School Places

[Indie1399]

From my understanding from 15th March all late applications and school rejection are processed. Lists will then by updated by the 1st April. After the 1st you are able to request an update on position/ may receive an offer if they are able to offer one.

[akc74]

Kingsdale have sent out updated waiting list positions today - does anyone know if Southwark do the same today, or if that only happens if you ask for it?

Thanks

[Indie1399]

With Southwark you have to ask. I emailed them this morning and have had no response thouugh

[Renata Hamvas]

You need to email them

[Indie1399]

Has anyone at all had any movement yet in Southwark?

I know Kingsdale have contacted parents but we are in the 200s and moved 10 places so clearly no chance.

Other areas have had second round offers end of last week but haven't heard anything myself or had email reply. Hoping they respond over the half term

[Soylent Green]

DuncanW Wrote:

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> Soylent, I'm not certain that's right.

>

> If you have two kids or more and at the time your

> eldest is applying for secondary schools, they

> can't get a local school because other families

> have moved into the area to get their eldest in,

> and then moved out and the younger ones are

> getting sibling priority, would that not be a

> disadvantage?

I think you are over-imagining the number of people who move out of an area once they have one child in secondary. In my experience of having had two children go through secondary school, relatively few people move away at this stage. Who wants their 11 or 12 year old, who is just getting to grips with commuting and having the independence to meet up with friends at weekends or after school travelling long and complicated journeys between home and school and friends and home?

The reason for number of applications exceeding number of places is simply because there are a very large number of junior school age in this area. Most local primaries have either expanded or had bulge years and people are less likely nowadays to move out of London for the Kent grammars. If you add up the number of local year 6 classes you will see how the supply exceeds demand. Starting closest to CED; GG 2, DKH 2, St Johns 2, Bessemer 3, Heber 2, Goodrich 3, Bellenden 2, Lyndhurst 2, St Anthony's 2. That's without bulge classes or including Herne Hill, Nunhead or Dulwich schools. Already you are over 500 pupils chasing how few places? Sadly, we know this bulge is already in decline - primary schools are not filling their reception classes any more - which means there is no argument for building any more secondary schools. Sorry that this is such a depressing state of affairs, but you are just wasting sweat if you think the sibling policy is to blame here. It's not.

[gebbjane]

I've heard those at the very top of the waiting list for Charter ED were offered places on Thursday, not sure if via the school or council! We were in the top 10 on the waiting list at beginning of March but not heard anything and we also emailed the council Thursday morning.

Indie1399 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Has anyone at all had any movement yet in

> Southwark?

>

> I know Kingsdale have contacted parents but we are

> in the 200s and moved 10 places so clearly no

> chance.

>

> Other areas have had second round offers end of

> last week but haven't heard anything myself or had

> email reply. Hoping they respond over the half

> term

[gebbjane]

Indie - We have just had an email back from our 1st choice school with an updated position, so some schools admissions offices are open this week.

[Indie1399]

Ahh that's good news!

We didn't get any of our choices but was number 1 for one of the schools on offer day. Haven't heard a word from them and emailed them last week. Hoping this week some news comes in!

[akc74]

Yep we've also had an update from our first choice school and have gone up about 7 places, but we're still over 40 places to go, so we know we have to move on re that one!

[DuncanW]

Soylent Green Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> DuncanW Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Soylent, I'm not certain that's right.

> >

> > If you have two kids or more and at the time

> your

> > eldest is applying for secondary schools, they

> > can't get a local school because other families

> > have moved into the area to get their eldest

> in,

> > and then moved out and the younger ones are

> > getting sibling priority, would that not be a

> > disadvantage?

>

>

> I think you are over-imagining the number of

> people who move out of an area once they have one

> child in secondary. In my experience of having had

> two children go through secondary school,

> relatively few people move away at this stage.

> Who wants their 11 or 12 year old, who is just

> getting to grips with commuting and having the

> independence to meet up with friends at weekends

> or after school travelling long and complicated

> journeys between home and school and friends and

> home?

>

> The reason for number of applications exceeding

> number of places is simply because there are a

> very large number of junior school age in this

> area. Most local primaries have either expanded

> or had bulge years and people are less likely

> nowadays to move out of London for the Kent

> grammars. If you add up the number of local year

> 6 classes you will see how the supply exceeds

> demand. Starting closest to CED; GG 2, DKH 2, St

> Johns 2, Bessemer 3, Heber 2, Goodrich 3,

> Bellenden 2, Lyndhurst 2, St Anthony's 2. That's

> without bulge classes or including Herne Hill,

> Nunhead or Dulwich schools. Already you are over

> 500 pupils chasing how few places? Sadly, we know

> this bulge is already in decline - primary schools

> are not filling their reception classes any more -

> which means there is no argument for building any

> more secondary schools. Sorry that this is such a

> depressing state of affairs, but you are just

> wasting sweat if you think the sibling policy is

> to blame here. It's not.

That's a bit of a mischaracterisation of what I was saying. I didn't make any comment about the scale of the issue other than saying that I had no idea about that.

My point was not about the scale of the problem, but simply that when it does happen by design (gaming) it's unfair, and when it happens by circumstance, allowing sibling priority is probably still not the most equitable way to distribute places at over-subscribed schools.

I share your view that long schoool journeys and all that comes with it are not ideal, but plenty of people do it. Just look at the local independent schools, and you may have seen another thread in this section created by someone who wants to send their child to school in Dulwich whilst living in Greenwich. If people will pay ?XXX for the privilege of sending their kids to schools far from where they live, you will likely find some that would do it without paying fees for the school of their liking.

You're right about the current demand outstripping supply being temporary etc, but for me that has little bearing on whether or not to try to make the system more equitable. It's certainly done in some other London boroughs.

[Indie1399]

I received update from Southwark. We applied for 4 Southwark schools, 3 of them we've moved between 5-10 places. 1 school has had zero movement (not sure if this is because they haven't updated list yet)

[gebbjane]

Has anyone heard about movement on the waiting lists after end of March?

I contacted our no1 choice yesterday and was told this after telling them I was confused on how they couldn't give me a waiting list position and asking how the waiting list system works in the borough:-

? I completely understand your confusion. usually, as offers are made or declined, we inform Southwark of the updates to our waiting list. If Southwark receives late applications to our waiting list, we rank these accordingly and again send an updated waiting list back to Southwark. This is an ongoing process that continues until the end of August.

Currently, Southwark has had a systems issue which they are trying to fix. Once this is fixed, we will update them with any offers we wish to make and they will update us with declined offers and new additions to the waiting list. Until then, we are not in a position to give out waiting list positions. I hope this clears up the process for you.?

Does anyone know how long the Southwark systems have been down?

[Indie1399]

We received a waiting list position a few weeks ago at the end of April.

[gebbjane]

Finally heard back from the council - have been informed they will be making offers from the waiting lists over the next few days.

[scarlettbanks]

I'm just following up on the below, for parents worried about their chances of getting into Charter ED in future years. We went to the open day yesterday. The following is useful info I think...

The building work should be complete by Sept 2022.

The school said that the 'longest distance' offered for Sept 2021 intake was 897m (so it seems it increased quite a bit after offer day). Sept 2022 will be 210 kids rather than 180, so you would think it will be longer than 897m this year. And once they are 'up-and-running' in the new buildings, they plan to increase to 240 kids, so admission distance should be longer still. There are also plans to have a unit for children with special needs (I didn't hear more details than that, sorry), which will admit more kids (20? 30?) on top of the 240.

Given also the changing demographics in ED (see below), I'm hoping that Charter ED will therefore eventually be able to offer places covering a much wider distance (1.3km? 1.5km?), and cater for East Dulwich more generally. Maybe even wider than that if demographics continue to change - e.g. our local primary school (Belham) used to have catchment areas of 300-400m, but this year was more like 1km!

scarlettbanks Wrote:

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> By the way, for those panicking about future years

> - I?ve heard that in the coming years the distance

> for Charter ED should increase.

> -60 extra places (from 2022 or 2023 I think - see

> other thread). We have a friend that lives 1000+

> metres away and is fifty-something on the waiting

> list (so would have got in if 60 extra kids were

> admitted)

> -Plus the current 2021 intake (and previous few

> years) have been big intakes across Southwark and

> East Dulwich in particular (needed lots of bulge

> classes in 2011-2013 primary schools admissions

> etc, so this was expected). The demographic has

> changed so over next few years (and beyond even

> more so) there will be fewer Year 7 aged children

> living (and applying) in East Dulwich

> - plus this year (and last) was probably ?peak

> sibling?, since lots of ?older siblings? applied

> to Charter ED in its first 2 years (?younger

> siblings? less likely to apply since they would

> have followed whatever school their older sibling

> already attended), and now the younger siblings of

> these older siblings taking up charter ED place

[McMurphy]

thanks for the update scarletbanks

are you able to settle the debate about whether this 897m was the furthest distance offered in the initial offering (in march), or the final offering, after all the movement always occurs (so presumably September)?

I know from my own experience primaries always seem to quote furthest distance offered as being the initial offers, i.e. before the movement/wash-up, so the actual furthest distance offered is much further.

thanks

[scarlettbanks]

I might be wrong, but I *think* the 897m is after the shake-down (i.e. by September)

[gebbjane]

It must be after as we didn?t get offered a place in March (offered in May) and live around 810m away.

[Leftfooter]

Hi all, i appreciate that the shake-down hasn't happened this year yet and there will be plenty of movement on the waiting lists in the coming weeks and months, but does anyone have any update on whether the distance offered for East Dulwich Charter has changed much this year? I am getting mixed messages from parents at my children's school whereby apparently some parents are saying that the intake hasn't expanded this year and the furthest distance offered is still currently around the Crystal Palace Road mark (which seems pretty much in line with last year), but i understood from the school's website and scarlettbank's really helpful posts above that the intake has increased by an additional class of 30.

[mima08]

Leftfooter Wrote:

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> Hi all, i appreciate that the shake-down hasn't

> happened this year yet and there will be plenty of

> movement on the waiting lists in the coming weeks

> and months, but does anyone have any update on

> whether the distance offered for East Dulwich

> Charter has changed much this year? I am getting

> mixed messages from parents at my children's

> school whereby apparently some parents are saying

> that the intake hasn't expanded this year and the

> furthest distance offered is still currently

> around the Crystal Palace Road mark (which seems

> pretty much in line with last year), but i

> understood from the school's website and

> scarlettbank's really helpful posts above that the

> intake has increased by an additional class of 30.

I don't know how far up Crystal Palace Road, but the radius has expanded as last year kids on Maxted Road didn't get in in March but this year kids from Waghorn street did.

[scarlettbanks]

That's useful to know - thanks! Waghorn street is around 1000m (depending which bit of Waghorn!), whereas last year in March 2021 the distance was 749m, so it's definitely increased quite a bit. And by Sept 2021 after shakedown etc it had increased to 897m, so hopefully Sept 2022 will increase quite a lot above 1000m.

Then in subsequent years, should increase even more - since the intake will increase from 210 to 240, and since there have been demographic changes (see some of the above posts).

[akc74]

Yes I can second what's been said above - we applied last year (and live at the Anstey end of Nutbrook St) and were initially 49 on the waiting list; whereas this year, another family equidistant are right at the top of the list already.

[Leftfooter]

This is all very helpful- thank you very much akc74, Mima and scarlettbanks for taking the time to respond.

It definitely sounds like the furthest distance offered in this year's first cut is around 900-950m which is very encouraging if it's about 150-200m wider. So hopefully with another increase in the intake next year we will see another 200m radius increase. Especially as in the South/ North/ East area of the 1000+m radius you seem to have lots of areas where you might not expect many applicants: Peckham Rye/ Rye Lane/ Peckham train tracks/ Ruskin Park/ Kings Hospital/Denmark hill train station and tracks etc. and then obviously to the West you have the overlap with North Dulwich Charter catchment. Perhaps there's hope for the 1.25km+ catchment as Scarlettbanks talks about above.

[scarlettbanks]

Thanks Leftfooter - good point about the train tracks etc.

The school emailed my friend yesterday, and they confirmed the longest distance offered on 1st March 2022 was 964m. So I'm pretty hopeful for a 1.25km+ catchment - maybe even for this year (i.e. after shakedown by Sept 2022), or for next year if not (Sept 2023 should have the additional intake). Maybe just wishful thinking on my part, but I'm getting more confident now (especially with fewer kids in Y5/Y6 in Southwark in the upcoming years etc).