Secondary school place allocation - 1 March

[LilySLE]

How is everyone feeling about the fact that we find out tomorrow which secondary school our Year 6 children will be going to?

I am wondering whether to stay up till midnight to wait for the email 🙈

I think this is exactly the reason

In our area a lot of people eg put a massively over subscribed school down as an outside chance.
They get pref 2 which is a great school. (or others). The wait list for pref1 is like 200 kids.
But then most decide to stick with the good school they got allocated as kids have it in their heads etc and they know loads of others going there. They get the info pack and welcome info etc
Pref1 then has loads of private school kids decline their place.. and start working down their list... in my DCs year pref1 school were still offering people at no40 on the list by Oct.. and everyone I know then turned it down ..,

Got our results, 5th school on the list - not a bad school but miles away (30 mins on the bus) and also a school not one of my sons friends are going to. He is very upset. No idea whether to accept it, or wait for the (very small) chance of getting in to our first choice school all the local kids are trying to get to. Its really crap, this school is just under 1km from us - but too far, apparently as we need to be 300-400m away from it - they are very strict on their catchment requirements. We are in London.

If there’s one thing I have learned from this post it is that things are not the same the country over. However, as far as I’m aware, as other posters have said, it’s always best to accept the place you have been offered - and then go about seeing whether you can better it (by going on a waiting list; going private; whatever)? I don’t think accepting the place at the 5th preference school should preclude you going on the wait list for school 1 - but I appreciate things may be different in London??

For context, the school we have been allocated is a 40 min bus ride away plus a 15 min or so walk to the bus stop. School 1 was not dissimilar. These schools are miles better than the ones in our local town and it’s just the price we have to pay. Frustrating if you do have a closer and better school though!

Hello, can I jump in & ask a question?

I keep reading about 'Accepting the offer'. How do I do this?

I received notice that my child has our first choice of school this morning but it just says that I will now be contacted by the school, I can't see anywhere that I have to accept it? I don't want to lose the place (Sorry if I'm being thick!)

You may well not have to - many LAs assume acceptance. Their website should say what the process is now.

Thank you PatriciaHolme I was just panicking reading this thread & then I thought 'It's nearly midnight, what if I have to accept by midnight?!'

It says 'If your child has been offered a school place in (our county) then the school will contact you directly to discuss arrangements for September'

Things aren’t different in London- @localnotail as LilySLE says you most definitely need to accept the place you’ve been offered. This doesn’t stop you going on the waiting list for the school you prefer and doesn’t in any way reduce your chances of being offered it. If you reject the place you’ve been offered the LA have done their duty and don’t need to offer you anything else. As others have said, always accept the place you are offered today, even if you intend to use waiting lists or appeal for a school you prefer, unless you are prepared to home educate or go private.

@LilySLE I’m not sure which LA you are in but I’ve only heard of Hertfordshire using the system where you are automatically given a place at schools you are on the waiting list for and losing your original place without being asked, but it unfortunately seems to be becoming more common. I really dislike it and it risks going against the Admissions Code as others have said. The majority of LAs will contact you if a place comes up at a school you are on the waiting list for and give you a few days to decide whether you want to accept or stick with your original school.

@ThatBeverleyMacca thanks... I will accept and go on the waiting list.

But I feel awful, like I made a mistake? The school we are offered is not amazing, just a good new academy; and its so far away... there is another academy near us which was the last on my list, I put it on just in case - not a great school, ok academically but not inspiring, attended by mainly real inner city type kids. But now I'm wondering if its worth for my son to travel that far for a slightly better school? Should I have considered this school? I could have never imagined we would not get into any of the top preferred schools. He is distraught, most of his friends go to these schools. Just feels so unfair - because we live slightly further away (((

No, catchment and distance are different things. A catchment area is a set map of an area that gets priority admission to a school, and some whole LAs will use this system. The admissions criteria will usually be something along the lines of children in catchment with a sibling at the school, other children in catchment, children out of catchment with a sibling, other children out of catchment by distance. Catchment boundaries are not usually circular so some children who are nearer to the school by distance will be ‘out of catchment’ and some further away will be in catchment.

Other schools and areas use distance from the school rather than a set catchment area. People sometimes colloquially refer to the distance reached that year as the catchment but this distance will change every year.

I really sympathise- I know school admissions are really tough to go through and there are some hard decisions. If you decide that you prefer the nearer school I believe it should be possible to ask to go on the waiting list for that school too. Don’t lose hope though as waiting lists can move a lot before September, especially in an area like London where there will probably be more people moving, etc.

I really don't understand your point. If there is a designated catchment for given school then the distance criteria are used within catchment and not outside it. Even if acceptance distance is smaller than catchment it is still within catchment and never outside. That is why the idea of catchment have been set up.
Therefore, catchment and distance work together as a part and parcel.

@ILickedItSoItsMine My point was just that a defined catchment area and using distance are different admissions systems used by different schools and areas. You talked about London using catchments, then others said that most of London doesn’t have set catchment areas and uses distance from the school and you said “Yes, this is catchment” so I wasn’t clear if you understood that some areas have set catchment areas for schools, which is different from using distance from the school. Yes, they work together in that most schools that use set catchment areas offer using distance within catchment and then outside it if there are places left.

@ILickedItSoItsMine you can live a mile from my DDs school and be out of catchment, or live 5 miles away in a different direction and be in catchment. So children further away can be given places before ones closer. Whereas on just distance arrangements, the child further away would lose out to the one closer.

(This is fair system for here... its every village has a catchment school, but the schools aren't spread out evenly. The children a mile away go to another school in their own village)

My point was just that a defined catchment area and using distance are different admissions systems used by different schools and areas.

Not really. There are schools that arebusing both at the same time: catchment and distance. And there is a logic to it. Do not oversimplify

You talked about London using catchments, then others said that most of London doesn’t have set catchment areas and uses distance

Not quite

E.g. Tiffin Girls have catchment Designated Inner and Outer area + they use combination of distance and passing mark. If several passed at the same level then distance is used. But all got to be within catchment. And different percentage is applied to different catchments

E.g. Turing school. Even if open their document Pattern of admission 2023 you see catchment and then within those they offer basing on proximity to school and proximity to so called nodal point in the split 20-80 perc

E.g Catholic schools. Catchment are parishes and they offer randomly across parishes if there is more candidates than places. or they have specific order in which parishes go, or it is distance but within catchments

There is no such thing as "only distance in London". In London there are many many schools with variety of rules

I am getting the sense that there is a difference on this point in / outside of London.

Where I live (not London), and I believe in many other LAs outside London, catchment areas are a real thing, and they work independently from distance from the school.

A catchment area is a red line on a map that has been set as the area that that school has been built and designed to serve (eg as part of the planning permission process for a new school). The aim - although not always achieved - is that all children within the red line should in theory be able to secure a place, and only after that has occurred will any remaining places be offered up to children who live outside the red line.

The extent to which children outside the red line will then be able to secure a place will depend on the admissions criteria for the school in question, and may or may not be linked to distance from the school (tho distance is often used as the ultimate tiebreaker).

Even within the red line, if the school is oversubscribed and there is not enough room for all the children within the catchment area, distance may not be the deciding factor. Again, it will depend on the school’s admissions criteria, but it is very common for other factors such as siblings, feeder schools, etc, to trump distance in these circumstances.

Exactly. You described it very well. And yes, in London many schools are using it.

And it's no wonder parents get confused / misunderstand admissions as even within one LA they can all differ. Which really is madness. I know in our city it does lead to those who don't fully understand the system / don't speak English etc getting the worst schools to an extent

@ILickedItSoItsMine I didn’t say it was only distance in London at all I know that there are many different admissions rules in school in London, which can be fairly complex.

You are exactly right. Even my mother struggled to understand how school admissions work these days (“you’d better hurry up and put X’s name down then”; “surely you live too far away to get in there”; etc).

I feel really strongly about this. The system is too complicated, it’s inconsistent (as this thread has shown), and inaccessible. And then you find that because only certain people have the time or the inclination to wade their way through it, it self perpetuates.

The data is out there to make informed decisions, but you have to go looking for it. I am a total geek and I did masses of research; I looked at admissions criteria for all the schools I was interested in, worked out which criterion we would be eligible for (different in the case of each school), then went back 5 years and looked at the historic admissions data to see how often children from our admissions criterion had been admitted. And that’s before you get into comparing the academic performance statistics, which is another opaque exercise in itself.
And then I recorded the whole thing on an Excel spreadsheet.

As I say, I am a geek. If we are serious about social mobility in this country we need to make it easier for everyone to access, process and understand the data so that every family has the opportunity to make an informed decision about the right school for their child, and maximise their chances of getting a school they want by only listing schools on their application form that they have a realistic chance of getting. I know a number of people who have put down schools that statistically they were never going to get, just in hope or on the off chance, and have ended up with a school they really didn’t want. Conversely I know people who have played the system and obtained a place at a school they were not entitled to, which is not fair on anyone.

Equal access for all. There’s a long way to go.

@LilySLE spot on. Last year admissions fraud was evident in my area. Families got reported but at least one is still at the school who had rented a flat to get in but didn't lift there. Everyone knew including their neighbours. Others as you say, lost out as didn't do all that research of different admissions criterua.
This year I know someone who is not capable of it and the child has got a school literally miles away that he can't get to. She's rejected it as ridiculous. But now at risk of no place.

How do you even go about reporting admissions fraud…? 🤔 (Asking for a friend… 👀)

You email admissions and report it with why you think it's happened. These were very clear cut cases where other reasons were ruled out. Money to have an extra property to use..,

Isn't it a bit of a conflicting situation? Clause 2.12 says:

"Where schools are oversubscribed, admission authorities must rank applications in accordance with their determined arrangements. The qualifying scheme must ensure that: a) only one offer per child is made by the local authority;"

In the event that a parent goes on the waiting list for a school, if they are given the choice they hold two offers.

At the same time, you're absolutely right that they shouldn't (can't) withdraw a place once it is offered unless for very specific circumstances.

I guess, ultimately, unless it is raised higher, then we won't have case law on it.

I'm always fascinated by these threads (I used to sit on appeals panels). In my area, there is literally one choice. We still get 3 preferences, but the only school children in our area will get is school A. The next nearest schools, B & C are both oversubscribed and we are outside of the last distance offered by a considerable amount. I guess parents could put down schools that are many miles away, but there would be no transport (our small town has slashed public transport and we can't even get a bus directly to our nearest city now).