Secondary School Applications

The summer holidays are well and truly over, the book bags are once again cluttering up the hall each afternoon when my three arrive home from school each filled with its own selection of homework books, newsletters and consents forms all needing attention.

 Amongst the ordinary consent letters there was one which I pulled out of my eldest bag which is a stark reminder of how quickly time goes.

My eldest is 10, just started into his final year of primary school, this week he came home with a school transfer pack, detailing how we go about applying for his secondary school place.

This time next year he will be starting out on a new journey, a new part of his life, one of the most important, and the one that will shape his future the most.

But right now I have  a little over 6 weeks to fill in this application form, along with all other mothers of children born between 1st September 2001 and the 31st August 2002

Places to secondary schools are not automatically given, parents have to apply to the schools local authority for a place, you get to state three preferred schools, but you are not guaranteed a place at any of them even if you are in their catchment, local authorities use a set of admission criteria in order to allocate places. If you miss the deadline to submit your application you will not be allocated a place until everyone who met the deadline has been dealt with, which could mean you missing out on your preferred school.

The deadlines for my sons admissions is 31st October, between now and then  there are several open evenings and lots of prospectus' to look through and then it will be in the hands of the council, and a matter of sitting and waiting to hear if we got the place in the chosen secondary school, whilst wondering how the years have gone so fast!