Allocation distances this year - predictions

[Blue_Marigold]

How much impact do you think the new Catholic school in Aylesbury will have on the surrounding schools?

[Guest55]

Actually most of the SHFGS clubs are at lunchtimes - matches [except cricket in the summer] tend to be in school time or the minibus will drop at the bus station if requested.

[anotherdad]

How much impact do you think the new Catholic school in Aylesbury will have on the surrounding schools?

An interesting one to watch I think. With AVA having a troubled Ofsted record, I can see a shift of applications to St Michael's from those in that part of town. As well as that, there are two Catholic primaries in Aylesbury and no Catholic secondary so I would expect that some families (maybe lots of them) with children at those schools will apply to the new school for faith reasons. There are Catholic families in Waddesdon who may prefer to send their children to a Catholic rather than the CofE school and Catholic families all over Aylesbury Vale for whom the new school will be attractive. I expect St Michael's to be oversubscribed for those reasons, with a corresponding reduction in applications to other schools in the area.

As for its impact on the grammar schools, I am curious to see what happens. I'm particularly curious about the relative attractions of grammar versus faith schools and how many parents will put St Michael's first on their CAF, ahead of any grammar schools. I don't know if this happens in Wycombe and to what extent.

[Blue_Marigold]

I wondered if would free up spaces in Cottesloe because a lot of kids from that side of town apply to Cottesloe. Also hoping it will free up spaces at Waddesdon like you said.

[Guest55]

Yes I agree that the new school will be popular. I think Catholic families do send to HW especailly if their children don't qualify. There are a few on the train if you happen to travel at school times. The 2016 Year 11 cohort at St Michaels had roughly a quarter of 'higher ability' students, Waddesdon had a third.

It will impact most on AVA I think -

[anotherdad]

There are so many variables at play, including possible parental anxiety over it being a new school. The oversubscription criteria for the school also make it very difficult to know what impact it will have because the admissions criteria place the various religious criteria above distance so that a child of Catholic parents 10 miles away will have priority over a child of CofE parents three miles away who in turn, would have priority over a child of Muslim parents one mile away. Distance kicks in as the last criterion.

I don't support admissions criteria of this type but there's no doubt they are going to make the Aylesbury Vale school allocations interesting for a few years until things settle into a pattern.

[anotherdad]

It will impact most on AVA I think

That was my gut feeling, but with the religious elements in the admissions policy, I wonder how many who live in AVA's catchment would meet the St Michael's criteria? Possibly not enough to make a big difference to AVA if St Michael's attracts a lot of applications from Catholic families all over the Vale.

[Guest55]

I think there will be a knock on effect.

The Catholic Primaries are nearest The Grange so maybe families tend to live around there? That will mean the Grange takes from wider and so people get that instead of AVA.

All guess work at this stage though but fun to hypothesise.

[anotherdad]

You're right, I can see that happening.

[Blue_Marigold]

Is it worth putting it on the CAF if you're not Catholic?