birth rate in regards to secondary school

[colettemum3]

My daughter is 5th on the waiting list for her first choice. Last year they toke 181 children and over 1300 children had it down as their top 3 prefence.
Got told by another parent who's daughter started secondary school last year that the birth rate was really high year 97/98.
So it you understand what i'm trying to ask....was the birth rate as high in 98/99 to affect my daughter chances of actually getting her first choice?

She has gotten her second choice which is a good girl's school but it's further away and would require going on a bus. Am worried that she will drift off and forget her stop.

Idle gossip at the school gate has led me to believe that the birth rate 98/99 was really low so all the kids from my dcs primary have got in to the schools they wanted, I don't know if this varies by region though.

Happen to know all about birth rates. They have been dropping every year since at least 1991 with the exception of a tiny (0.21% rise) in 1996. The lowest year was 2001. Since 2002 they have been slowly rising again.

97/98 wasn't a high year nationally, nor was 98/99 but obviously there may be local variations (although they will be pretty small).

At any rate, my dd is August born and had to bus to secondary school 2 weeks after 11th birthday. Has never missed either the bus or her stop (and she is very head in the clouds!) so I'm sure your dd would be fine with second choice. Good luck!

Whether or not 98/99 was a high birthrate year won't make any difference to your child's chances of a place. What you need is 5 or more children from the 180ish children that have been offered places to drop out for whatever reason - those reasons will be unaffected by birthrate 11 years ago and it may or may not happen depending how lucky you are.

Hope it does work out for you & you have some nails left by the end.

98/99 was slightly lower as there was a larger one in 99/00 (all the people wanting millenium babies) dd1 is in the 99/00 year group and its much bigger than the others and almost twice the size of dd2s (01/02)

'Am worried that she will drift off and forget her stop. '

Not likely to happen.

'Am worried that she will drift off and forget her stop. '

Not likely to happen more than once or twice!!

Good learning experience though - the independence that bus travel brings could be the making of her.

Sounds like you may be in luck.

But unless your dd has Special Needs, I think this is a time when she needs to start practising independence and sorting out her own mistakes. It's not too early, you know.