Secondary School waiting lists

[AnHonestMum]

Hi, we received the results for the secondary school admission yesterday and to our surprise we did not get an offer from any of the 6 schools that we listed in the application form.
They were all in our catchment. My next door neighbour’s both kids already go in 1 of the schools from our option and 2 of my son’s classmates have received offers from the same schools that we have also listed.
my so is academically very strong, one of the toppers in his class and is also the head boy of his school.
We are very confused that why we did not receive an offer from any of our 6 options and instead we have been offered a school that has an ofsted rating of ‘needs improvement’ and is also at the similar distance like all other schools that we listed in our application form.

Please guide and help us understand

1. the reason why he was not offered any of those schools n instead given a low ofsted rating school
2. should we accept or reject that place and wait for next option
3. how can I know his position in waiting list
4. what should be our next steps

thank you and I hope you will be able to provide some guidance.

1. The reason will be on a letter you recieve. Presuming the schools use distance as a tie breaker... the important thing is to check the distance listed seems correct. However as you've been allocated another nearby school it probably is, just over people lived closer.

1. Accept unless you are going Private or Home educating. Otherwise you may be left with no school.

1. That will be available soon.

1. Check the distance to make sure its correct and he's in the right admissions category.

See if there's any other schools with spaces you prefer Be patient. You can also try appealing but they won't care if your son is top of the class or the allocated school is "requires improvement"... some children have to attend this school. You would need to look at particular aspects that make a school more suitable.

a. Check carefully for each of the schools you listed whether any mistake has been made in applying the oversubscription criteria. Have you been placed in the correct category? If distance is used as a tiebreaker for the category you are in, you should have been told the furthest distance offered, and your distance to the school - has this been applied correctly? If you can identify a mistake this is the most likely option for a successful appeal.
b. Yes you should accept your place at the inadequate school. Accepting the place will not prejudice any subsequent efforts to get a better offer. If you decline it the LA have no obligation to give you a different offer.
c. Don't get stressed yet. This is only the first round of allocations. Most of the children in your area who are actually going to be sent to a Private school will also have had a State School offer yesterday that they won't actually be taking, and some of these willbe at one of the six schools on your list. These will not get released all at once. Some will decline the state place right away. Most will not decide until the end of the Easter Holidays (after which point they are committed to paying the first term's fees at the private school. Some won't actually release the state place they hold until September.
d. Actual position on waiting list is mostly meaningless and can go up or down because it's not a queue. When a place becomes available it will often got to the person who is 4th/5th or even lowerif the people higher on the list have reconciled themselves to a different offer and prefer certainty.
d. There is no limit to the number of waiting lists you can join. Ask to be added to the list of any school that wouldbe preferable to your allocated school. It is quite likely that in second-round allocations made after the acceptance deadline from the first round, you could get a better offer.
e. If no mistakes were made, it is possible to appeal if you can show that the disadvantage to your child in being refused a place at a particular school outweighs the disadvantage to the other pupils at that school from having their class sizes increased. The grounds for this cannot and will not be successful if it is just about the poor quality of the offered school. It needs to be about positive links between the school you are appealing for and your child's particular needs/talents that can't be supported at another school (eg a particular language studied that isn't offered elsewhere)

Ds1 got offered his 4th choice. It is not ideal as it is further away. They automatically put children in the waiting list for higher choices. The school is excellent, but ds1 would need to travel via tube.
Our local authority has a list of schools with spaces and I wouldn't want to send my dc to two off them. Even though one is walking distance. But it has children joining gang problems. Not officially, but that is what people say.
Check the school out and decide what is best for your dc.

What are the admissions criteria? In most cases, after a few special categories, like "looked after" children and sometimes siblings, it's decided by distance and it can sometimes be very short distances indeed. What does it say on your letter?

Whatever you do, don't reject the school you've been offered.

People don't have a 'catchment' around them - schools have catchment areas/ priority admissions areas. Or don't, as the case may be just using distance from school as one of their oversubscription criteria.

Did you look at the oversubscription criteria for all the schools you applied for, to check where your DS would be ranked by each one? Were some of the schools academically selective? Even if they are, the criterion would be performance in an entrance test, not 'is top of primary school class'. Being head boy would also never feature in the oversubscription criteria for a state school.

Unfortunately, not getting any of one's preferences (you are expressing preferences, not choosing a school place, when you submit your CAF) is in many cases down to not naming any schools which can rank the applicant high enough to offer a place.

His performance in class and head boyship has zero influence on which school he would be allocated

You say they are "all in our catchment" - it's whether you're house is inside their catchment.

Are all 6 school geographically closest to you? Is there a known feeder secondary from your primary?

Check that the pupils you know that live near you have been offered places at your preferred school based on the distance/ catchment criteria, not because of siblings or any EHCP.
If pupils living further away have been offered places based on distance then the school have made an error in applying their admission process. This can be used in your appeal.
The waiting list info will be out soon, and they do move quite fast, so try not to worry.
Some people who's DC are going to private school dont relinquish their state places until last minute though, so you will find the waiting list changes again in August or even the first week of term.
Someone in our road had to buy 3 lots of uniforms because they were offered 2nd choice school in September and then 1st a few weeks later!
Good luck.

It can happen. I know someone a number of years back who put schools A, B and C on their list as did their neighbours and the person opposite - all of whom had first children going to primary.
Neighbour one side got offered A, other side got offered B and opposite got offered C.
They got a fourth school miles away that wasn't on their list.

All their neighbours were the last person for that school to get in on distance, so that was where the cut off was.
The good news is that they were no 1 on the waiting list on two and number 2 on the other, and they had offers fairly quickly (middle of May I think) for their second choice and then their first choice.

It also can happen that neighbours for an unknown reason are in a higher ranking (siblings, SEN, exceptional circumstances, looked after child etc)

"The grounds for this cannot and will not be successful if it is just about the poor quality of the offered school. It needs to be about positive links between the school you are appealing for and your child's particular needs/talents that can't be supported at another school (eg a particular language studied that isn't offered elsewhere)"

@AnHonestMum You have a right to appeal on whatever grounds you like, but it will be a waste of time unless you can a) show a mistake has been made or b) convince the panel that your child's need for a place outweigh's the school's case for being full. Popular schools defend against many very weak appeal cases every year. If you had a compelling need for your child to attend one of your preferred schools you would have mentioned it in your original post, so don't build false hope.

What area are you in? People may be able to give you more insight if you name it.

There will be lots of waiting list movement over the next few months. Last year we got our 4th choice initially and by June we had an offer for our first choice. It just needs time to work through the system as people accept new offers. Your LA should be able to tell you where you are on the waiting list - each LA is different but our one released that info at the start of April. They should now be able to tell you the distance the school went out to though, so you can probably work out from that how close you will be to getting a waiting list place.
Definitely accept the place you were given though in the first instance.
Good luck and hope it goes ok. I remember how stressful and anxious I was last year about it all :(

I’m sorry, OP, but your child’s academic prowess or position in the school is only relevant to independent schools. It has no bearing whatsoever on a state place. Make sure you accept the offer then go on waiting lists for your preferred schools. In some LAs you are put in the waiting lists automatically but in others you have to request to be put on so check first.

Hey - so my daughter got NON of her choices! She has been placed in a school approx 4miles away and 2 bus journeys! She is on the waiting list for all 4 schools what are the chances she gets into any? We are literally having panic attacks since Monday!

I got offered my 5th choice which is far from home and would have to get 2 buses. I am 12th so far for my first choice but not sure if that's close 🤣

@Akh8 @Elim81
Don't panic. There is always a lot of moving around between april and september.

(1) accept the school you have been offered. It has no bearing on any subsequent efforts to improve your offer, but you don't want to be left with no offer.
(2) make sure you are on the waiting list for EVERY school that would be better than the school you have been offered. There is no limit to how many waiting lists you can be on.
(3) double check that you have been correctly categorised in the over subscription criteria for each school, that the distance they are using for any tie-breaker is correct and that your distance is definitely greater than the furthest-applicant-offered-to.
(4) hold your nerve. Sometimes places will come available even 2 weeks into the term in September, because a child simply doesn't turn up.

Hi
same thing happened to me and i rejected it. I am now 5th on the waitlist for my 1st choice. You can also appeal it.