Hi. Today we received a letter from GCC Co-ordinated Admissions with a slip to return.

The three options on the slip are:

1) I confirm that my child will not require a place at a mainstream Gloucestershire Secondary School/Academy from September 2020

2) I am making an application for a place at a mainstream Gloucestershire Secondary School/Academy for September 2020
and confirm that if my application is unsuccessful I WILL require a place at an alternative school

3) I am making an application for a place at a mainstream Gloucestershire Secondary School/Academy for September 2020
and confirm that if my application is unsuccessful I WILL NOT require a place at an alternative school

My query is what they mean by 'mainstream' school. Does this mean the grammars or are they talking about comprehensives? We don't want to jeopardise a potential grammar place for DD2 by filling this in wrongly, but as she hasn't taken the test yet, we don't know!

It says 'If we don't hear from you, or receive an application, we will not be allocating a Secondary School place on 2nd March 2020' so we don't want to get this wrong! By application do they mean the CAF at the end of October?

We didn't get a letter like this for DD1 (who left the same school in 2017).

Any help would be welcome please!

We haven't had anything like this, is your child currently in a mainstream school or a fee paying school?

Hi Brackenboo. She's at a fee-paying school.

When you just said 'is your child currently in a mainstream school' did you mean a state school? I've never heard mainstream used this way! I have a friend whose child has SEN and she often says she 'wants to try and keep him in mainstream school' meaning she doesn't want him to go to a specialist SEN school.

I thought that 'mainstream' here might mean grammar. If so, I think the options in the letter actually mean:

1) I confirm that my child doesn't want a grammar school place - but then surely they have her 11+ registration details so they know we'd like one if she passes!

2) I'm making an application for a grammar school, but if I don't get a place I will need a place at a comprehensive school (that makes sense but why do they need to know this now?)

3) I'm making an application for a grammar school, but if I don't get a place I won't need a place at a comprehensive school (I guess this is for people who will go private for secondary)

I've tried to ring but haven't got through yet! I'm confused and don't want to get this wrong.

The normal interpretation of mainstream is 'not specialist SEN provision'; it is certainly not 'grammar school', although any state grammar school would normally be included in 'mainstream'.

My interpretation- assuming that this letter has only gone out to those currently attending independent schools - is that the local authority is trying to tidy up its assessment of how many state school year 7 places will be needed in your DD's year group.

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ToadMum, thank you.

I confused myself further after posting by googling 'mainstream' and getting 'A mainstream school is a maintained school or academy which is not a special school. Mainstream schools are not selective and will not require students to pay fees' so the 'not selective' bit threw me as grammar school are selective!

So for us, should we tick option 2? That means we'd like a grammar place but if she doesn't get one, we'd like a comprehensive place.

Your best bet would be to ring or e-mail admissions at you local authority.

I meant mainstream in the sense of a state school, I would say option 2 but best to ask. I would also think it's so they can work out how whether you would stay fee paying if the grammar school application didn't work out