London secondaries - are there any schools other than Kingsdale who do admissions by lottery?

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

I live in south London and am very aware of this school but are there any others in the capital, where you can apply from any borough and 100% of the intake is given a place by lottery?

Cardinal Vaughan? Banding test then lottery.

Oh, and the London Oratory?

The London Oratory is a Catholic school isn't it? therefore not comprehensive and not open to anyone who cares to apply.

Interesting. I had no idea about this school. Surely it’s so popular because it’s a lottery admission. Very few people in London have a realistic chance of getting 6 schools, or 6 schools they’d accept. It would be well worth putting Kingsdale in your 6 if you lived reasonable close or could move near by the September. I wonder how many places are awarded on lottery?

But no, I don’t know any other lottery schools in London.

@AsCuteAsABasketfulOfSylvanians

Interesting. I had no idea about this school. Surely it’s so popular because it’s a lottery admission. Very few people in London have a realistic chance of getting 6 schools, or 6 schools they’d accept. It would be well worth putting Kingsdale in your 6 if you lived reasonable close or could move near by the September. I wonder how many places are awarded on lottery?

But no, I don’t know any other lottery schools in London.

15% of places are awarded via music and sports scholarships.

They also have sibling places and the LAC, EHPC places.

Applicants sit a banding test and are split into 3 equal bands - the lottery places are then drawn from those. If places are turned down, then new places are allocated depending on which scholarship and/or band the previous placeholder was in.

You don't have to move nearby - they have a huge catchment.

I think Brighton has some lottery entry, but don't know any others in London.

St Richard Reynolds in Twickenham has admission bands. When a band has been filled, they move to the next band. Once they cannot admit the whole next category, places within the category are allocated by lottery.

So, not full allocation by lottery, but partial.

West London Free School has some lottery places, but their website says most go within 1 mile of the school and a few within 3 miles.

I haven't heard of any school having a completely open lottery with no distance boundaries - it wouldn't be in line with the sustainable travel agenda.

Whereabouts in South London are you?

I think Bentley Wood (a girls school in Stanmore) has admission by lottery. There’s no catchment.

@bringunby - Kingsdale does genuinely have a pan London intake. It is in West Dulwich (near Dulwich College the famous private school). So it looks from this thread that it is the only co-ed state secondary in London running a 100% lottery for admissions.

Kingsdale's admissions page has a link to a news article about how it is one of the hardest schools to get into, measured by the ratio of successful to unsuccessful applications: www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/10-hardest-schools-london-popular-18988595

It's pretty obvious that a lottery process will attract lots of wildcard applicants - West London Free School used to make headline grabbing claims about their popularity for the same reason, because before they reduced their distance limits they got random applications from many miles away.

If there's a link in the article, maybe you could look at the other 8 schools in the top 10 hardest to get into, because if schools with similar policies do exist then they're likely to be on that list.

#typo alert: "other 9" not "other 8"

It's worth remembering that any school that isn't oversubscribed has to accept students from anywhere. It's tempting to think that if they're not oversubscribed then you're not interested, but if you do your research well you may be able to find the diamonds in the rough - the schools that are rapidly improving from poor past performance, or so new that nobody has heard of them yet. In particular, look at new free schools recently opened or opening next September. They usually start small and grow, beginning by staffing their senior leadership positions first, so the founding cohorts get the sort of high quality specialist, experienced teachers that are normally reserved for older students in full size schools.

Oh yes, I realise you don’t have to live close to get in. I just assumed people wouldn’t want their children traveling for hours to go to secondary school. They’re get a place and then move to be within a practical distance. I’m probably wrong.

And yes I get the admissions criteria. I just wondered how many spaces are offered in the lottery category once all the siblings, teachers children, LAC, EHPC and scholarships.

@AsCuteAsABasketfulOfSylvanians

And yes I get the admissions criteria. I just wondered how many spaces are offered in the lottery category once all the siblings, teachers children, LAC, EHPC and scholarships.

The local authority may have that info in its admissions brochure or on its website. In my borough they publish the admissions data for the last 3 years for every school.

This Mumsnet thread alone will probably result in an extra batch of applications from people who would otherwise have never heard of Kingsdale.

yes the Oratory and Cardinal Vaughan are Catholic, but non Catholics can apply. They are vanishingly unlikely to get in, mind!

getting a scholarship at Kingsdale does not guarantee you a place. It is still a lottery for those applicants, but they get picked from the much smaller bucket of scholarship applicants (and maybe get a second dip by band if they don't get in via the scholarship allotted place)

Oh, I see Killing. Are siblings put in the lottery too?

Michaela runs a lottery too, but only for locals.

Yes, that is my understanding. Details of criteria are here:kingsdalefoundationschool.org.uk/Information/Admissions-1/Admissions-Policy-Academic-Year-202122

@KillingEvenings

getting a scholarship at Kingsdale does not guarantee you a place. It is still a lottery for those applicants, but they get picked from the much smaller bucket of scholarship applicants (and maybe get a second dip by band if they don't get in via the scholarship allotted place)

The top ranked 15 for the full scholarship are guaranteed a place. But not all full scholarship are.

They send letters telling you whether your ranking puts you in the definitely likely to get a place on offers day, or likely to get a place by September section. (They have full, half and G&T scholarship rankings)

All the scholarship candidates are also in the lottery bands as well.

IIRC, the siblings go into the bands so when the lottery is drawn, the purely lottery numbers are after the sibling numbers for each band have been removed.