Hello,

Could someone advice me on ranking my preferences on the CAF please? I am in the catchment for RGS(closest) and JHGS. But my 1st preference is DCGS as we are only 5 miles away from the school but out of the catchment. By putting DCGS as my 1st choice on the CAF, am I jeopardising my chances of getting a place at RGS ? If I put DCGS on top at least I have a hope of going on the waiting list for my 1st choice. My DS is a very capable boy who scored high in all 11+ exams and I want the best for him. In Bucks , can I go on the waiting list for a school I've ranked lower..? .Please help !

Askey

Put the schools in your real order of preference.

If you cannot be allocated DCGS (and you almost certainly won't be, because they won't allocate beyond catchment), your next preference becomes your new first preference. If that is either RGS or JHGS, there is every likelihood that you will be allocated it.

You can go on the waiting list for DCGS, but it is again highly unlikely you will get a place because every year there are boys in catchment who don't receive places.

Hi Askey

Google "equal preference system" to allay your fears. In summary, there is no tactical advantage to the way you place schools on the CAF. None of the schools know where they appear on your list. If a place cannot be allocated at your first choice, you are tested against the criteria for your second choice and so on until you meet the criteria of a school. If DCGS is your true first choice, put it first. It will not jeopardise your applications to any other school.

On another point, what makes you think that DCGS is "the best"? We all want the best for our children and you should choose your schools in order of which you preferred when you visited, i.e. which is the best for him. Feel, environment, sports, journey times and a load of other criteria all go into making that choice. Please don't fall into the trap of selecting schools simply on GCSE or A level results. The differences between the three schools you mention are very marginal and the results tables are macro-statistics. They won't tell you how your child will perform because his results are individual to him and will be affected more by how happy and comfortable he is at school than by what the cohort average is.

Thank you all for your kind advice.

I happened to read somewhere that a school could get filled with their 1st preferences. That's why I'm worried about putting my catchment school second. My DS loved RGS when we went to visit, and he was charmed by everything it has to offer. I'll have to make a decision knowing my chances are very low getting to DCGS.

What exactly has DCGS got that he won't get at RGS?

If you are in HW then it makes far more sense to go to school there. It might be 'only five miles' but HW can get grid -locked very easily and those miles can take a long time.

Read the link posted about the Bucks equal preference system. It explains it all very clearly. There's no need to be worried. You should put the schools in your preferred order. There are no tactics to employ, it's simply a list of schools in your order of true preference.

I echo Guest55's advice. There is a huge advantage to a shorter school commute. You will see many people on here condemning their children to or contemplating ludicrous commutes for their children such is their desperation to secure a grammar school place. You have the comparative luxury of a relatively local option. I'd jump at it.

It is perfectly possible that a school's entire intake did name it first on their CAF, but the school has no way of knowing where an applicant ranked it, so t.at would not be the reason. What each school does, is rank all applicants against - only - its published admissions criteria. Then each applicant's home LA collates the responses from all the schools s/If has applied to and tells the applicant that they have a place at the school which says Yes, which appear highest on that applicants's CAF.

This has been the law for several years now, so please ignore anything you hear to the contrary.

Your LA will have full details of how the system works on its website, somewhere very close to the online CAF. Some LAs even make you indicate that wmt have read and understood the information before you can press Submit.

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