First preference school for Bexley top 180 11+ students

[dbond]

Hi all,
Is the statistics about the first preference of top 180 11+ children is published anywhere?
For example, Bexley Grammar School has around 190 places. If, say, this happens to be the most popular school among top 180 children, then they can in theory occupy to 180 out of those 190 places. This will make the chances to get a place for anyone else extremely low.

Thanks in advance for your advices and thoughts.

[PettswoodFiona]

I haven’t seen any firm stats or data. There may be something on What Do They Know so do check there or ask the question. I get the impression only from having been in this forum for many years now that many who get top180 scores are often not putting Bexley schools down. They might have a superselective on their list, be going independent or just used it as a test. Some may already be in distance anyway so their being in the top 180 wouldn’t have changed their outcome from being a pass.

I found this thread https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... hp?t=46493" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; that mentions that in around 2015 only 60 of top 180 named a Bexley school, some of them could have had other schools higher on the list or had the CAF as a backup to independent so even then not all would have ended up at a Bexley grammar.

[Zephy]

There is a FOI already answered on What Do They Know which tells you how many Top 180 places were offered since 2018. Not sure if I'm allowed to post it here but it's very easy to find and very informative.

This year there were just 10 Top 180 offers but some of those might accept private options.

Just to point out though, it doesn't need to be their first preference -- it wasn't ours but sadly we didn't get any of our higher preferences so we have accepted our place. My DS is looking forward to starting but I worry its intake is too local (just 1.91 miles this year on offer day) and I'm beginning to wonder if we should have chosen Chis & Sid instead for him to (potentially) find travel friends... But that's just my neurosis!

[Zephy]

Sorry, I should have said my post above refers only to Bexley Grammar School. I'm not sure about Bexley in general but there might be separate FOI requests...

Apologies for any confusion!

[hermanmunster]

Hi Zephy - yes please post the link I think it would be very helpful to see the information - thanks

PS definitely better at a local school - travelling gets very boring after a while

[Zephy]

Thanks Hermanmunster.

Here's the link for BGS:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... ng-1990570" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There's a similar request for Chis and Sid but the formatting on the reply isn't great:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... ng-2012741" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[dbond]

Many thanks for the answers and special thanks to Zephy for the links to the "What Do They Know" answers!

If I read Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School data correctly, it seems to be approx. x2 times more popular among "top 180" students than Bexley Grammar School:
30-50 CSGS Vs 15-25 BGS.

[Zephy]

It's not very clear because of the formatting but I think that number includes looked after children, siblings and children of staff?

I agree with PWF that most top 180 will probably end up elsewhere and, as we now know BGS generally offer <25 places, we can be fairly confident that not all the top 180 are going to one school!