Offers will be made by your Local Authority on 1 March 2022 for 2022 intake and 1 March 2023 for 2023 intake. After months of preparation for entrance exams, filling in application forms and visiting school open days, on March 1st you will finally learn which secondary school your child has been offered a place at for September 2022.
In this blog, we have provided some useful information about what you need to do next and the options you need to consider when proceeding with your offer.
What do I do with my offer?
Whether you are happy with the offer you receive or not, you must respond quickly and accept it, or decline. The formal offer letter you receive will explain the process you must follow. Most authorities will demand that you accept an offer within two weeks or you will lose that offer. Failure to respond by the date specified on your local authority form will result in losing the place at your offered school.
If you applied for an independent school as well as a grammar or comprehensive school, then you need to decide which school you would like your child to go to. Out of politeness and fairness to other children, you should inform each party of your decision so that a place may become available for another child. For example, if you accept an offer from an independent school, then you should contact your local authority to decline your grammar or comprehensive offer and vice versa if you chose the grammar or comprehensive offer over an independent one. This should be done in a timely manner for fairness to other children waiting for an offer. Most independent schools give you until the 7th March (one week) to either accept or decline their offer.
What if I am not happy with my offer?
If you completed your preference form with a mix of grammar schools and comprehensive schools and you have been offered a grammar school place then you should accept it, even if it is not your first choice. You will automatically be placed on a waiting list for your more preferred options. If you do not accept the offer, then your child will not receive a place at any of your preferred grammar schools as the authority will assume that as you didn’t accept your lowest placed grammar school that you are also declining the grammar schools you placed above it. You may even be placed at a school that is not on your list of choices at all.
How do waiting lists work?
Following the deadline for accepting offers, there is a lot of movement on waiting lists as people accept or decline their schools of preference which will include independent schools. As a result, spaces on waiting lists will open up. For Birmingham authority, waiting lists will be created three weeks following the offer of school places. As previously mentioned, your child’s name will be automatically added to the waiting list for any higher preference schools than the one offered unless your child did not achieve the qualifying score in the grammar school selection test. Being on a waiting list does not mean that a place will become available.
How long must I wait?
You can check where your child is on the waiting list by phoning your local authority admissions team from three weeks following the offer day. Movement on waiting lists can continue up to and even beyond September. Each child that accepts an offer from a waiting list gives up their place at their first school offer. This school will then turn to their waiting list, and the cycle will continue until all of the places are filled. It has been known for people not to let the school know at all that their child no longer requires a place, and this only becomes apparent when schools open in September, meaning the filling process can take weeks after the new academic year begins.
What else can I do?
If you are very unhappy with your offer, then you do have the right to make an appeal. However, you must have extremely solid reasons as the majority of appeals are unsuccessful. Your offer letter will explain this process in greater detail and the information provided will be relevant for the area that you live in.
Please remember…
A lot of parents find this process stressful, and you must remember that help is always available to you not only from us here at Sutton Tutorials but also the local authority. Use the article above as a useful guide, but if you need any further help or assistance, please don’t hesitate to call on 0121 354 5848 or email us at richard@suttontutorials.co.uk