More than eight out of 10 pupils get their first choice of South Glos secondary school
By BeckyFeather | Tuesday, March 01, 2011, 14:42
A higher percentage of South Gloucestershire children have not been offered their first choice of secondary school compared to last year - but that still means that eight out of 10 will be celebrating today.
The council revealed that 2,401 on-time applicants have been allocated a place at their first preference secondary school – 87.3 per cent - which is slightly down on last year when 89.9 per cent got their first choice.
A total of 250 on-time applicants (9.1 per cent) have today been offered a place at their second preference school, and 39 on-time applicants (2.1 per cent) have received an offer at their third-choice school.
But a total of 15 children will be disappointed not to have received an offer for any one of their three preferences.
A council spokesman said today: "2,705 children are starting secondary school in South Gloucestershire this year, including children from other local authority areas, who have been offered a school place in a South Gloucestershire school for September 2011."
Meanwhile parents who have applied for primary schools in South Glos will find out whether they have been given their first choice on April 26.
Comments
There will have been a few confused parents around today as well. Those who applied on-line recieved an email this morning with the school places being offered (which was correct) but the text which followed said "The Local Authority has been unable to make an offer of a school place at your preferred school(s). If you live in South Gloucestershire, an alternative school place has been offered." - which clearly was not correct.
Three hours later a second email was sent out with the corrected text and said
"If you have made an online application for Primary to Secondary Transfer 2011 in South Gloucestershire, you may have received an email this morning from School Admissions (cis@southglos.gov.uk) on the subject of Web Admissions Applications.
Please be assured that the Offer Status against each School Preference is correct and confirms the place being offered to you.
Unfortunately the email notification mistakenly had the text incorporated that the "Local Authority has been unable to make an offer of a school place at your preferred school(s). If you live in South Gloucestershire, an alternative school place has been offered" even though the Offer Status indicated the offers made correctly.
The correct text on the email should have been:
"A letter confirming an offer of a school place has been sent to you by first class post. Please wait until you receive this letter giving further guidance before contacting the Student Access and Support Team for any additional information you may need."
My apologies for any confusion this may have caused. The information in the Offer Status is correct and the original text in the email should be ignored."
By Andy_Perkins at 15:29 on 01/03/11
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