Hi all,

I wanted to ask if someone knew how the local council works with grammar schools from a different council for filling admission places .I saw that a Child ranked 930 is offered a place by September on whatdotheyknow site.If someone puts down grammar schools from a different borough as their first three choices and if a child is ranked somewhere on the 700th for their first choice and say 300 on second or third choice,will the LA automatically put them on a waiting list or refuse place on national offer day?There are only 150 to 200 places so how does someone ranked 800 or 930 get a place by September ?

Thanks

Each school (or the school's maintaining LA on its behalf) ranks all the applications it receives against its own admissions criteria. In complete ignorance of where on anyone's CAF it was placed or to which other school(s) any applicant has also applied. Via the school's maintaining LA, the message is sent back to each applicant's home LA as to whether a place can be offered.

The applicant's home LA (which, of course, is the maintaining LA for all the state schools its own area) collates the responses and if more than one place can be offered, allocates that applicant a place at the school they said they most wanted out of the ones which they could be offered.

Each child only gets one place. So if the child ranked 900th in the entrance exam is still eligible for a place and in the list of those who name the school on their CAF is able to be offered a place and that school is their effective first preference (that is, their highest ranked school which says yes to them), then they get the place. Numbers 149 - to 899 in the exam may not have applied for a place, or may have applied, but ranked at least one school higher on their CAF.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Sometimes successful appeals and/or criteria such as ‘ring-fenced‘ and pupil premium places in the school’s admission policy throw that sort of information out.

Very few people would be willing to change their plans in September.

Thanks @Toadmum If the school's LA doesn't know where someone places a school on CAF,then what is the criteria for the child's LA to decide if a place can be offered?Especially if the PAN is a max of 200,would it not be more of who is higher up in the ranking? One child would have placed school A as third choice and ranked 100,LA cannot offer first and second choice and is on waiting list for those.If another child placed school A as first choice and ranked 300.I thought that the child that placed it third gets a place due to higher ranking. Please correct me if wrong.
@oneoftwothings Does successful appeal have an effect on those on waiting list?

Thanks

the key thing in that example is the ranking, not the position on the CAF . The child who was ranked 100 and placed it third would get an offer (only assuming their 1st and 2nd schools couldn't offer a place) over the child who was ranked 300

Yes, that's how it works. The LA will allocate the highest school for which the child qualifies. So, in your example above, IF the first child had not qualified for their 1st and 2nd choice then they would be offered the next highest choice for which they qualified, school A. However, the other child might also get an offer, if enough of those DC above them had qualified for schools which they had placed higher in their preferences - for example, other grammar schools, local outstanding comps etc. IF the first child got offers one of their top 2 choices, they would not get an offer for school A - which might mean that the other child did.
x posted with Hermanmunster - what she said!

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mad?

Also, I see you're posting in Sutton. In Sutton, there are 3 boys grammars and 2 for girls. There are also grammars in other boroughs that some children apply to (in Kingston or Bromley, say) and some children will also apply to private schools.

So, suppose 850 boys are qualified to apply for Sutton Grammar. Of those, 200 might also qualify for Wilsons, and put Wilsons higher on the CAF and be offered a place there. Another 50 might prefer Wallington Boys, and 50 might prefer schools in another borough. So you could lose 300 people from the rankings for Sutton Grammar and then someone who ranked 450 might get an offer on offer day. Later on, another 100 might go private and that will open up more spaces from the waiting list and take you further down the rankings.

Also, to confirm, it doesn't matter which local authority you are in or the school is in. The admissions process is co-ordinated across the boroughs so it won't affect the process.

OP, your own LA should have the same information available, but here is the secondary transfer booklet produced by Essex - if you start at p7, I think, there is an explanation of how the system works. The system is coordinated nationally, to comply with the Admissions Code.
https://assets.ctfassets.net/knkzaf64jx5x/5foPC3PrBPptqCU3dUikrF/27270ab31e01300570c35fa68115f853/Essex_County_Council_Secondary_school_admissions_brochure_2021_to_2022_with_form.pdf

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Thanks all.That's all very useful information .