Advice about timing of moving into Amersham - complicated!

[Louey]

Thanks. Using that we are just under 11.5 miles away.

[Sally-Anne]

You need to move into the area by 1st October of the year preceding admission.

If you don't, there can be quite a bit of movement on the CGS waiting list - successful appeals for the two Challoners' schools, people taking up Indie places, people deciding that the commute is too much for their DC.

Last year the school waiting list went to 20 miles, and that was probably an unrealistic application.

Although CGS has become much more popular in the last decade, it is still worth a shot from where you are now, and it would be a shoo-in from Berko.

[Louey]

Yes, I realise that it was the year before admission. I will have to keep an eye on the distances over the next couple of years to see whether is getting significantly shorter. My worry is that there is going to be a shortage of secondary places at some point, but I'm not sure when that will affect the grammar school system. I guess it depends on whether the excess number of children are likely to pass the eleven plus.

[scary mum]

The pass mark is set so that the same percentage pass each year. There has been a trend towards "11 plus tourists" sitting the Bucks 11 plus as a free mock, pushing the pass rate up & resulting in local children not getting places, but hopefully that won't be such a problem now that they have moved the date of the exam.