School places allocation for Sept 2011
JanieB
Posts: 3,425 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Any parents on this forum who have had the results in the post this morning (or online yesterday evening), of their kids school applications?
We kind of don't mind the outcome even though the school place they have given us (High School) was actually our 5th choice and pretty far away from home. What narks me though is that at least down in the south east anyway, we can put up to six choices of schools on our forms and they don't have to be in the Borough we live in. The more schools we put down "the better chance we have in our applications" they say, but when push comes to shove, they will always allocate the places to the kids living in the education authority that the school is in, so what is the point in putting down your choices? :mad:
We kind of don't mind the outcome even though the school place they have given us (High School) was actually our 5th choice and pretty far away from home. What narks me though is that at least down in the south east anyway, we can put up to six choices of schools on our forms and they don't have to be in the Borough we live in. The more schools we put down "the better chance we have in our applications" they say, but when push comes to shove, they will always allocate the places to the kids living in the education authority that the school is in, so what is the point in putting down your choices? :mad:
0
Comments
What they are trying to avoid is parents desperate to get their children into an oversubscribed school ONLY choosing that school in the mistaken belief that this will give them a better chance; then the children get shoved wherever there is most room and the parents are absolutely furious.
Some people only put down the name of one school in the mistaken belief that if they only put one down, they must be allocated their one choice.
Apparently one of the snobby mums who's little darling does no wrong hasn't got into this school :eek: my mate is devastated for her
Several phone calls and texts later and she has now found out just about where most of the kids in her son's class are going, and only three of the other mums have got their 1st choice.
So it really is a lottery !!
And so they should.
Yes, but the application form should be clear. What education authorities will never say (because I suppose there is no reasonable way they can do so) is that "you will be wasting a choice if you choose X school, but you will be guaranteed a place if you choose Y school, which no one wants". Because lea's have to maintain the myth that all schools are equal. It really is a dreadful, stressful time for a lot of parents, and I take my hat off to the OP for being so philosophical about getting their 5th choice.
In one year in Kent only around 50% of children got their first choice, in another year it was over 90% because low numbers of applications meant little competition.
Similarly (sort of) in one year just two children went from my primary school to the local grammar, then in my year eleven of us went but the following year it was down to three.
Our 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices were schools in the next borough and the 5th choice was another school in our borough but we didn't put it higher up because we honestly thought that it was too far away and that we would get the first choice because we were supposedly within the catchment zone (the people from whom we bought our house from had children who went to the same school).
Just found out yesterday that a friend of my son who attends the same primary school got a place at our 2nd choice of school which is also in a different borough to where he lives and further away from it than we live. It really is a bit of a lottery methinks.