Worries about school places
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I know that Lincolnshire have advised that they are using an equal preference option but two of our local schools have advised that they will be full on first choice basis and therefore if you wanted to have the greatest chance of assuring a place to put them as first choice. We have put two grammar schools and then our local comp which is literally yards away and a good comp, but again we are concerned that if we don't get any of our choices that we may end up at a failing comp which is near to us as they will have spare capacity.Alex wrote:Hi,
So long as your authority use an equal preference system the order in which you place your preferences should make no difference at all to your chances of getting in to a particular school.
The schools will rank their applicants, without knowing the order of preference, according to their published criteria. The education authority will then allocate you a place at whichever school is placed highest on your list of preferences which is able to offer you a place.
Therefore, even if you have placed a school bottom of your preference list, were your higher preference schools to be unable to offer you a place, you would still gain a place at that last preference school ahead of a child who had placed it first preference IF you better met the admissions oversubscription criteria.
Hope you get what you want.
SJ
Thats really wierd. Our education authority allocates places depending upon whether you meet entry criteria for that school. If you meet the entry criteria for all schools on your application form (whether that criteria is being in the top 180 places in an enterance exam, having a sibling at the school, living in catchment etc) then you will be offered in order of preference on your form. The schools do not know the order they are ranked on the form.
So if you ranked your schools as;
School A - grammar offers 180 places on entrance exam (top 180)
School B - grammar offers 240 places on entrance exam (top 240)
School C - partially selective. Offers 60 places on exam. Rest of places on siblings then catchment in that order.
School D - partially selective as above
School E - comp offers sibling then on catchment.
If you made the entry criteria for all schools you would be offered School A and only school A. ie. You cannot at that stage turn around and say you want school C.
If you failed the exams for A and B but fell into entry criteria for the remaiming 3 schools you would be offered school C. If you only met the entry criteria for school E and gained a place on catchment criteria you would be offered School E. If you did not meet any of the above criteria you would be offered an undersubcribed (aka failing) school. The school offers are purely based on entry criteria not position that you put them on the form. This means if you are close to a good comp you will always be offered that school even if was bottom of your list. However, catchment does vary each year depending upon the number of children appying and obviously gets wider with the second wave of offers. All offers are made by the education authority.
This has to be a much fairer system than Lincs. I really don't understand why the system is so different all over the country. Some of you seem to have to take a real gamble over your childrens education and it just doesn't seem fair!
loulou
Thats really wierd. Our education authority allocates places depending upon whether you meet entry criteria for that school. If you meet the entry criteria for all schools on your application form (whether that criteria is being in the top 180 places in an enterance exam, having a sibling at the school, living in catchment etc) then you will be offered in order of preference on your form. The schools do not know the order they are ranked on the form.
So if you ranked your schools as;
School A - grammar offers 180 places on entrance exam (top 180)
School B - grammar offers 240 places on entrance exam (top 240)
School C - partially selective. Offers 60 places on exam. Rest of places on siblings then catchment in that order.
School D - partially selective as above
School E - comp offers sibling then on catchment.
If you made the entry criteria for all schools you would be offered School A and only school A. ie. You cannot at that stage turn around and say you want school C.
If you failed the exams for A and B but fell into entry criteria for the remaiming 3 schools you would be offered school C. If you only met the entry criteria for school E and gained a place on catchment criteria you would be offered School E. If you did not meet any of the above criteria you would be offered an undersubcribed (aka failing) school. The school offers are purely based on entry criteria not position that you put them on the form. This means if you are close to a good comp you will always be offered that school even if was bottom of your list. However, catchment does vary each year depending upon the number of children appying and obviously gets wider with the second wave of offers. All offers are made by the education authority.
This has to be a much fairer system than Lincs. I really don't understand why the system is so different all over the country. Some of you seem to have to take a real gamble over your childrens education and it just doesn't seem fair!
loulou
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Dorset Parent
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:11 pm
- Location: Bournemouth
Dear All. Thanks for your replies. When I posted the topic I wondered if I would get any responses and if anyone was feeling as I do. Thanks to Guest and Alex for the level headed and accurate explanation of allocation of places where there is a straight forward equal preference system - which is the case in our authority. I raised the issue at an open evening, rang up the education authority and discussed it and even wrote to them to get a written response before I sent my form in, yet I cannot help having these nagging doubts. Our local secondary school is the best option of a bunch of (I'm sorry to any locals reading this, and no offence meant) a pretty poor bunch of secondary schools in the town. I cannot think of any other school in town I would like my daughter to go to. I am not a Catholic so don't have the option of the only good comprehensive in our town. It's very unlikely she will get into the good comprehensive in the next Borough as lots of locals try and distance criteria is used. It's a sad state of affairs that seems to be mirrored across the country.
The situation in Buckinghamshire sounds worrying if catchment children are already being turned away. Plymouth guest, I really feel for you - you have done your research and I hope it works out. JJ I have also found all this incredibly hard on my emotions and tend to over analyse. I don't know if I will feel any different with my second child - everything is harder with the first. I have also found this site a comfort. SJ from Lincolnshire - that is an impossible situation if comprehensives are introducing a first choice element. In Bournemouth you only get that requirement for the RC comprehensive. Loulou - your analysis of the situation mirrors our education authority. It's strange to think, if you get your first choice, you will never know if your 2nd and 3rd choice schools offered you a place too. The order on the form is critical. Gone are the days where you had offers from schools and you could make the choice.
Interesting that some of you can put down 5 schools, whereas we have a limit of 3.
I hope that all of you who have posted on this will let us know the outcome. I will do my best to stay calm until March.
The situation in Buckinghamshire sounds worrying if catchment children are already being turned away. Plymouth guest, I really feel for you - you have done your research and I hope it works out. JJ I have also found all this incredibly hard on my emotions and tend to over analyse. I don't know if I will feel any different with my second child - everything is harder with the first. I have also found this site a comfort. SJ from Lincolnshire - that is an impossible situation if comprehensives are introducing a first choice element. In Bournemouth you only get that requirement for the RC comprehensive. Loulou - your analysis of the situation mirrors our education authority. It's strange to think, if you get your first choice, you will never know if your 2nd and 3rd choice schools offered you a place too. The order on the form is critical. Gone are the days where you had offers from schools and you could make the choice.
Interesting that some of you can put down 5 schools, whereas we have a limit of 3.
I hope that all of you who have posted on this will let us know the outcome. I will do my best to stay calm until March.
Hello SJ,
As you know the system is still "mixed" in Lincolnshire with most of the county (and all community and controlled schools) using the equal preference system but with 15 foundation schools having retained the first preference oversubscription criterion. The list of these schools is on page 24 of the Lincolnshire Guide to Secondary Transfer (the green booklet which came along with the CAF form). The majority of these are around the Lincoln area, the others scattered around but apart from The Giles School at Old Leake and a couple of the Grantham schools none of them are in the south of the county. It sounds as though the schools are misinforming people or do not understand the system themselves??!! ONLY those schools listed in the green booklet will know where you have placed them in order of preference.
Unless there are any huge demographic blips I think you should feel fairly confident of getting into Spalding GS, so hopefully nothing to worry about.
All the best.
As you know the system is still "mixed" in Lincolnshire with most of the county (and all community and controlled schools) using the equal preference system but with 15 foundation schools having retained the first preference oversubscription criterion. The list of these schools is on page 24 of the Lincolnshire Guide to Secondary Transfer (the green booklet which came along with the CAF form). The majority of these are around the Lincoln area, the others scattered around but apart from The Giles School at Old Leake and a couple of the Grantham schools none of them are in the south of the county. It sounds as though the schools are misinforming people or do not understand the system themselves??!! ONLY those schools listed in the green booklet will know where you have placed them in order of preference.
Unless there are any huge demographic blips I think you should feel fairly confident of getting into Spalding GS, so hopefully nothing to worry about.
All the best.
Hi All
I am sorry if I have appeared to have confused the issue and caused more concern. I made sure that I was completely aware of the entrance criteria for each of our choices and took advise from the LEA with regard to the equal preference criteria, but having spoken to both Grammar schools(as we are out of catchment for both) they both advised that the number of places to out of catchment children is extremely nominal. The local comp advised our primary school that they have been oversubscribed for the last few years and therefore to put them as first choice to have the best possible chance of gaining a place. They also stipulated this on their open evening. Other schools also advised that if you did not put them first, you would not gain a place, but these schools were not in the Lincolnshire catchment area.
I agree and understand that as long as we meet the criteria for whichever of our choices then we should gain a place in whichever school offers us a place, but I was just trying to advise of what our choices have said and therefore our concerns. I understand completely that if we do not gain a place in either of the grammar schools it will be because they are oversubscribed and despite the fact the he passed, that in itself is not enough as we do not meet enough of the other entrance criteria. My concern was the fact that the local comp advised that they are usually oversubscribed and in the past have looked at your placing of them in your preferences. Whether this will have an effect this year is the concern because as I have previoulsy said in this post they advised at the open evening that again they expect to be considerably oversubscribed and therefore to put them first.
We will just have to wait and see, but we, like all of you, have checked everything as much as we can, put our choices in preferential order taking into account entrance criteria, what the actual schools have told us and our preferences with regard to the schools.
I can understand why people move home to be in catchment of their prefered school, but don't necessarily agree that we should have to do this, but that is a completely different subject.
I am sorry if I have appeared to have confused the issue and caused more concern. I made sure that I was completely aware of the entrance criteria for each of our choices and took advise from the LEA with regard to the equal preference criteria, but having spoken to both Grammar schools(as we are out of catchment for both) they both advised that the number of places to out of catchment children is extremely nominal. The local comp advised our primary school that they have been oversubscribed for the last few years and therefore to put them as first choice to have the best possible chance of gaining a place. They also stipulated this on their open evening. Other schools also advised that if you did not put them first, you would not gain a place, but these schools were not in the Lincolnshire catchment area.
I agree and understand that as long as we meet the criteria for whichever of our choices then we should gain a place in whichever school offers us a place, but I was just trying to advise of what our choices have said and therefore our concerns. I understand completely that if we do not gain a place in either of the grammar schools it will be because they are oversubscribed and despite the fact the he passed, that in itself is not enough as we do not meet enough of the other entrance criteria. My concern was the fact that the local comp advised that they are usually oversubscribed and in the past have looked at your placing of them in your preferences. Whether this will have an effect this year is the concern because as I have previoulsy said in this post they advised at the open evening that again they expect to be considerably oversubscribed and therefore to put them first.
We will just have to wait and see, but we, like all of you, have checked everything as much as we can, put our choices in preferential order taking into account entrance criteria, what the actual schools have told us and our preferences with regard to the schools.
I can understand why people move home to be in catchment of their prefered school, but don't necessarily agree that we should have to do this, but that is a completely different subject.
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Guest
In Bournemouth the schools receive all the applications for their school and then sort them by the usual criteria and each child is then ranked. Of all the schools which are able to offer you a place, you will be offered your highest preference, so it won't affect your ranking on any schools' list where you put them in your preferences (other than the church school).
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Dorset Parent
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:11 pm
- Location: Bournemouth
Thanks Guest. I am clearer about the procedure and feel much calmer about my first child. Now I am worried about my second child after hearing the news yesterday.
Apparantly there is a new admissions code which is recommending changes in admissions for secondary schools. There are recommendations for "lotteries" - ie random allocation. Also for banding of pupils at 11 at junior school, and requiring secondary schools to take a proportion of pupils from each band. It looks like the traditional catchment and sibling criteria will be abandoned and you will not be guarenteed a place at your local school. It's to stop people moving houses to ensure places at good comprehensives and to ensure that each school takes a wide range of abilities. I've read that the code comes into force in February for admissions starting in 2008. So any child in current Year 5 downwards will be affected.
I am presuming this applies to "community" schools. Will it apply to Foundation schools as well? Will grammar schools and religious schools be exempt? Does anyone know if each community/foundation secondary school has to abide by this new admissions code? Do the heads have any discretion - do they have to change their code?
If anyone who has any inside knowledge can shed any light on this, I'd appreciate it.
Apparantly there is a new admissions code which is recommending changes in admissions for secondary schools. There are recommendations for "lotteries" - ie random allocation. Also for banding of pupils at 11 at junior school, and requiring secondary schools to take a proportion of pupils from each band. It looks like the traditional catchment and sibling criteria will be abandoned and you will not be guarenteed a place at your local school. It's to stop people moving houses to ensure places at good comprehensives and to ensure that each school takes a wide range of abilities. I've read that the code comes into force in February for admissions starting in 2008. So any child in current Year 5 downwards will be affected.
I am presuming this applies to "community" schools. Will it apply to Foundation schools as well? Will grammar schools and religious schools be exempt? Does anyone know if each community/foundation secondary school has to abide by this new admissions code? Do the heads have any discretion - do they have to change their code?
If anyone who has any inside knowledge can shed any light on this, I'd appreciate it.
See;Dorset Parent wrote:
If anyone who has any inside knowledge can shed any light on this, I'd appreciate it.
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... sc&start=3
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Dorset Parent
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:11 pm
- Location: Bournemouth
Dibble - thanks for taking the trouble to post here. I've followed your link. I agree that knowing the results of the 11+ test before the LEA form is completed would be useful. But this would mean earlier testing and I agree with another comment that this could exclude those who were not aware that the tests would be held so far in advance. The banning of "first preference" schemes is also a good idea. There wasn't any debate about the lottery system of allocation or schools taking a range of "banded" children from junior schools. I am still not entirely clear if schools are required to implement the recommendations of the code or not. Our LEA does not publish its admissions code for all schools until early September of each year. If changes are to be made this year, surely parents must be informed much earlier, especially if 11+ tests are to be moved forward so that results are known before the forms are handed in. I shall be following this with interest so that I am fully prepared for any changes which will affect my Year 4 child.