Deadline for secondary admissions approaches
Parents of Year 6 pupils have until Friday 21 October to
send in their forms to apply for a place at secondary school to start next
September (2006).
Some 80,000 parents in and around London will be making applications and many
will apply for places at schools outside the council area in which they live.
This will be the second year that London councils, and councils surrounding
London, will co-ordinate admissions to their secondary schools, swapping
details of applications for places in each others’ schools.
Glenda Hardy, Head of Admissions, CEA@Islington explains: ‘Co-ordinating
admissions means more parents can be offered places at preferred schools on
the national offer date, 1 March 2006. In March this year across the capital
we were able to offer places at a preferred school to nine out of 10 pupils
that applied and the number of pupils without places at the initial stage of
the process was reduced by around 55 per cent overall.’
Previously neither the offers nor the dates on which offers were made were
co-ordinated between authorities. As a result some parents held on to more
than one offer, which they had received from different admissions authorities,
until they had finally decided which one to accept. In the co-ordinated
admissions system councils eliminate these multiple offers and give each pupil
the single best offer, guided by the preferences listed on their forms. During
the process of co-ordination every time a multiple offer is eliminated an
offer can be made to someone else who would otherwise have received no offer
at all. That is how the councils achieve a fairer distribution of the
available offers.
For more information or advice parents should contact CEA@Islington’s
Admissions Team on 020 7527 5516.
For more information, please contact CEA@Islington's Communications Department: