Applying for secondary schools issues.

Spendless

tomtontom wrote: »

I sit on an admissions appeal panel, and have heard several appeals from people that did the same as you. Their appeals were not allowed. You were fortunate, many people are not and their children end up in the closest sink school - very risky.

It wasn't! Not all areas are the same! I live where there are 17 Secondary schools. Catchment is the main criteria, after looked after children, of which there are usually 1 or 2 people who apply under that each year. After that it is catchment. If there are 250 places in a school year and 200 known kids living in catchment, when I know due to my house location that I'll be in the top 100 of places allocated then it isn't risky to sort of think, there won't be 150+ children appearing above me in the list. At the school concerned there has never been a year in which catchment children haven't got it.

That is a different scenario from applying to a school that has 60 kids in each year and over 100 living within catchment, or where siblings rank higher than catchment, or where it's nip and tuck as to whether you'll get in but the tie-breaker is distance and you're on the very last street to get in.

onlyroz

Spendless wrote: »

I don't believe it was risky. I asked how many places the school had at a meeting and how many known children there were living in catchment at the local Primary schools. There were more spaces than known kids .My own child/ren being one of those who they would have counted -iyswim. I don't live on the outskirts of the catchment circle, I'm well within it, so if distance had played a part, within the catchment criteria, I wouldn't have been bottom of the list. There would have to have been a huge number of looked after kids in order to have moved me down the list so far, that my kids didn't get a place. I haven't seen naming a school as a statement of special needs on the application criteria here for many years (over 10) so I don't know if that has been removed, but there'd still have to be around 100 possibly even more, applying above me, for me to even get cold feet about doing it
.

It wouldn't be risky for me either. I know that I would be extraordinarily unlucky to not get a place at the closest secondary school to me - because everybody tries to get their kids into the one in the next village. Looking at the admissions stats for the last few years, everybody in the designated area who applied got offered a place. If I lived in the next village it would be another matter entirely, and I'd be biting my nails until the decision in March.

restless6

The login /username will be linked to your son, not his mum.
So if you try to make a duplicate appliction it wont work because they will know your son has already had his application submitted.

At worst, you risk them delaying his aplication whilst they investigate!

Lunar_Eclipse

We also only applied for one school.

There is only one secondary school nearby and zero chance of being allocated anything else, even if we'd preferred that.

So I don't think only applying to two schools is an issue, if you are confident they were appropriate choices. Sadly there isn't really much "choice" in most places.

suejb2

Different variables I know of. When I applied I pit three separate schools down in preference, friend A put the same school in all three options and friend B put just one school. We all got our children in the same school.

MallyGirl

people do, each year, just put down one choice in the mistaken belief that this will get them their choice. All it means is that if your child doesn't get the only school mentioned then they could get dropped into the least popular school operated by the local authority as it is more likely to have spaces. This could be a terrible school or a difficult location to get to. I wouldn't leave anything to chance so would fill the CAF (different authorities have different numbers of slots on the form) in your actual preference order.

FBaby

I applied for one school for both my children

I did the same. The school wasn't oversubscribed and we are only 6 mns walk from the school. I knew they would have a place there, no point in putting another one down. There are three other secondary school in the same small catchment area, so wasn't much of a risk.

pleasedelete

tomtontom wrote: »

I sit on an admissions appeal panel, and have heard several appeals from people that did the same as you. Their appeals were not allowed. You were fortunate, many people are not and their children end up in the closest sink school - very risky.

You sit on an admissions appeal and think that it is acceptable to describe any schools a sink school? Totally unacceptable and highly unprofessional. You should consider your position