Nervous about Secondary School allocations out this week!

[PinotLover]

Just another to thing to stress about but it's for my PFB so never been through it before. We find out on the 1st March, am being a silly stress head on here rather than in real life. Any one else? We are in the same postcode as the school we prefer, so it's a big deal if it goes wrong!

@pipsqueakbollock I don’t think that’s the case for grammar schools in my LA as I can see from another forum that people were getting waiting place offers in March last year.

I’m so anxious. We don’t have a grammar school option where I live. Our nearest school is an ‘over my dead body school’ (just 2% got 5 GCSEs at 5 or above) last year only 40 pupils went there - most probably the kids from our village and the next village who live just too far to get into our first choice school. I didn’t even preference that school.
My first choice is always over subscribed as excellent school but very unlikely to get as live just outside where the cut off usually is for distance - I put it anyway in the hopes I might be able to appeal. Second choice is also great school but Catholic and we are not Catholic so come very far down on the priority list. Our third choice is possibly my favourite school and is never oversubscribed but is in a village 10 miles away - it’s a pretty rural area which is why despite being a great school is undersubscribed as low population area. If we get third choice school we will have to move house closer to the school which isn’t ideal.
The only other option available was the school my eldest son started at before moving to a special school. They are apparently ‘outstanding’ but the way they treated my child was anything but! So I didn’t preference them. All the children in my child’s primary school are usually split 50:50 between our first choice and the outstanding school I didn’t pick but we live in a different village to the primary school.

That was long! - In a nutshell, feeling very anxious especially as the outcome could see us having to move house.

Just to give some words of encouragement to those not expecting their high preferences and hoping for waiting list movements:

Our situation last year was got offered 6th choice on 2nd March (our closest OK ish comp) . That was an admin error though as dd1 had passed an aptitude test for our 5th choice out of borough school. So that got sorted straight away thankfully! So we were expecting her to go to the 5th choice school.

In April we got offered our 3rd choice grammar school which was OOC. We had to decline as had planned to move house to reduce the 1.5 hour commute but due to covid we're unable to!

So we had been offered school 6, 5 and 3 by the end of Apirl.

In July we were all set to buy the new uniform for school 5, when lo and behold we got an offer for school 4 which was our 2nd closest school and my favourite!

So that's where dd1 has been since September. Schools 2 and 1 we never really had a good chance of her getting into due to popularity and distance (1) and score (2).

We are all very happy with how things worked out, although it was very stressful at the time going through all the waiting and uncertainty.

The thing I learnt is however much I tried to second guess things, you never really know what will happen 😉

[quote BunsyGirl]@pipsqueakbollock I don’t think that’s the case for grammar schools in my LA as I can see from another forum that people were getting waiting place offers in March last year.[/quote]
I may be wrong here so I'm prepared to be corrected, but I think the 'second round' thing differs by LEA, and some don't really have this and just offer to the next person on the waiting list as soon as a place is available. There are experts on here who can clarify that though!

I think it must vary between LAs. I asked for some info about September cut off distances and the person told me the waiting lists go to schools in July.

@ChildOfFriday Thanks. I think that what happens in my LA, or at least after 16 March when they publish the waiting lists. However, it doesn’t actually say it officially anywhere that I can see! So confusing!

@Vinorosso74 My LA waiting lists go up to 31 August....but what happens in between is not entirely clear

@Meredusoleil That’s a really positive outcome to hear. Thanks for sharing. I won’t buy my DCs uniform until the last minute of we’re still in a waiting list in the summer!

@BunsyGirl think we're in a similar position. The grammar we're waiting for normally offers out to around place 220 on offers day and we're over 300, so not close. But would have got a place in 3 out of the last 4 years by September. As far as I can tell there are normally offers throughout the summer term. But just no idea whether this year will be different or not. So hard to tell! That said we're very lucky to have a decent comprehensive option as our second choice which we should be in catchment for and would be happy with if the grammar doesn't work out.

What are grammar schools? We don't have them in my part of England

Is it the 1st March everywhere?

@Stokey I have everything crossed for you. My DS would have got into his first choice on 1 March last year but only by two marks and I know that a lot more have taken the 11plus in our area this year.

Our local comp is so bad that my friend who works at the school told me not to send my DCs there We have a second choice grammar that I would be happy with (but it’s much further away) and a third choice faith comp which is a reasonable school but it’s in the next county (even though we are in catchment) and DS would only know one person there - she’s a girl so he probably wouldn’t even talk to her . He’s not keen on it as it’s neither academic nor sporty and he’s both.

@starbrightstarlight8888 A type of academically selective state school. They used to be very common before they were largely abolished in the 60’s/70’s. Some counties retained a lot of them while others, like the one I live in, only kept a few. As a result, in my county, it’s very hard to get a place.

Waiting lists in my area of London seemed to move much less last year and last-distance-offered was smaller.

Movement happened early April and then the last week of the summer term and then the first two weeks of the new school year. But my anecdata is based around a bit of London where some people play the independent v certain prestigious state school game and may be irrelevant elsewhere.

Last year was a large cohort though and adding to that the COVID financial worries that maybe makes sense. Some waiting lists grew after 1 March.

I would say that I know children very happy in lower choice schools and others unhappy and removed from their first choice school. A year on and it seems unimportant although it was awfully stressful at the time.

@User5768

Is it the 1st March everywhere?

In England and Wales, yes.

Re waiting lists: by law, admissions year waiting lists have to be held until at least the 31 December of that year (so Dec 2021). After that, admissions authorities can choose what they do - some continue keeping a list until the end of yr7, some all through secondary, some swap to no list. Usually schools opt for the LA to keep the list to start with, as this is much easier all round for initial allocations, but they don't have to. Some then take it over themselves later.

However, exactly how waiting lists and new offers are differs. Some LAs will run "rolling lists" where places are given out as they are declined, whereas some have set dates on which further "rounds" of places are offered.

@BunsyGirl really good luck for your DD too, it's so competitive!

@Camdenish, thanks that's helpful to know. We're a bit further out but still would have similar criteria affecting us. Given we've got a good local option, I think if we haven't heard by the summer holidays, we'll decide to stick, although will be keen to see how much the waiting list moves.

[quote BunsyGirl]@starbrightstarlight8888 A type of academically selective state school. They used to be very common before they were largely abolished in the 60’s/70’s. Some counties retained a lot of them while others, like the one I live in, only kept a few. As a result, in my county, it’s very hard to get a place.[/quote]
Thank you. So there's a test to get in I presume?

@starbrightstarlight8888 Yes, there is. Commonly known as the 11 plus but it is not the same exam for every school/area. The exam my DS took is notoriously hard because the schools that we applied for are “super selective”.

[quote BunsyGirl]@starbrightstarlight8888 Yes, there is. Commonly known as the 11 plus but it is not the same exam for every school/area. The exam my DS took is notoriously hard because the schools that we applied for are “super selective”.[/quote]
As I understand it, super selective means that the schools select primarily by score (so someone who lives further away from the school but scores very highly will get in before someone who lives next door to it with a lower score) as opposed to having a set pass mark and then allocating places to everyone who gets above this mark by distance, regardless of whether the score is bang on the pass mark or far higher than it. It doesn't relate to the difficulty of the exam as far as I know, though I agree that it is very difficult to get into a super selective grammar and don't mean to undermine that at all! Best of luck to your DC

@ChildOfFriday For DC’s first choice you have to live within 12.5 miles to get an “in catchment” place. Only a small number of places are allocated for “out of catchment” boys and they require an even higher score. They make the exam harder and harder each year because the competition is so great and that’s the only way they can distinguish between candidates. It is incredibly difficult. We sent DN who got all 9’s at GCSE a copy of a recent test and she was like “oh my God”!!!

[quote BunsyGirl]@ChildOfFriday For DC’s first choice you have to live within 12.5 miles to get an “in catchment” place. Only a small number of places are allocated for “out of catchment” boys and they require an even higher score. They make the exam harder and harder each year because the competition is so great and that’s the only way they can distinguish between candidates. It is incredibly difficult. We sent DN who got all 9’s at GCSE a copy of a recent test and she was like “oh my God”!!![/quote]
I don't dispute that- as I said I wasn't trying to undermine the difficulty of the exam or of getting in I just wanted to clarify that the definition of super selective isn't the difficulty of the exam, but the method of selection. I believe there are grammars in Kent that are super selective but use the same exam as the 'standard' grammars, with the difference being that the super selectives select by score and the others by distance (providing you are over the pass mark). Some, like yours, have catchments and some disregard distance completely and just go by score.

@Stokey I’ve looked in my last years diary. Don’t right off hope till the first week of the summer holidays .

CamdenishAs you can tell from name I live nearish you. DD's 1st choice is Parli, we live 1.5 miles away. She would have got a place by July in 2019 but not in 2020. I know she won't get an offer there tomorrow so we'll be hoping waiting lists move. I do hope this year is a smaller cohort!!!

Thanks Camdenish! 🤞