Worries about school places
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:16 am
Dear All, I thought I had calmed down since the 11+ exam experience. Now I find I am worried about the whole school allocation process. I woke on Christmas Day morning from a nightmare that my daughter hadn't got a place at any of the 3 schools we had put on the form. Then I remembered a few years ago a girl on our road didn't get into our catchment school and had to go to a school in a different area that to be honest I wouldn't want my child to go. How come I had forgotten this and why didn't she get a place?
Although I have already got a written response from our education authority that the preference we put on out form is blanked out and the schools allocate on catchment first process, our school is oversubscribed and does turn away people. For the past 3 years the rejections have been from people out of catchment,(I haven't been able to access previous records). The education authority was re-assuring in their letter, but they could not state categorically that there would never be a case of rejecting a child from catchment. The year my daughter started school there was an extra class in her school and a neighbouring school - that's 60 extra children in our catchment area.
The education authority allocate places according to preferences on forms. I am now thinking - they must allocate all the places to our catchment school to those with first preference first. We've put it as third preference, - the grammar school first, then a nearby good comprehensive that is outside our Borough but which allocates about 60 places to our area. It is a popular school and in recent years our road has been just too far out, but we thought we must give it a try. What happens if the education authority allocate places to all those within catchment who have put it as first preference, then those who have put it at second, and the places are used up before they get to those at third preference? If our first and second choice schools do not offer us a place, then we are stuck with schools further away which I do not want her to go to.
Does anyone else have thoughts like this? I thought I had gone thought the whole process really carefully. Quite a few people have put the preferences in the same order we have. I just hope I have not jeopardised my daughter a place at her local school by putting two more remote chances above it. I can only hope that this isn't the first year that children within catchment are refused places, due to the increase in school numbers.
I must sound really neurotic. We do live quite close to our catchment school and I know that if it comes to it, distance criteria will be applied. It's just the preferences on the form and the education authority's role in allocation (not the school) that is bothering me.
Although I have already got a written response from our education authority that the preference we put on out form is blanked out and the schools allocate on catchment first process, our school is oversubscribed and does turn away people. For the past 3 years the rejections have been from people out of catchment,(I haven't been able to access previous records). The education authority was re-assuring in their letter, but they could not state categorically that there would never be a case of rejecting a child from catchment. The year my daughter started school there was an extra class in her school and a neighbouring school - that's 60 extra children in our catchment area.
The education authority allocate places according to preferences on forms. I am now thinking - they must allocate all the places to our catchment school to those with first preference first. We've put it as third preference, - the grammar school first, then a nearby good comprehensive that is outside our Borough but which allocates about 60 places to our area. It is a popular school and in recent years our road has been just too far out, but we thought we must give it a try. What happens if the education authority allocate places to all those within catchment who have put it as first preference, then those who have put it at second, and the places are used up before they get to those at third preference? If our first and second choice schools do not offer us a place, then we are stuck with schools further away which I do not want her to go to.
Does anyone else have thoughts like this? I thought I had gone thought the whole process really carefully. Quite a few people have put the preferences in the same order we have. I just hope I have not jeopardised my daughter a place at her local school by putting two more remote chances above it. I can only hope that this isn't the first year that children within catchment are refused places, due to the increase in school numbers.
I must sound really neurotic. We do live quite close to our catchment school and I know that if it comes to it, distance criteria will be applied. It's just the preferences on the form and the education authority's role in allocation (not the school) that is bothering me.