How has secondary school WL place got worse!?

[11plusinLondon]

Hi everyone

I just went online to remove DC from the WL of their first choice state secondary school as we’ve accepted an offer elsewhere a noticed they’ve moved from 17 to 21.

Academic given our situation but I just wondered how this can happen? I’d be pretty upset/worried if I’d been checking in the hope of an improved position!

4 kids who live closer have been added to the waiting list. Probably parents who thought if they only put one school down they'd be guaranteed to get it, and have now realised the error of their ways having been allocated a poor school miles away...

Kids moving closer or joining wl with siblings successfully placed in other year groups.

There are new children on the list who are higher up in terms of their criteria.

It's probably because they live closer to the school than you. Wait lists are done on the same eligibility criteria as applications ie the closest in distance gets first place.

There could also be children being added to the list with siblings already in the school or with EHCPs etc.

Thanks all. I had assumed that once National offers day had past people couldn’t then apply.

The waiting list is based on who meets the admissions criteria, it's nothing to do with how long you've been on it. So yes it's possible to move down ig kids join the list who live nearer than you.

I should have said it’s the selective stream of a very popular school (Graveney in Wandsworth) so also dependent on a streaming test.

This. Or siblings. WLs are still kept in oversubscription criteria order at this point, so when a new student is added they don't just go to the back of the line they slot in where they would go based on the oversubscription criteria. Think of new batches of places offered (even if it's a single place) at this point as round 2+ of the original admissions process and the WL as a pool of applicants just like the original one.

Sometimes it's a family that was overconfident about another school and surprised by not getting it, sometimes it's a family that planned to go private and has changed their mind or is considering it, and sometimes things just change for a family between the CAF deadline and offer day (a move, transportation options changed, child or parents gone off their higher choices, etc). And not all LAs automatically add students to the WLs (or some only add students to the WLs of their top or top two choices) so WLs will grow for a bit as parents put in requests to be added to the list.

There will be people who sat the test but either didn't include Graveney as one of their choices but now don't like the school they have been allocated or people who have changed their mind since application and have asked to go on the waiting list. There may also be some who forgot to apply. It does seem a lot of movement though given that you have to have sat the test.

As PP said. Graveney uses the Wandsworth test that is the same for all of their banded or partially selective schools and they encourage all potential applicants to sit it.

There is also a late test sitting for which the registration date is actually in November after on-time applications have closed (they sit in December and get results by Christmas). So there's a batch of late applicants that will have scores for a late application/spot via waitlist but weren't necessarily in the original applicant pool for the selective spots either because they didn't submit a Wandsworth admissions application at all or because they didn't consider those selective Gravney spots a viable option until they received those late test results.

Can I ask what score your child got on the wandsworth test? Frustrating to be going down - lucky it doesn't matter. Are you going private?

No, the Admissions Code is clear that parents can apply for any school at any time.

They got 240. Not a big fan of NVR! Yes, going private.

That’s very strange as my DD got 244 and is 24th on WL. Hasn’t moved at all since offer day. I don’t understand why she’s lower down with a higher score?
It’s a very odd process!
Luckily we are happy with first choice so only really watching out of interest.