Grey Coat admission

[ClaireSage]

How does a child get into Grey Coat? We do belong to the Church of England and have received a reference. We do live within a 25 minute tube commute from the school.

Wondering how high a student’s exam scores need to be? Is there anything else we could do or need to know?

Thank you, thank you 🙏🏻

There are language places, open places and religious places. As well as applying for a religious place you can also apply for places in the other categories. You will need to register your daughter to sit the language test if you want try that route, there are 15 places available which isn’t many but always worth a shot. All applicants need to sit a banding test so that the school is fulfilling its role as a comprehensive. Places are allocated with 25% taken from the top, 50% from the middle and 25% from the bottom. So in theory, you shouldn’t be worried about how high your child’s banding score is.
In terms of distances, the school never reveals last distances offered. For what it’s worth, girls come from miles and miles around.

My eldest is now in yr 9 at GCH
We applied for a faith space.
my youngest was offered a language space. although we declined it as she preferred another choice which we felt was a better fit for her.

We live in south east london - so approx 1hr to school.
It's about 8.5 miles as the crow flies.

The girls are banded into 3 groups - top 25% middle 50% and bottom 25% - they must take girls from all three groups. they are non-selective so they cannot only take from the top group.

The top 15 on language test are offered a spot and others will be offered a wait list for it too.
The open spaces are decided by the council - these are based on looked after children and local children and distance pays a factor in these ones - the school said they didn't decide these.

"Non-selective" is a relative term. The language places are selective by their very nature! There are regular threads on here about how difficult those places are to secure.

All the info you need is on the school website, OP. Distance admitted will vary year by year, and it's measured by miles/km from the school rather than journey time. As PP says, the girls travel from a very wide area.

We are about 3.5 miles from GCH and my dd applied for a church place last year. She didn’t get a place.

The language test is obviously selective but it is an optional exam you can chose to do. There are quite a few (100+) that sit it.
It looks at the girls ability to learn a second language regardless of if they can already speak/write another.
The test is designed to make it level for all.
One of our daughters did get offered one of the spaces, she enjoyed the test, there are no practise papers they give them a made up language and then ask them question based on the info they are given. She is fairly logical but had only had adhoc exposure to other languages in primary (numbers, colours & names)

On faith we were told if you didn't attend church at least every other week then you were unlikely to be suscessful due to sheer number of applicants. That was all they told us about how they decide on faith grounds.
They tell you total number of applicants but not how many of those fall at first hurdle because of missing info (like references or not in diosease etc) for DD1 it was 167 places (six form classes/year) and more than 1100 applications.

Yes you could say its a gamble to apply but if you don't you will never know.
There was a lot of movement in Yr 7 with girls leaving and entering right up until Christmas. I assume wait listed girls offered spots.
There are a few in year spaces that come up, I don't know if they maintain a wait list for different years. one of DD1 friends has left between yr 8 & yr 9 because they are a military family so moved to a new post.

It is a challenging time, more so this year. Good luck with whatever you chose to do. Glad we are done until we need to consider college/Sixth form.

Sorry for dodgy spellings - I'm dyslexic and tired....

Thanks, @tiggermummy70 !!

Hi @stclair , I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get in on a faith place and you are only 3.5 miles away. Can I ask did you attend church weekly for 5 years or were you in one of the other criteria (weekly for 3 years, or fortnightly). Thanks in advance

Hi @dinomum2020
We applied for a weekly for 5 years place, backed up by the vicar ! I think my dd was 50 on the waiting list . My guess is she got in the middle band where I suppose most of the applicants are.

Thanks @stclair

We are going to try for an open place; long shot but you never know. DD is going to for the Language Aptitude test tomorrow as well.

Anyone else there today? I felt there could have been more direction re: insisting on masks, no sharing of pencils etc. The pick-up was also a bit casual but perhaps our primary school is more stringent on one-way systems, dismissal in bubbles etc.

It's odd how we acclimatise to something and then get knocked when out of your comfort zone. ..

Does anyone know when you get the results for the language test?

Hi peacockfeather11..in the admissions policy it says the outcome of the test will be communicated within 2 weeks. So a few more days to swing on the torturous hope doubt hope doubt pendulum...

Thanks @cochola, but I thought it was a mistake because originally they said test was 13th but it was actually 23rd. Deadline for CAF is Friday. Very weird.

You will get a letter that says

Your daughter has been succesful in gaining on of the 15 language spots.
Or your daughter is unlikely to gain one of the spots.

Sure ours took nearly 3 weeks to arrive.
Pretty sure we didn't get it before the deadline to submit.

This year you are allowed to make changes to your admissions form up to 10th December. This will allow you to add or remove schools that have selective tests to allow for the late arrival of results due to Covid. It says this on the Westminster councils website. See www.westminster.gov.uk/transferring-to-secondary-school the Coronavirus paragraph.

My DD didn't get a place on the language test.

I haven't heard yet. Did you get a letter in the post or an email @peacockfeather11 ?

An email @dinomum2020.

I haven't heard either? Also agree with @dinosaurinmybelly that on the 23rd it was all a bit "messy". Does anyone know if in Southwark it works like in Westminster that we can change up until December like @dinomum2020 says? Thank you all for all the support and sharing of info you provided it's so appreciated!

Yes, Southwark say you can emai them up to 10 December to change school preferences based on aptitude test results. Its on this web page, just above half way down.

www.southwark.gov.uk/schools-and-education/school-admissions/secondary-admissions/applying-for-a-secondary-school-place

Thank you so much @dinomum2020!