Secondary school waiting lists

[Akh8]

Hey guys

just wondered if anyone has been on a waiting list? Or know how long it can take to get a place for school.
we are currently number 3 on the waiting list for our preferred school

I would say you have a strong chance of a place

i am presuming this is yr 7 entry?

You have a v good chance. Especially as lists keep moving up until about the third week of September!

Waiting lists are not like queues.
Your position can go down not up.

Some never move, others have lots of movement, it will depend on the school.

If a great school is in an afluent area where there's a high proportion of expensive houses where rich people live, and there's also an independent school nearby, you can bet that almost every family who is planning to send their child to the independent school will also have put in an application for the nice state school, and if they live near the school they will have got a place. They will have to decide by the end of march whether to commit to the private school, so a bunch of state school places become available in April and there's usually lots of waiting list movement (there will be less this year due to vat)

If the school is the best school for miles around and anyone with the good fortune to have been offered a place would be mad to give it up, you'll only see waiting list movement if a faimly have been forced to leave the area and maybe only 1 or 2 people from the waiting list get places.

If a family move into the area during the Easter holidays and have a child currently in y6, they may bump you down the waiting list if they are closer.

Sorry yes for year 7

Do the waiting lists move around weekly?

New applicants and changes of circumstances mean lists can be updated as and when required. Some areas only publish them at specific points such as after a second round of allocations if they do one.

They publish the lists? So you can see other names?

There will be a lot of movement between now and September. Unfortunately some places won't be given up until the first day of term (when the student doesn't attend). I would be feeling positive/hopeful if I was number 3.

No you have to ring the council to check your position in the waiting lists

No only in so far as some will have an update at a particular date rather than deal with ad hoc queries.

DD was on a waiting list for all of year 7 and she got a place out of the blue shortly after the beginning of year 8

At the moment when a place is released and they are authorised to give it to someone, the current order of the list will be checked and recalculated if necessary. The person at #1 will be offered the available place. Sometimes this happens after the beginning of term, and the person at #1 turns the place down, and it is offered to #2 and so on. Some families prefer to stick with the school their child has started at rather than moving schools a few weeks into the autumn term.

Oh wow! What number was she on the waiting list? We have appealed too - just waiting for the dates, and we have emailed them with a medical criteria for them to consider so fingers crossed 😣

@Akh8 as others rightly said, it depends on your local context

The school I'm connected to used to have movement in the dozens, but now only a handful due to an outstanding ofsted inspection and well above average exam results.

The movement happens in waves. There will be a big wave of offers when the LA has processed all the acceptance and rejection responses from national offer day (just before Easter in my area). Then there will be a smaller wave when all of the responses to those offers have been processed. Then it may start to reduce to a gradual trickle. In my area there is a day in July when the year 6 students visit their offered secondaries and that usually smokes out another wave of offers because if children don't turn up the admissions team call their parents to find out whether they still want the place. Over the summer holidays, some families move away or get late offers from private schools, so there are always a few empty places in September that result in movement..Our local uniform shop unofficially advises families near the top of waiting lists to keep tags on uniform in case they need to do a swap early in the term

The other thing you can ask your council/school for is a breakdown of the preferences for the current offers, e.g. a school that has made 150 offers will have been told how many of those are 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc preferences. If many of them are low preferences, they will get more movement than if they are high preferences.

Our LA don’t tell you the number because it isn’t first come first served - the criteria is something like looked after children, children with siblings in school, catchment etc

I also appealed unsuccessfully- that whole process was horrible so I sympathise.

I was surprised and relieved DD was up for taking the place as although her school was dreadful, she was still happy with her friends there and had settled in. You might find your DC likes the school they are allocated and that it’s a better fit than expected.

Secondary school waiting lists question. Does anyone know if your original offer is automatically withdrawn if you make it to the top of the waiting list for your first choice? We were given our second choice, which we accepted, but are still on the waiting list for the first choice and wonder if we should take ourselves off it now, as we've found out all our DS friends are going to the second choice and have kind of made peace with it. MTIA

It wouldn't be withdrawn in my area, but I've heard of other areas doing that, so you should check your local documentation or email the admissions team.

It does depend on the area - some do do this. (They shouldn't, as it's against the admissions code, but some do) So double check if you really don't want this to happen.

Thankyou to everyone who responded!
we finally got offered a place at our preferred school today! Massive relief

That's great news. Reallocation starts next week here and only them can we get out waiting list position. We're on the edge of London with children going to several different boroughs and counties.
We're hoping DS will move up from our 6th choice

Hi, we have. Good luck to all on waiting lists.
-we were offered a school not on our preference list, we live yards away from it, but didn’t want the school as we felt it’s not best fit for our child, so we knew very well, not adding the school on our list could mean we still end up with it and it was worst case scenario, which unfortunately happened.
-we were hugely disappointed, we refused the place, then waited for 2 weeks and no updates from waiting list, so felt pressured into accepting it in the end. So we accepted but remained on waiting list for the 4 schools on our preference list as they were all higher than the allocated school
-3 weeks after offer day, we got our 3rd choice, we were pleased and accepted this. I did enquire and we were on position 2 on waiting list for this. Following week an offer was made.
-I have found I’m having to do a lot of chasing and sending emails to keep checking waiting list position, I understand the COUNCIL will be busy and appreciate this. Their correspondence has always been polite and professional.
-I’m still on waiting list for school 1 and 2.
-school 2 I’m position 74 and I know I don’t have a chance at all. So have given up on hope.
-school one we are position 1 and have been position 1 for 3 weeks, the wait has been unbearable trying to stay positive hopeful and patient.
-allocations from waiting list pause over Easter holidays, hoping to have som good news after the Easter break. Fingers crossed. —wishing anyone in a similar position all the best and to future readers!
-netmums has been a saviour in keeping me sane since offer day, as often this has been the only point of advice or information.

-school one we are position 1 and have been position 1 for 3 weeks, the wait has been unbearable trying to stay positive hopeful and patient.

Hang in there. DS was wait list no 1 and we got a call the very last week of term in July offering us a spot.Good luck!

Hi
can anyone give me any success stories. My son got offered his 5th choice that is way too far for us now as my brother has moved who used to have him on my working days.
we was 10th on waitlist for 1st choice but now we are 18th.
anyone been offered a space before sept who was far on waitlist.