Secondary School offers

[Cocopopsss]

Having spoken to parents of classmates of DC, it seems like a lot of children in her class were offered a school low down on their list of preferences or even a school not listed!

I spoke to my local council’s admissions dept (different to DC school) and the placing said it was very difficult placing children this year as there had been a spike in the local population.

This is in the West Midlands. I’m curious about other areas as I really felt for the kids/parents given a random, far flung school.

Anyone with some insight into this?

With the way housing has been cropping up without the supporting infrastructure yes its getting harder and harder each year I think to place kids.

However I think its also important to remember that sometimes the scenarios are self inflicted to a point.

Here In bucks for example you get 6 spaces. That usually gives you enough room for a couple you really want but are unlikely to get and a banker or 2 that you are garunteed to get as a safety net so to speak.

So fir arguments sake first time round I listed my dds ( 15) school 5th amd my catchment school 6th.

So on the outside it appears I got 5th choice but there were only 2 possibilities listed that I had a chance with and out of those I got the top one

Parents can often be less than truthful with what they say re their applications. Assuming they will get their catchment school so not listing it and not being realistic with any of the other selections so it appears they have been extremely unlucky being put in a school they didn't list miles away but then that's what potentially happens when you don't put one or 2 that you are very likely to get.

I've known.people only.list 1 thinking they will almost force the situation.

As a result I think its Difficult to gauge from talking to people how dire the situation is.

Probably best to wait for the individual counties to upload their data. Many will post the number of applications and the numbers if students granted first choice etc

Details out fir bucks so far, a very surprising number of " all applicants offered"

There was a BBC article earlier this week saying some city areas had seen an unexpected drop in applications so maybe people are moving out of those areas to get better housing and wfh. Councils are really limited in creating school places so if their long term planning has been thrown out either by wfh or new housing, there can be a problem.

29/31 children in DDs class are going to the same school. The catchment school (as in fixed priority area) at which they attend a formal feeder school for.
Not sure if this replicated across the town for First choice places, our catchment school is usually one of the most sought after.

Our council publish a table of all the allocation data showing how places were allocated and how many missed out and according to which criteria. It's v interesting but locally to us demonstrates that people get their catchment school and have v little chance of anything else. "Choice" is an illusion.

All my sons class and it's a form and a half got into the feeder high school.

There was a birth rate spike in 2010/2011 so this may explain strain on school places. Here in London it has been balanced out with the drain of people leaving the capital over the pandemic. One of our local councils has released offers data already and it looks fairly typical to me. Most of my child's classmates who may realistic selections got what they wanted. There are a few disappointed parents but I know they made unrealistic choices.

Our high school couldn't even offer to all the kids in catchment (probably courtesy of the 2 new large housing estates recently built). So they filled up on category one, looked after children and partially on cat two which is catchment. It's a BIG school, over 2000 pupil spaces and another 1200 at a second overflow campus.

My friend is a teacher there and says she has never known an admissions year like it.

My son didn't get in, but my 13yo goes there. So now I have 3 kids in 3 different schools

Agree with what @Whatwouldscullydo said. How realistic were their choices? If many people failed to put an unpopular local school on their list, but chose further away schools instead, they ran the risk of getting a further away school if the unpopular local school filled up with those people who did put it on their form.

Of course, they might genuinely have been unlucky due to population size in their area. We're also in the West Midlands and we don't have catchment areas. I know of one area in which in some years people have put their six most local schools on their form and got none of them, but it's rare.

There wil be some movement due to places being declined by those going private.

Councils should have had an idea of expected numbers - they get a census every year of the number of children in the primary schools, so they will have known if there is a big year 6, and should have been working to make sure there were enough spaces. Unfortunately now that very few schools are under LA control, I think they have to persuade individual schools to take an extra class - they can't just impose it. Our LA's allocation information shows that they have gone above the PAN in several schools, with the agreement of the schools involved - they've added about 130 places.

If councils have got it tight, then by the time the private school kids are taken out of the system, there should hopefully be spaces for everyone, and maybe some movement between the schools reducing the numbers having to travel a long way.

Bulge years can mean that the schools that normally get ropey intakes get much better balanced intakes, which can mean better value-added for everyone.

I could have put 6 choices on my list that I had no hope of getting into quite easily, some of them even quite close to my house. I got the sense that most people I know were quite sensible and even if we risked a few outside chances at the top of our list, put in a banker we’d be happy with. You can’t really read anything into the fact we got our third or fourth choices.

One school has caused a bit of heartache by not taking from nearly as wide an area on distance as last year, but I think last year was an odd one for them.

I could have put 6 choices on my list that I had no hope of getting into quite easily, some of them even quite close to my house

I actually think people seem to mistake the nearest school for the catchment which is obviously not always the case.

If this is a common theme in some areas perhaps they need to make it clearer on the website and/or enclose this information with any paper copies requested.

I know om my council website it will.list the schools and say of its catchment and list the distance .

Ironically my catchment schools have both for primary and secondary school have been the furthest away from the other nearby ones listed.

I know some people do deliberately try to game the system.somehow with all the " tricks" about refusing to.list more than one or Listing the same one 6 times or whatever.

But it seems.clesr every year that alot of people genuinely don't appear to know how things work and get themselves into.awkward situations.

Not helped when the head teachers of schools give incorrect info too.

We have two lottery entry schools, with 50 places in each. About 20-25 spaces at each taken by siblings...
People put them at 1&2, know its highly unlikely and perfectly happy with their actual catchment school.

We don’t have any catchment schools @Whatwouldscullydo. There are a few all through schools who will automatically prioritise places for those moving up from the primary site. But generally it’s going to come down to distance. Some schools have got a lot more popular so you have to live pretty close to get in under the distance criteria. But it can change year on year, there’s no guarantee.

I'm assuming they are academies?

Yes that's another huge issue . The ability to set their own admission criteria can lead to massive black holes where no one in particular areas qualifies fir any of them

2 in DTs year haven't got a place, but they put all their eggs in one basket with private / grammar, no bankers. Now they're stuffed.

@Whatwouldscullydo Apologies if I've misunderstood your posts (very possible!) but a school not having a catchment area doesn't necessarily mean it is an academy that has set its own admissions criteria. Set catchments and a defined catchment school for each address only apply in some areas. In others, there are no set catchments, and the admission criteria of almost all schools there will generally be something along the lines of: Children who are/have been in LAC, siblings, everyone else in order of the distance they live from the school. The distance each school offers to can obviously vary hugely based on the size of the school/popularity/population density/other factors. As you said, this can sometimes lead to 'black holes' where people do not live close enough to any of their nearby schools to get in despite listing them on their form.

Yes, what @ChildOfFriday describes is how it works here. Some of the schools are academies and some not, but no catchments. There’s a few that have a small number of places for music/sport aptitude, and a few religious schools that will offer a set number of faith based places. But the main admission rules are LAC/siblings/distance.

Yeah I'm in Bucks so used to the notion of being surrounded by schools yet unable to access any of them. It's almost as if councils are averse to providing for their residents. Also has a knock in effect I think on thr traffic in the area. Kids having to travel by bus or car across town past other schools to get to theirs. Meanwhile kids from.miles away get bused/driven in for the faith/grammar schools.

Whole thing is bonkers. Entirely avoidable too.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

We have two lottery entry schools, with 50 places in each. About 20-25 spaces at each taken by siblings... People put them at 1&2, know its highly unlikely and perfectly happy with their actual catchment school.

Doncaster?

@TheHoptimist yes. We decided against them personally though.

Apparently ninety-something % got first choice, and a further 5% one of their preferences.

But there is a child in DSs school who has got random required improvement in the next town.

It won’t be random though - there will be a reason why they got allocated that school

I’m so frustrated this week about people complaining on local Facebook pages that their child didn’t get into the desired secondary school and have been allocated a random requires improvement school in the next town. Loads of people pile on and say “it’s so not fair hun”

You dig a bit further and it transpires a) they only moved 2 months ago or b) they actually live in the next town but thought by only listing the desired school would guarantee a place

You have to remember that you’re not making a choice, you’re expressing a preference. The starkest illustration of that is the example given above of parents only listing one school on the application. That doesn’t give them any leverage or extra priority; if they don’t meet the oversubscription criteria (or don’t meet them as well as other applicants) they won’t get a place.