Offers day: 1st March 2024

[Jbrown76]

Anyone nervous, slightly apprehensive?

No email but been on the portal and DD got her first choice which is a relief as the school is over subscribed. On mine it said offered and on the other 2 choices it said withdrawn and I was allowed to accept her place.

in Cheshire.

Our results were on the portal at 3am when I went for a wee. 3rd choice. Now on the waiting lists for 1 & 2.

Remember huge amount of movement between now and September. Don’t panic there’s still time. Children will end up at going fee paying etc, freeing up spaces down the line. It’s not over. Good luck

@Thewaitisover that sounds incredibly stressful. Please try not to panic. There will be lots of movement in the lists, I'm sure you will get a school you are happy with. Which area are you in?

Portal has no info, and no email has arrived either. I'm dying of suspense!

Good luck everyone, here's hoping we get the places we want 🙂

No news here yet

A record one in five pupils will miss out on their first-choice secondary school today amid a squeeze on places | Daily Mail Online

Daily Mail are quoting this is the year secondary applications have peaked due to high birth rates 10 years ago and hence they are expecting a higher number of children not to get their first choice.

I thought birth rates were falling year on year since 2010 and birth rates for this academic year are lower than last year and the year before?

I’ve always heard that 2012 was the peak year

@Garlicnaan @CheesecakeandCrackers @Thewaitisover and anyone else.

Sorry you didn't get your preferred schools.

The advice is always
. Accept your offered school. No harm comes from accepting.
. Appeal for any schools you think are preferable.
. To appeal you need to find things about the school you are appealing for that you think are better for your DC with reasons. You just need to show disadvantage of your DC not attending outweighs disadvantage to school of taking extra pupil.
. Things like extra curricular, subjects offered. You generally can't use Ofsted rating, GCSE results, travel, friends. e.g. DC plays violin, no orchestra at offered school, preferred school has orchestra and string quartets.
. If you want help from the appeal experts here, start your own threads with the word Appeal in the title rather than hiding questions on this thread.
. Be positive about allocated school to your DC, they may end up going there!

There can be lots of movement between now and September.

In theory if you came in the catchment area for last year then you should be ok for this year because the birth rates are lower for Sep 2012 - Aug 2013 than they were for Sep 2011 - Aug 2012.

UK birth rates hit lowest level since World War Two as just 11 in every 1,000 women give birth last year – The Sun | The Sun

That's for the whole of 2012 though - for school admissions it is only the children born after 1st September 2012 which will count.

OMG the birth rate thing has made me super anxious now, I'm going to be a wreck until the email comes out 5/6pm :(

@Juju Out of interest, are you situated in the SE of the county?

2012 was the really squeezed year round here where kids were waiting till late in the academic year for reception places (I had one doing secondary apps last year and another this year so have a fair comparison).

I've now had the "letter is available click here to download" email but the... website's crashed!

To appeal for a school you have to have applied for it, I think.
So if you want to appeal for a school ask to go on the waiting list for it.

This is just anecdotal... but this years "class" is definitely smaller thN previous years. I've done in year admissions several times for DDs... DD2 in this Yr6 has never had any problems getting a place. Her elder sister, in Yr8... it was always appeals and offers miles away. All their friends were the same. (It was a big discussion topic inthe military families!)

Yes our year 6 class is only 25 kids - was 23 at one point - whereas every other year is 30.

Email recieved... First choice where her sister attends. Not surprising.

Can start on uniform now (the generic bits like navy leggings which are harder to find than they sound!)

Deleted

Finally got onto the website to download the letter... we got our first choice which was sibling priority but heavily out of catchment as we'd moved since the eldest went there.

Definitely think it's the best fit for DD2 with her SEN and she knows a lot of the current Y7 already.

I can't concentrate on work with all the desperate email refreshing 😂

We won't know our result till 5pm (London)!

But I don't think I can function today at all!

I'm the same, we're in Hertfordshire and expecting our results in the afternoon. 🙃

Good luck everyone getting offers today. I was here the other year and we did not get our first or second choice (not unexpectedly, they were long shots based on distance criteria). We didn't really have grounds for appeal so just sat on the waiting list and eventually got an offer for our first choice in late August. I had some friends who got offers in the first couple of weeks of term as well. This was in London where there is definitely decent movement on the waiting list.

You do have to accept the offer they give you, even if you don't intend to take it up. We couldn't be told where we were on the waiting list until a bit after the deadline for offers and the initial waiting list moves. It was April before we knew. Started at 29 which sounded hopeless. Bounced up and down the waiting list all summer until eventually getting the place. It is agonising but we're very glad we held out.

Just to say again, I will keep an eye on this thread and will try to offer advice to anyone who is thinking of appealing. However, the most reliable way of getting advice from myself and other experts is to start your own thread with "appeal" in the title.