11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi, I am new to this site. sorry for any mistakes. Now we are in maidenhead and my child is preparing for 11+ exams very seriously for this year but last week in parents meeting their teacher told me that in maidenhead there are only three preferences to apply for secondary schools but if we move to bucks/ slough county we get 6 preferences in CAF form.
so we want to move to either bucks/slough area. we are planning to move in the month of August.
Is there any time limit to be there to apply for grammar schools in that catchamant area. or any suggessions please

Iam really confused and in tension.
Could any body help me in this regard.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Rishita, I am not an expert but went through the process last year as a parent so can offer some advice.
It is true that in Bucks there are 6 choices on the CAF and in Maidenhead 3 choices (maybe because there is a comprehensive system in Maidenhead but you have both the grammar / upper schools in Bucks?). i believe that school choices for Bucks residents were made in October last year if I remember correctly.
I think if you are seriously considering moving then looking at the catchment areas of the schools you have at the top of the list for your DC would be really important and then correlate it with the allocation profiles (lots of posts on this in Bucks part of the forum). And of course you prob already know that Bucks and Slough have different 11+ exams.

i wonder if the thread might be best posted in the Bucks or Berks section so you can get more advice?

Good advice above. But really I am unsure as to why you would want to move house just because one place has 3 boxes on the form and another has 6. It doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting into a school you really want. For example, we have four boxes on the form where I live. But really there are only two grammar schools which we have any chance of getting places offered at on 1 March each year - one is superselective and home address is not an issue, the other one in some years you can get into it from this address and other times you can't.

The admissions policies of the schools you want to get into, and where you live in relation to those schools if where you live matters, is far more important than the number of boxes on the form.

Also, you can go on the waiting list and appeal for schools that you didn't put on your CAF in the first place. There is a period of time (look in the local authority admissions booklet) when only people who put the school on their CAF can do this, after that anyone can. So you can apply for as many schools you like beyond a certain date, you just might not ever get a place at any of them. But then the same applies to schools you put on your CAF, if you put down impossible choices you might never get a space at any of them - it really is a form on which you express your "preference", not one where you are guaranteed to get a place at any of the schools you put down. There could be ten spaces on the form and you still might not get a place at any of those ten schools.

I'm not sure why the teacher would have bothered to tell you this rather useless fact at the parents' evening.

Good luck.

Thank you very much for your reply.
I have another doubt, is it possible for my child to write exams for different schools without mentioning them in CAF form?

We are only thinking that if we move to 6 choices area, my child has more choices/ chances of getting into the grammar schools without waiting for waiting list.

some suggestions please.

You can take as many exams as you like but unless the school is mentioned on the CAF I don't think you will get a place without going on the waiting list or appealing.

Agree with the other posters, there are often fewer than 3 schools that you would a) want to go to b) have a chance of getting into.

we live in Bucks and only put 3 schools on our CAF, 2 grammars and 1 upper in case she didn't pass. There wasn't any point putting any more.

Thanks for all the replies.

You need to look at the individual admissions policies, and their admissions data over the last few years, for the grammar schools in the 6 choice area to see if moving house close to 6 grammar schools (is that possible in the 6 choice area?) would really give you a higher chance of getting in without a waiting list. It really doesn't seem logical to me. Generally grammar admissions policies fall into two types - the higher the score the better your chance of getting in and where you live is irrelevant, or you need to just pass the 11+ and then the closer to the school you live the better - so you need to live very close to one school if you don't want to have to go through waiting lists or appeal. It's very hard to live close to 6 grammar schools unless you lived in a very densely population and extremely brainy area!!

I think most people in Bucks only put 3 or 4 choices as follows (Mystery, in Bucks you just have to get a certain score then it is on distance):

First choice GS (possibly one that might not get into due to distance)
Second choice GS (usually a safe one, ie the catchment GS)
First choice upper school
Second choice upper school.

OK so in Bucks is it important to live close to a grammar school , or are there just oodles of grammar schools and as long as you live in Bucks you are going to get a grammar place that you can easily travel to? If it's the latter I'm moving to Bucks too!!

In Kent, it used to be that if you had passed the 11+ but didn't get the grammars you had put on your CAF because they were full because you live a little too far from them, you were allocated a grammar too far away to travel to. The the admissions booklet changed and now you get the closest non-selective with spaces.

And what about Slough - Rishita asked about Slough too - isn't that Berkshire?

It sounds like asking questions in the Bucks forum might help Rishita decide on whether or not to relocate, and if so, to which postcode!!