Hello everyone,

1. I live at the edge of the catchment of the AGS and SHF Schools. My son will take the secondary transfer test next year but just wanted to know if he will surely get a place in one of those schools if he passes the test? I mean in case of over subscription one of the criteria is the distance of home from the school. So even if I live in the catchment there is a possibility that distance wise he might not be able to get a place.

I have seen in the previous posts that if you live in the catchment it is 100% sure that you will get a place. I believe this is more anecdotal than a rule. So what happens if you don't get a place? Is it that there will be a guaranteed place in a grammar school in bucks even though it may not be your first choice and far away from your home?

2. Reading about the non grammar schools in bucks it seems these schools are called upper schools. What is the difference between upper schools and comprehensive schools? It appears the difference between grammar schools or comprehensive schools and upper schools is quite vast. Is it true?

Many thanks for the help in advance.

Have you had a look at the allocation profiles ie the last distance offered a place?

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=54212#p665878

@hermanmunster, yes, I did. I can see that historically everyone in the catchment got a place. My question is more of what is the actual rule? Will it be always that if you are in the catchment you will always get a place given that the test is passed? What if say there are hundreds of houses built near the school and there are more children passed test in the catchment than the number of places available

It might be worth you contacting Bucks Local Authority. They will be able to tell you what rules they apply.

As mentioned above, check the previous allocations. Of course there is no guarantee that they will always show the same pattern. For example a school's popularity may increase or decrease, or there may be a lot of new houses built in catchment. Check for changes to the admission criteria as well.


I believe that it is very rare for someone qualified to not receive a place. However they will allocate according to your CAF form, so if you only put 2 grammar schools and then Upper schools and they can't allocate the grammar schools they will move on to your next choice, which may be an Upper school. The computer doing the allocations has no way of knowing that you want a grammar school that you haven't put on the list. I think you would then have to appeal for your chosen grammar schools (against over subscription), and others as well if you wanted (hopefully someone such as Sally-Anne will confirm this, but I think this is how it would work.
ETA: I should also have said that if you put 5 schools on your form that they cannot allocate to you, they will allocate any school with places, which may be one that you do not want. Always put at least one school that you know you will get & are happy with. You can then appeal for others if necessary.



Upper schools are not comprehensive as they are not "all ability", the top 30% (by test results) go to grammar schools. The quality of Upper schools in Bucks is very mixed, so check your local schools carefully. There are many excellent comprehensive schools where children do just as well as at grammar school, but there are no comprehensive schools in Bucks.

There is no guarantee of a grammar school place. As you rightly mention, in the event that there are more qualified children in catchment than there are places, the distance rule will be used. AGS & SHF a really a long way off that point though, as you can see from the allocation tables.

(And if the hundreds of houses do get built, they are likely to primarily be occupied by families with younger children.)