On the eve of GCSE results can anyone help me with some questions about the process for state sixth form applications and enrolment?

[MsFogi]

DD has a few offers or could stay at her current school (it is all a bit complicated by distance of school and subject combinations she can/cannot take at the various schools - none are perfect). This is our first time doing sixth form enrolment and I wonder if anyone who has inside knowledge/has been there before can help me with a couple of queries:

1. can dd enrol in more than one and then choose over the coming week? I ask this because of the oversubscription criteria - I am concerned that if she enrols for the one with the highest offer (assuming she gets the grades) she still may end up without place there if they apply their oversubscription criteria over the coming week - so I would have thought the sensible option would be to enrol there and at her current school (where the grades required are lower and she will benefit from their oversubscription criteria re being at the school already)? I am unclear if there is some central 'register' so that enrolling more than one place would cause havoc or if it is not a joined-up system.


2. if she doesn't have an offer from a school but gets the required grades I take it she can contact them and let them know her results - do they then have to apply their oversubscription criteria or do they just prioritise those who have offers in accordance with their oversubscription criteria?

And if anyone has any other insight about 'stuff' I may not have thought of I'd be very grateful!

In my experience, you can accept offers from multiple schools prior to results BUT once the results come in, that is the time to choose.

Surely you check if whichever school you want most has offered her a place, and if so, accept that. If not, then you check the 2nd favourite and so on.

If you accept a place you aren't taking up, then some other pupil is left without a place.

Again, IME, the whole system isn't joined up at all (like school admissions for Primary and for Secondary Year 7 places) .

I don't know if my experience is the same across the country, but hopefully this will bump your thread for you.

My DD wanted to do this - try a couple of days at each place that had accepted her for Year 12! I said sorry you can't do that, that's what taster days were for (although technically a good idea!) and at some point you have to make a choice!
If they get better grades than they thought then yes they can check with the place that either rejected them / or they didn't apply to

Thanks MumsofSpud - she wouldn't start at two. My concern is that the one she is most likely to want to go to has a deadline to enrol of 4pm tomorrow and after that they apply the oversubscription criteria and let her know 'within a week' if she has a place (so potentially even if she has the offer grades she could be told by that sixth form that she doesn't have a place sometime next week). In the meanwhile, her current school has a deadline of midday on Friday to enrol. So what I am thinking is that she should enrol at both - if the first confirms her place next week she can let her current school know she's withdrawing her enrolment -but I am worried that otherwise she could end up with nowhere!!

There's loads of movement within the first couple of weeks of sixth form, some kids on your register never turn up, some turn up and then disappear, new kids appear. It's not uncommon for a sixth former to change their mind about their course or the establishment!

Op surely if she enrols at her top choice (which suggests that she achieves the grades required) then she is enrolled.

Pretty sure they cannot then say oh sorry, no place after all. If there are oversubscripton criteria then they must be applied before that stage.

AFAIK there is no kind of central system. Ds2 had two offers he was holding but went for his ks4 school.

Once you have enrolled it's courteous to let any other settings know.

Thanks Kite22 - I agree with you however the schools my dd has offers at all over oversubscription criteria which they will apply after everyone enrols tomorrow/Friday so to me it all seems stacked to ensure the schools fill their places but potentially leaves my dd without a place if she doesn't have a back-up in case the over-subscription criteria doesn't go her way (in particular with priority for current students of schools she is applying to and of staying at her current school (which is probably not her preferred option but would be okay if all else fails)).

Hi OP, No, there isn’t a central register and this can make it difficult, especially if students don’t show up at the beginning of term. Not sure if some local authorities or schools may try to share data locally.

Some schools and colleges have closing dates for on time applicants and then only look at late applicants after they have dealt with the on time applicants who have met the oversubscription criteria. If she applies late it will depend if they have places left on the courses she wants to study.

Please don’t hang on to multiple offers, it may mean someone else loses out and it makes curriculum planning more difficult and has implications for school funding.

I hope she is happy with her results tomorrow!

Ah sorry OP just seen your second post. Never heard of a system like that. Doesn't sound great tbh.

Thanks clary - around here the offers all make very clear that they are all subject to application of over subscription criteria if needed and also subject to sufficient numbers enrolling for the subjects (which is a concern for dd who wants to do a modern language which seems to have low numbers in all schools). I certainly won't allow dd to hold places for longer than needed but I equally don't want her to take a risk on having no place if there is oversubcription/lack of numbers on a subject. So I am trying to work out if it is possible for her to potentially accept two places tomorrow and decide as soon as she gets confirmation from the preferred choice.

I would think It is very unlikely her current school would turn her away if she did end up turned away from her 1st choice, especially if she has much higher than required grades. Do most 6th forms actually get over subscribed? Dd is at 6th form in a massively o er subscribed school but the 6th form seems to have a lot more ability to take people on

There is no central register at sixth form and, realistically, as long as she has the grades she can enrol where she likes tomorrow and then decide (not advocating this but just making it clear that at sixth form - applicants have the upper hand).

How likely is it the various places will actually be oversubscribed?

I mean, they have to have a system and criteria, yes. But if I’m practice they’ve never had to apply the criteria then is it worth angsting about?

By us, you’d pretty much get in if you got the grades and wanted to get in. Lots of kids don’t go on to sixth form so it’s not like applying for primary or secondary.

Yh what @NoSquirrels said. Can't imagine there being huge numbers tbh. Does he preferred sixth form usually have a lot more enrolling than there are places?

Yay that she wants to do MFL tho - which one op?