Hi all - my son scored 237. We would be quite happy with a place at FW - but just a quick question: if we put CHB as first preference on the LA form, would we be putting the FW place in jeopardy potentially?

No!

You are offered the first school for which you are eligible - if you don't get your first choice school then your second choice effectively becomes your first so nothing to lose

No, put the schools in order of your true preferences, If your first choice cannot be offered then your next choice becomes your first and so on.

No you wouldn't.

If CHB is your first choice then that must go first with FW second.

The schools have no idea where you place them on the form.

This is a common misconception that people have and it is totally unfounded.

237 is probably not quite enough for CHB, so on 1st March you will be offered FW and placed on waiting list for CHB.

Definitely put CHB first, although unlikely to get a place, strange things sometimes happen!!

agreed can be crazy years where people decide that they won't make the cutoff so don't put the school on the CAF and the cutoff score promptly drops

This happened in 2016, score on offers day dropped to 239!!!

Those in Worcestershire on the border with Birmingham/Solihull and also in the Warwickshire Priority Circle need to be very careful as they only have 3 preferences on the CAF one of which (No. 3) may need to be the local Worcs Comp (e.g Woodrush) - so effectively they only have 2 choices. So unfortunately in this case the choice needs to be sensible taking into account the child's score in the exam and previous historical lowest entry scores for the grammar school in question.

If you are in this position then I would strongly recommend that you add notes on the form to say something along the lines that "we would have included grammar school x in the list above our 3rd choice comprehensive if we were allowed more choices on the CAF form as recommended to Worcester County Council by the Birmingham Grammar Schools consortium"