/Secondary_admissions_brochure.pdf
and you can check the actual Priority Admissions Area your potential new address is in here:
www.essex.gov.uk/topic/admissions

Thank you MarchingFrogs for your informative reply. I have been researching on some of the secondary school in the area and I do have one or two school which I will start writing to see if they have places after the new year. Out of curiosity, can I request my DD to go for a year lower than her age group. With some school starting their GSCEs studies in Year 10, I am worry my DD won't have enough time to choose what she want to study, also because I am returning from oversea, I am not too sure if she is able to cope with the different culture of studies.

State secondary schools will not normally admit outside the correct year group for the pupil's age without very compelling reasons.

Year 10 is the latest any schools start GCSE curriculum.

More and more schools now start the work in year 9, as marching frogs said. So a priority might be schools that do a two year KS4, ie start in yr 10, rather than in yr 9. Yr dd might not get a massive choice of subjects, but tbh, most schools have so many compulsories that choices are one or two subjects max.

Thank you MarchingFrogs and Clary for your responses. I have now a clearer picture of what to expect when applying for a mid-year admission for my DD.