In-year place at Brighton secondaries

[lubbalubba]

We're looking at moving to Brighton, ideally to a catchment of one of Varndean, Dorothy Stringer, Patcham (like everyone else, it seems :))

The main snag is that our eldest child will be in year 8 when we move. I'm struggling to get any sense of how likely we'd be to get an in-year place at any of these schools. As in, is it a handful of kids on the in-year waiting lists each year, or eighty?

I phoned the council but they couldn't give me any solid info, they just said to apply at the time and see. So maybe it's a how-long-is-piece of-string question.

But any other insight in how much of a gamble this might be is much appreciated.

Our child's current secondary school is great but that's pretty much the only good thing about where we live now.

Thanks!

Us admissions types are always extremely vague when we're asked these types of question - you might buy a house on the strength of us telling you there was a place in a school! imagine if someone else snagged the place before your application was processed.

We can't see in to the future and so we can't tell you if there will be places when you apply.

What we can say is

• the borough has a duty to find you a school place within reasonable distance - but it may not be a school of choice - you will be given something though
• you will be slotted in to the waiting list based on the admissions criteria, not placed at the bottom based when you applied so knowing how many people there are on the list won't help you.

Bump

Lubba pls let us know how you get on? We will be in the same situation in 2024.

Thanks very much @schooladmission, and apologies, I must have missed the notification telling me I'd had a reply!

Totally understand that admissions depts wouldn't want to give out info that might give people a false impression, and that demand for school places varies over time.

I'm really just trying to get a broad sense of whether there's a remotely feasible chance we'd get an in year place at one of the schools we like, or whether it's hugely unlikely, and therefore how big a gamble it might be to move to Brighton.

Eg, say, over the past five years, how many in-year applicants have successfully got a place at each Brighton school.

Breeder - will report back if we do take the plunge and move.

And would still love to hear any other advice/experiences here.