Buckinghamshire: School Allocation Profiles

Note: For school admissions from September 2013 Bucks CC will be using straight line distances for school allocations, rather than the current “walking/driving distance from school gates” measurement. The allocation profiles below are still relevant for the current 2011/2012 admission round.

(Contributed by Sally-Anne, 11 Plus Forum moderator)

This is an “at a glance” reference for the School Allocation Profiles for Buckinghamshire for the last few years. It will hopefully prevent people being caught out by the distance rules whenever possible.

If you believe that distance from school gates is going to be critical in your child’s case, you can check the distance on the Transport Direct website, which uses the similar Ordnance Survey (OS) software to that which Bucks CC’s Admissions team use. Enter your address (not just the postcode) and the address of the school. Make sure that you go to Advanced options, and under the “Car Journey” section, replace “quickest route” with “shortest route”. (Please note that the distance stated on there may actually be fractionally more than the distance as calculated by BCC, because their database includes footpaths, even where a footpath would clearly not be used because the child lives several miles from the school.)

If you believe that the route shown is not the shortest route, you must raise this with the Admissions team during September or October (the time when your child is taking the test) and not after the results have been published. If, at that stage, you find that Buckinghamshire has miscalculated the distance from your home to the school, almost your only recourse may be a Transfer Appeal.

The allocations shown are for National Allocations Day (1st March) each year and, where we have them, for the “Final Allocation Profile” at the end of August/start of September. The National Allocations Day figures are merely a snapshot, and the final allocations for all schools can change by some margin over the following few months, as you will see in certain cases.

It is important to understand the abbreviations used in the tables. The first priority is siblings of children currently in the school, and then children living in catchment. Those are followed by siblings who live out of catchment, and finally children who are out of catchment with no particular priority other than the distance from their home to the school gates.

The figures given represent the furthest extent of the allocation in each case. An allocation profile that reads “OAS to 5.5 mls” indicates that all children in catchment received places, but beyond that only siblings living within 5.5 miles received a place.

IAS = In Area siblings, usually siblings of children currently in Years 7 – 10, sometimes Years 7 – 13, depending on the school’s admission criteria.
IA = In Area, i.e. catchment.
OAS = Out of Area siblings of children currently in Years 7 – 10 (or Years 7 – 13).
OA = Out of Area, i.e. out of catchment. That might be in or out of County.
ALL = All Offered – everyone who applied received a place.

All distances are in miles from the school gates via roads and paved footpaths.

Please note that successful transfer appeals are not included in the profile because they would distort the profiles.

¹ The Royal Grammar School (182 day places & 10 boarding) – Due to under subscription for boarding places in 2008, the school took the decision to convert the 7 vacant boarding places to day places.

N.B. Aylesbury Vale Academy was previously known as the Quarrendon School. Chiltern Hills Academy was previously known as Chesham Park Community College.

Upper Schools With Special Entrance Requirements

Great Marlow School

The Mandeville School

³ There had been a number of successful transfer appeals in previous years, so the school planned for 7 forms in Year 7 (200 pupils) in Sept. 08. Further offers were made from the waiting list up to this number.

St. Bernard’s Catholic School

Waddesdon CE School

_{Page updated 19 November 2011}