Secondary school ranking

[CanadaCalls]

Hi everyone,

Does anybody have a good knowledge of how the allocating of school places works please?

With the below numbers, would you say my child had a good chance of getting into the school or not?

He has no siblings in the school and the only criteria that he would have met is distance with is 6th (and last) on the schools criteria list. We live over 3 miles from the school….

PAN: 180
1st pref offers: 119
2nd pref offers: 17
3rd pref offers: 6
4th pref offers: < 5
5th pref offers: < 5
6th pref offers: < 5
Non preference offers: 34
Out of area offers: < 5

Thanks :)

34 people who didn't list the school got offered a place . Which suggests everyone who listed it got a place

Yeh agree, one those figures for sure he would get a place if you listed it first, or further down below schools you didn't get a place at. Fewer than the PAN of 180 listed it so. Mind you they seem to have offered 16 over PAN. But still a shoe-in, assuming similar numbers applying (which you can't guarantee).

Ah ok. Thank you. I thought that might be the case but wasn’t completely sure.

Look up the last distance offered both on national offer day and the coordination day. These should be on your council website. If they aren't, you can ring up and ask. That should give you a good idea of how far the catchment extends. But I agree, based on those numbers it sounds good.

It’s really confusing as the school publish their PAN as 180 as does the council website, but then underneath it says (for this year) 240 spaces offered? It also says ‘undersubscribed’ so it doesn’t offer maximum distance information. That would mean 60 over their PAN? I know they can take more children but normally if it’s that much over then they have to tell the council and publish the change in PAN on their website but there is nothing on either sites?

They may have done a bulge class or classes. You should look up distances for the last few years, or call the council and ask.

The only reason I can see why they would have changed their PAN is they’re moving from their temporary site to a permanent site (they’re a new school that opened in 2022) and the school has the capacity to take more children? I still thought they had to let the public know this though?

With them moving to the permanent site, it has changed the definition of our ‘nearest suitable school’ but at the time of application they were still operating from their temporary site and the new location was still very much a hole in the ground!
They haven’t met deadlines for opening in the past and the council or the school
didnt do anything to let the public know otherwise, so parents applied for what has always been classed as our nearest school, only to get a letter telling us we won’t receive free transport as we didn’t list the new school as first preference!
Both schools are over 3 miles and the council have identified that there is no safe walking route to either school. It just doesn’t make sense and I’m sure they haven’t complied with the school admissions code by not consulting as there is now a variation in what is considered a lot of peoples now nearest school.
It’s just so frustrating and confusing. We have appealed and their decision was upheld so now we’re on to stage 2 appeal!

It’s so hard to tell as they only opened in 2022 and the council have said that they had a different admissions process to other schools so that year has to be disregarded, so that only leaves us with last years info and of course this year which we didn’t know about until after national offer day.

My child attends a new school that has recently moved to its new location from a temporary one . Whilst in the temp location the PAN was smaller due to the temp location not having the capacity for the intended PAN at the permanent site. When they moved to the new site, the PAN went up to 240.

The location that was used for distance criteria was always the new site, rather than the temporary location.

I did think that’s how they would do it. I know they have a duty to tell people if the admissions are infected within the area if a new school is built, but they haven’t so we’re going to fight the decision

every child puts 3 choices down so it’s common for schools to have 3-4 times applications than places
Everyone who applies technically gets an offer - as you are ranked by criteria

where you are on that list determines if you get a place once those higher ranked accept and decline other schools - not everyone will have your school as their no1 preferred choice

Thus the school is defo undersubscribed - many of those with offers with have the school as 3rd choice and will choose another

They don't have to formally change their PAN to accept a bulge class for a particular year. If indicated that the school would move (even if timescales had previously slipped, then you have to select accordingly), assuming the temporary site was further away, so the move means they are now closer than the school selected/offered.