How should we order our secondary school preferences?

[CoralLemur]

This is long… but I want to include all relevant information rather than drip feeding.
I am currently trying to complete my DDs secondary school CAF and I am probably overthinking the order but I would like some outside perspective. DD currently goes to a small private religious prep school where most of her year will go to the local religious state secondary. She was previously at a 1 form village state primary, most of her friends from there will be going to the local school. At school she currently loves Spanish and Art. We can put down a maximum of 6 schools and we have visited 4. There are other schools within 10 miles however none have higher results than school 2 and most are as hard to get to on public transport if not worse than school 2 as well.

School 1 – Grammar
English and Maths 5+ - 100%
Attainment 8 – 80
Average No. of qualifications – 10
Distance 15 miles - 1 hour (30 minutes train, 30 minutes walk)
PAN – 190
We are still waiting on DDs 11+ results which we expect to be a pass; however admissions are based on score, and we are not sure if her score will be enough. This has been DDs first choice since her visit. She loved the facilities and the subjects on offer especially as they have Spanish.

School 2 – Unlikely admission
English and Maths 5+ - 50%
Attainment 8 – 50
Average No. of qualifications – 8
Distance 10 miles - 1 hour (2 buses – connection may not work on the way home which would require us to collect her)
PAN – 190
We may not get in; for 2026 the school admitted above their PAN which we would have led us to be admitted but in previous years the distance was 6 miles. DD liked this school more than 3 and 4 but only just. This school has more variety of qualifications such as Dance, Spanish, German and Media Studies. Students study 2 languages in year 7 and 8. I really liked the school; the pupils were very friendly and happy to talk about their experiences despite only being year 7s. I maybe biased as this was my old school!

School 3 – Religious
English and Maths 5+ - 60%
Attainment 8 – 55
Average No. of qualifications – 9
Distance 15 miles - 1 hour (30 minutes train, 30 minutes walk)
PAN – 190
We would get in based on religion and this is where most of her class will go. It is a good school and we got a good feel, however, the number of subjects at GCSE are limited especially as they only do French and children have to take RE at GCSE.

School 4 – Local
English and Maths 5+ - 30%
Attainment 8 – 37
Average No. of qualifications – 7
Distance 2 miles – 10 Minutes (school bus due to no footpaths)
PAN – 300 (reduced from 330 in previous years)
This has been undersubscribed for a number of years and will be the school where most of her friends from her previous school will go to. This school is currently repairing its reputation and is split over 2 sites. The open evening was chaotic; there were no students showing people around and the students that were around were not interested in talking to people. All I got from the Headteachers talk was that their 2025-26 had improved (the only figure mentioned was English and Maths 4+ was 60%). They also kept saying the results were one of the best in the local area and they are full in all but 1 year group.

DHs opinion is that schools 2 and 3 should be switched as the results are better at school 3. Should we also put 3 above 2 as she will know people her rather than school 2 where she will probably be the only one from either primary school? School 2 is also better to get to on public transport so she can easily stay for after school clubs.
Schools 1-3 will do separate sciences for those who are able without having to have it as an option like school 4 and they also choose GCSEs at the end of year 8.
We also have DS who will be a higher criteria in school 2 and 4 if DD is there.
I have tours next week at school 2 and 3 during the day. What should I look out for / ask?

I don't think three should automatically be higher based on the attainment data you have provided. It isn't that different. I would have drill down further into that data, how do girls perform at these school? Is your daughter lower/middle/ higher attainer? How do these groups of pupils perform in these schools? My biggest concern with your current number 2 would be the commute. Is that realistic to make it work with two buses? Can you take them to school/ pick them up if there are issues?
That being said a train plus a thirty minute walk is also not perfect when it is winter and dark and rainy.
Good luck with your decisions!

I think your ranking makes good sense. I would also place school 2 above school 3.
Both you and your DD prefer school 2 over school 3, while your husband favours school 3, so that’s 2 votes to 1 for school 2. The estimated travel times of school 1,2,3 all look similar on paper, but there is a big difference between 10 miles and 15 miles when travelling by car or taxi. I’m not keen on religious schools. They add an extra layer of baggage on top of academic learning, and there are quite a few unknowns that come with that. Lots of children from their current school are heading to school 3, but I’m sure your DD will make new friends in school 2. It helps a lot that you are already familiar with school 2 with your own experience. Finally, School 2 is much harder to get into. If you rank school 2 above school 3 on CAF and you are lucky enough to get a place at school 2, mentally it will feel such a huge thrill and satisfaction.

Thank you for suggesting to dig deeper into the data, unfortunatly there is not a vast difference. Attainment 8 for girls is within 0.7 of the average except school 2 in which girls was 52.
DD is a higher attainer. I had to go back to 2023/24 for higher attainer data rather than the 2024/25 (most recent availble on DfE). Attainment 8 for high prior attainers were 81, 67, 67 and 61 respectively. However this also identified that school 4 attainment 8 went down from 42 in 23/24 to 37 in 24/25.
Both DH and I work from home the majority of the time, although work does not like it if I do every school run DH works for himself. We can therefore collect DD from school 2 if necessary (30 minute each way drive). My mum also lives about 15 minutes away from the school and would be able to collect some of the time. The issue would be collecting DS at the similar times in different directions.

DH only prefers school 3 because of the better results and it is a logical way to rank schools as in his opinion 1 school is very much like another. Like you he is not keen on religious schools we only ended up at a religious primary school due to the lack of stretch at the village school.
Schools 1 and 3 would take about 45 minutes each way maybe longer due to traffic. School 2 is about 30 minutes but timing is more consistent.
My concern is if we get school 2 and we find out the travel arrangements don't work we would have to be on waiting lists. My familiarity with school 2 is 25 years ago so quite a bit has changed!
Based on number of applications school 3 is actually harder to get into, it is only because we are in a higher criteria due to religion we would get in.

Can you access the historic data for the schools, to see the Progress Scores (wjich are not available for the last couple of years due to Covid). They will give an idea how childten similar to your DD achieve at each school.

@CoralLemurwhere will your child be happy? It’s not all about attainment

I have found the Progress 8 for 23/24 overall, higher attainer and girls. They are

School 1 - 1, 1, 1
School 2 - 0.1, 0.2, 0.25
School 3 - 0.2, 0.03, 0.1
School4 - -0.4, -0.4, -0.3

All those schools are a v long commute imo. Can you shorten that at all? An hour either end of the day leaves little time for other stuff.

I would stick with your ranking if you and DD prefer school 2 to 3. The differences in results/travel aren’t enough to really need to factor in.

@babasaclover I have been thinking about this and I can see her being happy at any of the first 3 as they are smaller and seem to mix year groups more at break and lunch. School 4 specifically mentioned how they slowly transition year 7 into the school and they have their own canteen and playground.
She has 1 or 2 best friends but she is friends with lots of people at school across year groups. When we left her previous primary school almost everyone in her class and others were hugging her and saying goodbye. She also likes responsibilty and takes it seriously. Schools 1 and 2 mentioned giving responsibility to chidlren from all year groups rather than just year 11, which was why we were shown around by year 7s in school 2.
She tends to do better with smaller / less chaotic environments. School 1 had tours for pupils during the day rather than an open evening. During the tour DD was at the front asking questions I believe because there were only a few people and we were going into mainly empty rooms. During open evenings DD has been reluctant to ask anything and has tended to hold on to me. I assume because there were so many people around.
If you ask her to order them she says school 1 and then she doesn't care. Recently she has said school 2 after school 1 but she can't say why.

Most of the schools are a long way away. This could be really hard on your daughter, especially in the winter. And such a long commute might limit the amount of extra curricular she could do. Are you really against the closest school?

Unfortunately there is no way to shorten the travel due to where we live.
We can drive to school 2 which would be an hour round trip for either me or DH twice a day. Driving to schools 1 and 3 would be at least 1.5 hour round trip to drive if not longer at rush hour. There use to be a school bus for school 1 which would take 1 hour 20 minutes but the company cancelled it because everyone got the train.
There are 2 other schools, which we haven't looked at, which are closer (about 20-30 minutes by bus) however, 1 has similar results to school 4 but we are double the last distance (for the last 5 years) and the other has even worse results (15% get 5+ in English and Maths).

You’re in such a difficult position. School 2 sounds like life might be difficult if bus connections didn’t work out on the way home. Could you easily get to your daughter if she was stuck? Or would you be in work yourself? But then school 4s progress results are concerning. These are historic though and they could improve if the school is on the up? Have you been to see school 4 during the day time when pupils are in?

The journey is a concern which was why I was hoping that I liked school 4, however it is having to overcome an appalling reputation. Schools 1 and 3 because they are not reliant on school buses means after school clubs are easier, they are also use to children travelling longer distances so have clubs more at lunchtime.
School 4 was better than my expectation but my expectation was pretty low. As I said the open evening was chaotic. Cars were queuing on the road because they hadn't worked out parking or stated there was limited parking. Hundreds of people trying to find their way around with an A5 map because there were no prefects or other students giving tours. The students which were around in some of the subject rooms did not approach us or want to answer questions. They were just wanted to chat to their friends. In the headtachers talk all the Head Students could talk about were the trips that were available (not one mentioned anything they had actually gone on) and that they made friends. There was no mention of the teachers and what they are like. Looking at the work it didn't seem to stretch. There was no mention in any subject area what they got the most able students to do when they had completed their work (which there was at all the schools). The feeling I got was that a 4 or 5 is good enough so why spend time getting a student a higher grade when we need to help more get to a 4 or 5.
I now feel like it won't be a complete disaster if she goes there but I still feel we would have provide tutors or other resources to help DD learn the higher level material / answers.

Maybe tour school 4 in the day to see if it’s any better. But I’d probably hope the gets into school 1 and then 3 as second choice. Think I’d discount school 2 if travel arrangements could be tricky and you’re unlikely to get in anyway.

I haven't been to see school 4 in the day. Unlike the others there was only a vague off hand mention at the end of the Headteachers talk that they can give tours during the day if parents wanted to contact them. However it is not easy to contact them; no email address on their website, a big notice on their website that the phone number is for emergencies only and a contact form that requires a pupils name and form tutor name.
All the others have had tour dates and times on their websites and either a booking system or an email address.

Do you even need school four as an option if you would be guaranteed school 3 due to religion? I'm all for an easy commute but I think everything you have said about school 4 rules it out for me.

Although personally I would prefer a non-religious school & the wider curriculum at school 2 is appealing, the commute issues at school 2 would really put me off. All the commutes are lengthy, but two buses and worrying about connections working out is a bit grim particularly for Y7 who isn’t used to it. I wouldn’t want a secondary I couldn’t be confident my child could consistently commute to independently. A two hour round trip to collect wouldn’t be possible for me, but even if that flexibility was possible it would be hard to make up the work time & cause stress. If DH would primarily be responsible for any needed collections, I’d be sure he was truly happy to do this.

I like to make sure something is guaranteed which is why I have school 4. School 3 is reliant on supplimentary forms etc and I want to make sure that if something goes wrong with it we do get a place at a school we have seen.
I think we just hope she gets into school 1 and then put school 3 down. If she gets school 3 I think I would need to get a Spanish tutor as DD is fixed on wanting to study it.

Part of me wishes that School 2 was still completely impossible for us to get into but last year's admissions gave me hope but I don't think we can make the travel work.

Do you live somewhere that works well for you in terms of family and jobs? What is keeping you there that's worth this amount of travel for DD?

I ask because my DH lived in a village where almost everyone went to a school like school 4 and he commuted 1hr+ to the grammar school. It made his life in the village pretty awful, everyone acting like he thought he was too good for them, that his family looked down on them etc. 20 years on his parents still get some comments. Hopefully this won't be an issue, but unless you have really good reasons to live there, I'd genuinely consider moving.