I really don’t understand the secondary school admissions - please demystify this for me.

[CultureShockInTheSameCountryIsReal]

We moved house over the summer to London for work reasons. We came from a part of the country where almost everyone goes to their catchment school and for secondary we have 2 schools in town so you go to the one you are catchmented to on the map. Most people know the schools their children will go to before they are even born. I know in other parts of the country demand in places is higher but, over the summer, when we applied for a Y6/primary place I had my first education culture shock. I applied for the 6 closest schools and got none of them and offered a school for the kids miles away.

Anyways, fast forwarding, eldest one Y6 and I’ve been looking at admissions. I am so confused. I know I have to apply for 6 schools on genuine order of preference. I’m looking through the books and the find a school government website and half the schools on the website aren’t even in the book so are we allowed to apply for them? There’s these things called banding tests which apparently determine whether you get a place on ability - are these grammar schools? Can you only apply for them if you do a test? Most of the schools are faith schools which need either a feeder school or 2+ yeas or church attendance which we don’t, and never will, have. I don’t understand how to navigate this system. I am so lost. I just want my children to go to the local school but I cant find any catchment maps to say what our catchment is.

London doesn't have catchments. Admissions are complicated!

Banding tests - everyone needs to sit them and then they offer places in each band. It is meant to keep the intake more representative of the whole population. You would need to find out how/when you register for the test but don't need to prepare.

Faith schools - if they don't fill all their places, they will offer on distance but often they don't get to that.

You could consider posting your rough location and people may be able to help with specifics. I'm not sure about the book/website discrepancy but it might be to do with the LA e.g. if you live in Lambeth you can apply to schools nearby in Southwark but they aren't run by Lambeth so not in their booklet.

You should ask for help from your primary school to explain it. They might be able to tell you which schools their pupils frequently move on to.
Talk to the other parents - find out which schools they are applying for.
You have to apply via the borough you live in but can apply to any schools in London. The information your borough provides will only list their schools.
If you go online and look up "Secondary Schools in.....and name the boroughs next to yours you will get a list of them.
Secondary schools in London don't have catchments. They will have different admission criteria. Distance to the school is usually one of the criteria and it's based on how close you live rather than whether it's in your borough.

Banding tests are used by some schools, the theory being they have an intake across academic abilities. Your DC will need to do them if the school requires it. Schools such as Camden School for Girls do this around now so you would need to contact them. Hackney does them borough wide but at a later date.
Boroughs usually have a secondary school admissions brochure online and they detail all the schools and admissions criteria. These also contain the cut off distance for the previous year or two. You will be able to find your distance from a particular school on the council website for that school.
One thing I will add, waiting lists, in inner London at least, move a lot after offer day.

Yes, you can apply freely to schools in other boroughs. The book you're given will only have your borough's schools in it, so if you're close to the boundary, definitely look online for the neighbouring borough's booklet.

You'll need to read the admissions policy carefully for each school you are considering. Some admit on distance alone, some do the banding thing, some admit on the strength of a particular religion and a few on the result of an academic test (grammar schools).

The grammar schools in London (unless you're in Kent) are few and far between and extremely competitive to get in.

Work out which schools your child stands a realistic chance with: eg. there may no point applying for the Catholic school at the end of your road, unless you're baptised and practicing Catholics. And if your child is in Y6 already, you are likely to have missed the pre-registration for the grammar school tests (which mainly take place this month) so you might be able to cross them off too.

If it's not clear in the booklet, you may need to contact your local admissions office or the schools themselves to work out which ones you're in with a chance for. They will be able to tell you the maximum distance admitted last year or which number of their criteria they got down to. I know that round here, although there are perhaps 6 schools within walking distance, there are only a couple we'd stand a chance with because we don't meet the criteria for the others which all have a churchy slant, or admit on distance and the places are likely to go to those who live closer.

Top tip - consider whether the school offers sibling priority: if it does, it may save you from going through all this again in years to come.

The government list includes independent schools, i.e. schools you have to pay to attend. Depending on how you search, it may also include schools in neighbouring boroughs. Your LA's website will have a list of schools to which you can apply within your borough. It will not include independent schools or schools in neighbouring boroughs. If you want to look at neighbouring boroughs, check their websites too. You can apply for schools in neighbouring boroughs through your own LA.

Banding tests are not about getting places on ability. A school using fair banding is not a grammar school. The idea of fair banding is to ensure that the school gets pupils of all abilities. Those who take the test will be put into bands based on their score then an equal number will be admitted from each band. Imagine, for example, a school with 270 places available that uses 9 bands in their banding system. If there are 900 applicants, the banding test will put 100 in each band and then 30 will be admitted from each band. Those in the lowest band have the same chance of getting a place as those in the highest band.

If you want to apply to a school that uses fair banding, your child will need to take the test. However, there is no pass mark for this test. If your child scores 0, they will go into the lowest band and will have the same chance of getting a place as a child that gets the maximum possible score.

You may be able to get a place at a faith school without attending a feeder school and without church attendance. Applicants who meet these requirements get priority, but if there aren't enough of them to fill all the places the remaining places will be offered to applicants that don't meet these requirements. Indeed, some faith schools reserve a number of places for non-faith applicants. This will be set out in their admission criteria.

Most schools in England do not have formal catchment areas. They generally use the distance from home to school as a tie breaker. The LA should be able to tell you the distance for the last pupil admitted last year. Some LAs include this information on their website. When people talk about a school's catchment, they generally mean the area within that distance from the school. It can vary enormously from year to year.

Very importantly… YOU MUST INCLUDE A SCHOOL THAT YOUR CHILD WILL GET INTO.

Apologies for the capitals, but this is crucial. Your local school might be truly appalling… but it’s better than the same school 15 miles away.

Are you on a class WhatsApp or do you have any parents you can talk to? Many parents are obsessed by all of this at the start of Year 6, and many others will have older kids, so there should be quite a few people who know. If not, the local authority usually publishes a very detailed booklet including distances that people got in from last year and other requirements, and if that's still confusing then you can call to speak to the school you like and they can explain how best to apply and if you have a chance

They key thing is to understand is the furthest distance people got into each school to guess your chances. Good to look at a couple of years to see if it moves.

Then there are schools with banding tests - to ensure a spread of ability but also have seen comments that it excludes certain sections of the community because you need to be organised etc to apply and sit it.

Grammar schools if you are in certain areas - they will often have a priority area and scores outside that need to be very high.

Faith schools - is they are high performing probably no chance of getting in unless you meet criteria.

Some schools may select on other criteria - eg music / drama and have their own tests for that.

Anything that's not a straight distance application will have additional forms to complete - maybe with different deadlines.

In my daughters 2 form intake primary I believe there was about 20 different secondary school destinations this year. (It's a church primary so people are spread out a little and won't automatically all get in to the same secondary anyway)

I definitely wouldn’t discuss secondary schools with other parents. They are not neutral. They may see you as competition. They may hate a school based on something they read, or saw 20 years ago. They may love a school, purely because it’s seen as the most desirable school in the area.

About schools themselves people have biases, but clearly the OP doesn't understand the fundamentals of the application process, which most people are pretty aligned on. Do you truly feel that so many parents see others as competition that they'd mislead people on this, when there are hundreds of spaces and many more hundreds of kids applying for each year in most secondaries.

At my kids' London state school there was loads of discussion around this, plenty of opinions about schools but no misinformation about process. OP have you also asked your child? The kids normally also hear a fair bit about where friends are going.

Secondary school applications in London are an absolute nightmare and you are unlucky that the timing of your move meant that your child is already in year 6.
Can you speak to your child's teacher and ask for specific advice/ information?
There must be a process for people in your predicament.
Maybe start a new thread with a bit more information about your location in the title? Local parents can offer advice.
For me it is a distant memory of a very stressful time.

I'm glad you posted this OP. I am in London with a child only in Y2 but already I'm getting anxious as we've moved into an area with no school in which would be included by distance. And now I've no idea how to go about it.

Nearest school is amazing but insanely catholic and requires mass attendance forms so no chance.

Lots of kids on our road seem to go into another borough using an aptitude test.

I don't even know where to start.

Where in London are you? That may help with advice.

Start now by gathering all the information from your local council, find each school on a map, read the admission criteria for each school and make a list.
Things can change, obviously, but if you start now you will have the framework ready for the start of year 5. You also need to include distance and transport in your list.
You need to be ready to do open evenings in year 5.

@Since you aren't at your most local primary, I'd also try to be out near home around school coming home time one afternoon. Look at the uniforms that you see most of, and work out what schools the majority of local kids attend.

Type your postcode into Locrating to see which secondaries are near you.

https://www.locrating.com/

As others have said, you’ll get more focused responses if you say roughly where you are (which borough). There is plenty of London knowledge on here.

Also don’t overlook the help available from your local council - e.g. (randomly picked) here is Camden council’s schools admissions page with relevant links and info about a Y6 parent information evening next week:

https://www.camden.gov.uk/school-admissions-general

There’s some really great advice here which is helping to clear things up so thank you to everyone so far. I’m at work but later on today I will go through this a bit more methodically, digest the information and reply/ask questions properly rather than rushing.

I think for the time being, the main asked question is about the borough - we are Westminster but also near Camden and I think it’s Brent?

For Westminster -

Starting secondary school from September 2024 | Westminster City Council

you may have seen that already but it will give you a guide to Westminster schools, their admissions criteria and past distances allocated, as well as admissions arrangements such as banding tests .

Depending on where you live, you may realistically be close enough to other boroughs, who will have their own websites with the relevant information .

Do you have a boy, girls? Do you have a preference for single sex or co-ed?

Do any of them have a particular ability? Languages, art, music, sport?

The area you are in has schools like GreyCoat - all girls with a language aptitude test, or Camden School For Girls that has a music aptitude test.

For secondary they don't all need to go to the same school - it's quite common in London to pick different ones for each child.

I'm in Haringey, north London, and I think my primary school had a list of local open evenings in September and October, which should come out this week or next week. You can look on the schools pages of your council website. Generally schools don't have a "catchment area" and where schools are oversubscribed, admissions will be on distance, and students need to live very close to some of those schools, in very affluent areas with lots of professional parents, and apparently a lot of private tuition.

I'm on the much less middle class side of my borough, much too far from those schools up to GCSE, though we do have gentrification and parents with a very good education themselves. DS1 has done quite well at GCSE at our very local 11-16 comprehensive, and is sad to have had to change schools, but probably has a bigger choice of subjects by having to go elsewhere (he has gone to a secondary school's expanded sixth form on the posh side of the borough with an intake of students from across the borough and its neighbours and a record of quite good results at A level).

You could also try seeing if there are local parents' groups on Facebook, for example.

We live in an area where three boroughs meet meaning we'll have to apply for schools in three boroughs. It's so tricky.

Thank you for all these replies. This is really helpful. I’m going methodically through all the replies so I will provide information throughout the evening as I read a few replies, think about them, provide the info or ask a further question. It might seem a little bitty but I will definitely cover all points/questions asked so all the relevant information required to help us is available.

Banding tests - I understand the purpose of banding now so happier - will make sure I know when the dates are for those tests. Seems a bit bonkers to me but I can almost sort of see the logic - maybe. We won’t be applying for real grammar schools. It was never on the radar because we don’t have them where we moved from. They were always this mythical creature which existed in the south and didn’t concern us. I honestly don’t understand the driver to apply and go on such long journeys considering the quality of the schools in London. However, I’m saying that from an I’ve only every know the comprehensive go to your local school system in a part of the country where negative progress is the norm and a pass rate of 29% is considered excellent point of view.

You should ask for help from your primary school to explain it. They might be able to tell you which schools their pupils frequently move on to.

I shall do this, although my DC are at primary school in a different borough and are a few miles away so the schools the rest of the class move into might not be relevant but speaking through the process with someone will definitely help.

Admissions brochures - someone has kindly provided a link to Westminster and I have the one for Brent so I just need to find the Camden one online. My DS brought the Brent one home from school yesterday, the same one the majority of the class had taken home with them, which is why I was getting confused. Not his fault. He wasn’t to know he needed to pick the Westminster pack up as well (and neither did I so it’s all good).

@PictureFrameWindow you only apply via your "home" borough - but can include the schools in the other boroughs. You only apply once (but with 6 choices).

@sjj28358 I thought sibling priority came as standard - this is certainly something I wasn’t expecting. Thanks for the tip.

I do need to read through the admissions properly, but I take it from what you said, that my plan to name a couple of the faith based schools because they are close is not necessarily a wise thing to do?
Would you say, that without being able to tick boxes for faith feeders and church attendance that applying for faith schools might be a waste of time/ a choice best left for a school we have more chance at?