What are the chances of getting in before September?

[Ooohee]

Does anyone have any experience of being placed on a waiting list and your child getting in before September?
We’ve decided to place dc on the waiting list for our second choice school as we no longer want first choice. Bit worried that they wont get in but also that they might be offered a space after term starts which would probably be quite disruptive.

Hugely dependent on where on the waiting list you are and the general area.

Ime the school can usually give you some guidance - ie 'we rarely see the waiting list move unfortunately' or 'we usually see 5-10 people from the waiting list receive an offer before September' etc.

If you had put school 2 as first choice would you have been offered a place? if so you might be near the top of the list at the moment (can go down as well as up).

Just checking that you’ve accepted your first choice school (which you should definitely do) rather than rejecting it while you go on WL for your second choice.

Would you recommend getting in touch with the school directly? So far I’ve only contacted the LA

We would definitely have been accepted had we put it as first choice. It’s very local. Kicking myself now tbh.

The offer email says we don’t need to accept/reject, just that they’ve been offered a place at choice one and they’ll be in touch.
I definitely won’t reject the place they’ve been offered.

It’s worth contacting the school to ask, some are much more forthcoming/ helpful than others. I’m not sure if it’s the same everywhere but in our LA I believe you can find out your WL position in the admissions portal once they’ve run the first round of continuing interest.

It sounds like you’re hoping to get in your second choice on the basis of distance. Your LA should publish stats for previous years as to the furthest distance offered on NOD and for the continuing interest rounds. That should give you a reasonable idea as if you are well within that distance you should be near the top of the WL for continuing interest. If it’s not published on your LA site then you’d need to ask the school directly.

Best of luck!

Definitely contact the school.

You won't get 'official' figures but they will absolutely be aware of how much their waiting list tends to move and can give you a good overview.

We got a place off waiting list but had to wait until mid-June. Accepted the place initially offered though. We also gave ourselves a deadline of moving up/transition day in early July (when all the yr6 kids visit their new secondary school and meet new classmates etc) that if we'd not received a place by then we would stick with the original offer. Luckily we were happy with original offer but preferred wait list school if it came up. I think you need to give yourself time limit as also though wait lists can remain open long after September, you need to decided how your DC will feel switching schools and starting all over again.

Literally happening to us too. But we've been added to 3rd choice too. Let me know how you get on.

Don’t forget that waiting lists are run on the same criteria as admission, so you could be at number 1 then a child living 20 m closer, or is a former LAC, goes on the list and snaffles a place from under your nose. You really can’t rely on waiting lists always going in your favour, though I do hope it does for you.

I have spoken to one school who thinks I could be offered a place once the deadline has been met for accepting places. LA said I should find out in 4-6 weeks.

Thanks so much everyone, all this info is appreciated! As you can probably tell, this is my first rodeo with secondary schools and I clearly know nothing.

I will email the school tomorrow to see if they can offer any insight.

as far as I can tell though, my local authority doesn’t ask that you accept/reject a school so I’m thinking they won’t know final numbers until the very last moment? Unless I’ve got that wrong?

I’ll plan as though we are going to the school offered but just keep hoping that the alternative one has a space come up.

I phoned the school this morning. The woman I spoke to was wholly unhelpful and said it was nothing to do with the school and to contact the LA. She was incredibly sharp and now I regret phoning 😫
Maybe I should’ve emailed instead.

So I guess I’ll just try and out it out of my mind and see what happens

Sorry to hear you got an unhelpful person.

If you would have got a place if you’d put it first, you will be very high up on any wait list. Some children might accept independent school offers and some movement is likely v quickly after the deadline to accept. After that further movement happens as people move house, change plans and other school WL move.

Is it a Grammar or a Comp? Just dependent on distance or other criteria such as faith? If you have a LAC or other top criteria you are likely to be top of list.

Thank you @WombatChocolate
its a comp. Non faith school. There is the usual basic criteria, distance, siblings, LAC.
Unfortunately we only qualify on distance so I suppose there is a chance we won’t be top of the list.

We haven’t been told anything about deadlines. How will the schools know final numbers if we are not asked to accept or reject?

Are you sure you haven’t been? Or that there isn’t a date to reject by?
Some places have a date for rejection and assume acceptance if rejection not submitted by date.

Def check this.

And again, don’t reject the unwanted allocated school. Accepting it won’t impact your wait list position with other school. BUT if by chance you reject and the wait list can’t offer a place, then the LA might send you miles to a random school as you’ll no longer be entitled to the one offered and that place will be given away.

On our offer letter it states that we don’t need to get in touch but that the school will contact us at a later date. Perhaps they will ask if we accept at that point?
Sorry if I’m asking daft questions

To be fair I am not surprised she was a bit sharp. She is probably fielding calls all day from parents who didn’t get offered a place in that school and are distraught and possibly tearful. I can understand her not being wholly sympathetic with a parent who got their first choice of school but has now changed their mind! And as she said, it is out of her hands. Put yourself on the waiting list for school 2 and see what happens.

@viques i can’t really argue with that, tbf

🙂

good luck with the waiting list

Thank you 🙂
I will let it go for now and see what happens, that’s all I can do

We have to accept or decline by 15th march. I'm guessing they'll have more idea of numbers by then and can start going through the waiting list?

Thanks @billandtedsexcellentadventure love the username!

We must have to accept or reject at some point, how else would they know how many kids will turn up at the start of term? 😆
Our letter just says that if the school is within our LA then we don’t need to do anything.