11 Plus Exams Forum

Do all the kids that qualify for a grammar school place get one even if it's not at their preferred schools?

There should be grammar school places for all those qualified. However if you put the following on your CAF:
GS A
GS B
US A
etc
If neither of the first two could accommodate your DC, admissions would assume that the upper school was genuinely your third choice & allocate that.
I presume if you had 5 grammar schools on your CAF and none could accommodate you (very unlikely if you are in catchment) they would then allocate the nearest school which could, which would probably be an upper school (or the Khalsa school which is what has happened locally to me).

lioness wrote:Do all the kids that qualify for a grammar school place get one even if it's not at their preferred schools?

No.

lioness wrote:Do all the kids that qualify for a grammar school place get one even if it's not at their preferred schools?

Yes if they are Bucks residents; Stroller is incorrect.

My fault, sorry, hadn't noticed that it was in Bucks; I was browsing through unread posts.

I called the council to check that DD is on the waiting list for SHF.

The response from the person I spoke to worried me a little. She said they allocated places on the 18/03 and my DD is on the waiting list.

When I probed and asked her if DD was not allocated a place on the 18/03 (a decision which we will be notified on the 29/04) she retracted and said no the deadline to send forms was the 18th not the actual allocation. This discombobulated me further because the deadline for responding to offers was the 15/03 not 18/03.

So here is my question to those with insider info. How does the second round of allocations work? Do they allocate places on the 18/03?

No places will be allocated under the second round of allocations until the timescale for parents to accept or refuse their initial allocation has passed (at least two weeks after March 1st and therefore March 15th sounds like the date). Admissions will then usually write to all parents that they have not heard from first to give them a further chance to refuse or accept and then include the late preferences that missed the initial deadline. Only when all this administration has taken place will they then begin to look at the second round of allocations. There would be no way they can do that on 18th March. I suspect that the person you spoke to may have been new and/or unfamiliar with the timescale of the different procedures. To be sure, why not email Admissions for confirmation?

Everything that maggiemay says is correct, and an email to Admissions should put your mind at rest.

By way of a possible explanation, I have just noticed that the allocation date for Primary school places is 18th April, this Friday, and Admissions will be very busy dealing with that. I wonder if the person you spoke to had a moment of confusion between the 15th (of March) and the 18th (of April) because of that?

I will ring the Council on Monday.

When we were not offered a place we asked to be put on the waiting list for SHF and also lodged an appeal which is what we were told to do.

Anyway today we received a letter with the dates of the two stage appeal against the decision.

Is this the norm - to arrange the appeal before the second round of allocations?

I believe that appeals and allocations are dealt with separately in completely different departments.