Advice on CAF ranking for Latymer, HBS and South West Herts

[SRKMC]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone who has been through the secondary transfer process can help, as I'm finding it quite confusing!

My daughter will be applying for Year 7 (entry September 2027) and these are the state schools she'd like to put on her CAF by October 2026, in order of preference:

Latymer School (Enfield)
Henrietta Barnett School
South West Herts Consortium schools (Either parmiters, Watford girls grammar or queens)
Presdales
Broxbourne School
Chancellor's School
We're currently planning to move before 7 January 2027 to the area of whichever school she is offered, so we're trying to understand how best to complete the CAF.

She is also sitting the 11+ entrance exams for Highgate School and Haberdashers Girls School, but I believe these applications are made directly to the schools and don't form part of the CAF. Is that correct?

I have a few questions:

When will we have a good idea whether she's likely to receive an offer from Latymer or Henrietta Barnett?

Do they tell you your ranking or whether you're likely to get a place before the CAF deadline?

If she's hoping for Latymer or HBS, do they need to be listed first and second on the CAF, or does the equal preference system mean it doesn't matter where you rank them, as long as they're above the schools she'd prefer less?

We live in Hertfordshire. Do we get six choices on the CAF, or does that depend on the local authority?

Given that we intend to move before January 2027, is there anything else we should be aware of when completing the CAF? I am aware we need to provide proof of address for Latymer before 7th January.

I'd really appreciate any advice from parents who have been through the Latymer, HBS or South West Herts admissions process. Thank you!

Goffs Oak to the Broxbourne School is about 4.8miles on foot - possibly a bit less as a straight line. That is 7.7km.

From the link I posted above, the furthest distance on allocation day was just under 2km. Now, I know that the Herts system has a fair bit of movement on the second round, and you should look at prior years for what the last admitted distance was at the final moment, but I certainly wouldn’t think that Broxbourne was a dead cert on that basis.

Goffs Academy is about 1.5 miles from the centre of Goffs Oak. Their stats aren’t on the herts website but it feels more likely this would be your banker than Broxbourne.

Too late to edit but… I see Goffs has a feeder primary system also. Herts really is a nightmare. However, if DD is at Goffs Oak primary, she has a good chance of getting in to Goffs Academy in the feeder category and then probably a decent chance in the closest distance category too. But Goffs Oak isn’t a feeder primary for Chancellors. However, if she’s at Cuffley, that’s a feeder primary for both.

ETA the furthest distance admitted to Goffs Academy in 2025 was 4.9km for GO pupils and 3.5km for Cuffley pupils. No pupils were admitted from non-feeder schools.

chancellors did go beyond feeder primary to distance but admitted no more than 8 in ea h of the laat 3 years, with these being no more than 2km from the school

Watford Girls' has two specified admissions areas, including WD and a few HA postcodes. In Goffs Oak, you will have an EN postcode, I think. The admissions doc - https://www.watfordgrammarschoolforgirls.org.uk/admissions/year-7-entry-forms/ - makes it clear that it's very unlikely girls not living in one of the postcodes would get an academic aptitude place.

OP - it's usually said early in a thread but I am not sure it has been here, so I will say it now - parents do not get a choice of secondary school, they get to express a list of preferences . That's all.

@SheilaFentiman so Broxbourne allows 10% of children in through the aptitude test, my nephew got in through this too and he lives not far from us so we are hoping our DD will pass the test to get in. However, this isn't her first choice but we are planning to add on as the 4th choice. My DD strangely does not want to go to Goffs, but i won't know clearly until i submit the CAF by 31st Oct, she may change her mind. I don't know anyone personally that has gone to Chancellors so any views of the school teaching, students performance will be great to know and if the choices were Goffs Broxbourne and Chancellors which would be ideal, my DD is very academic. Thanks for the heads up on letting Herts know about potential to move will definitely email them to get this in writing.

Relying on an aptitude place for Broxbourne as your 4th choice banker seems... punchy. That your nephew got a place through that and lives near you is irrelevant as it is about scores on the day not distance. I can't find how many sit the aptitude test, do you know?

Sometimes as a parent we have to make decisions for the long term benefit of our children and putting Goffs Oak as 4th place may be one of those times if it is a decent school and local. In most areas there's a school to which those who don't get a preference place will be allocated. I can pretty much guarantee you won't be happy with it from your aspirational choices but find out where it is, and be honest about your child's actual chances of getting a selective place, and weigh up your options.

@MrsMabelThorpe I'm confident in my child to do well in the exams for Broxbourne, it's a verbal reasoning assessment and I completely understand it's score based, as parents we can only hope for the best but her recent scores are above 90% in all four areas so I can only hope she does her best on the day of each of her exams. They also accept 10% of children that pass those exams and I'm not sure how many sit it and take this route.

@clary thanks for the points, we don't own two homes, the other is where my in laws own and they have asked us to come back if we want to have our DD go to HBS. We used to live here for many years before moving out. The plan would be to rent our current place but that's also a big gamble as it all goes down to her passing those competitive exams. I know I have to make decisions soon and it affects everyone so just need to be sure it's the right one.

Thanks for the heads up on letting Herts know about potential to move will definitely email them to get this in writing.

But do not be surprised if Herts say the last date to move and be considered equally with others is in Dec not in Jan.

Is she at Goffs Oak primary? Because that isn’t one of the chancellors feeder schools if so. Chancellors have music aptitude tests for their 10% whereas Broxbourne is languages aptitude

I assume now you know about the Watford Girls’ post codes you won’t put that down, so you can put Broxbourne 3rd and Goffs academy 4th.

If your in-laws are near HBS, how would you move to a Latymer postcode in time
anyway?

Finally, if a move has happened just before school allocations, LAs can check if all ties with the old house have been cut. Moving in with relatives and renting out your old house may not be sufficient to prove this

@SRKMC broxbourne don’t accept 10 % of kids that sit ir, they offer a max of 10% of places to language aptttude ie max of 24 places

There isn’t a lot of point asking about the teaching at chancellors @SRKMC because unless DD is at one of the feeders or gets a music aptitude place, you haven’t got a scooby of getting in at the distance you are.

My understanding of how Broxbourne works (from reading an old thread on her) is that they will give you DD’s score in the aptitude test before the end of October eg 38, 46. If you get 46, you can check and see that is higher than any past year cut off so you are almost certainly fine. If you get 38, you see that some years it is 37 and some it is 41 so you don’t know for sure.

Obviously there’s a score below which it wouldn’t be worth even chancing it - 30 or whatever- but at 38 you could put it down and have no idea until offer day or even until after first and second additional allocations.

NUMBERS ARE ILLUSTRATIVE - please do your own direct research on cutoffs.

Parmiters (which you mentioned in your OP) only offer 3 academic places and one music place to children outside of their postcode list (which you are)

Queens also has priority postcodes and I think will only allot within these based on test score order. Again, you do not live in these postcodes.

It’s really difficult to see how you can get reasonably sure of a selective/partially selective school place where you live. If you plan to go private if selective state doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter so much.

But, if not, I think DD has to reconcile herself to a Goffs oak secondary unless the Broxbourne aptitude goes great. Why is she against it - assume she has a fair few friends going?

I think you need to be very careful about your address here. If you own a house, then you won't be able to move very quickly. Moving in with relatives or into a rental, but still owning your home, may not be considered to be a genuine move, even if you rent your house out.

Apologies @SRKMC you talked about "our other house" which I took to mean you owned it. I agree with those who say be aware that schools are often looking for more than "we're moving in with the in-laws and renting our other home" as evidence of being in the local area.

You haven't said but is Goffs the school for which your DD is at the feeder? If so please please put that one on your list. List it as fourth, that's fine. The chance of getting a place at Broxbourne when you are going on a test and a max of 10% of places are allocated via that test is surely a bit optimistic. Your DN getting a place that way is neither here nor there.

You do understand that if no school on your preference list has a space for DD, you will be allocated the closest school with spaces – which may not be that close? And it is lilely to be an unpopular school.

So I live 200m from school A. It's fine. School B in a nearby village is great but we are out of catchment. Some get a place there from our area tho. Very good school C is in the city and has random allocation. Excellent school D is also in the city but further away. No one goes there from my area.

If I list them School B, School C, School A (we get three prefs) then I am good. Worst case – I will get School A. BUT if I list School B, School C, School D (a massive punt as it is about 8 miles away), then even tho I live so near School A, I won't get it as it will fill its spaces from preferences; I will be allocated School E which is 10 miles away and wildly unpopular. Does that make sense?

OP, I haven't experienced this myself, but this is what I have gathered from my research. Please correct me if I am wrong:
My understanding is that the CAF preference is not as critical as the OP believes. After National Offer Day, if you were not offered a place at a school you listed lower down, you can simply request the school to add your name to their waiting list. The school must then re-rank you based strictly on its original admission criteria. If your child would have qualified for a place initially, they will be placed correctly on the waiting list regardless of your original preference order—which means you are almost certain to receive an offer from that school in the coming days. Therefore, it is not the end of the world if you "mess up" your CAF preferences.

The school must then re-rank you based strictly on its original admission criteria. If your child would have qualified for a place initially, they will be placed correctly on the waiting list regardless of your original preference order—which means you are almost certain to receive an offer from that school in the coming days.

Ummmm…. Only if a space becomes available and no one else ranks higher than OP or decides to add themselves to the waiting list too. Additionally, OP’s closest school has the complication of feeder primaries with varying % of the spaces “reserved” which complicates matters further (if, say, 25 pupils from OP’s primary applied and each got a space, then OP would find it harder from the waitlist, rather than having 25/26 chance if she also was an initial applicant)

ETA also my understanding of Herts is that they don’t re rank on a rolling basis, they have round of allocations and re allocations

But if there was a place at the school that you listed for which you qualified, you would be offered it anyway! So no, this is only true as @SheilaFentiman says, if a place becomes available )maybe bc someone else rejects it bc going private). And if you don’t get a space you go on the WL anyway to anywhere on your form. But it’s key to list the school you are sure to be offered.

I would be very careful with your addresses. Herts and Bucks always used to have a policy that if you were renting or “living elsewhere” within 20 miles of a property that you owned that it would be seen as an address of convenience. So many people were doing the exact same thing, getting their child in, and then moving back to their owned house a year or so later. Reassuring the council it’s not admissions fraud can only really be done by selling your house and severing all ties.

You won’t stand a chance of getting into Watford Girls from Goffs Oak unless your postcode is a priority area.

In Herts you can only list four schools on the CAF.

Basically there’s no way you can live in either address and get a reasonable chance at getting into so many top performing state schools. I also agree you need a “safe bet” local comprehensive school as the last choice on your form as there is a chance (however small you might think) that she gets a place at none of them and then you’ll be allocated the closest school with space - and you can pretty much guarantee it won’t be one you want.