Most parents get 1st choice for school places

1 March 2019, 14:18 | Updated: 1 March 2019, 14:21

89% of parents in Peterborough and also across Cambridgeshire have been successful in being offered their first choice of secondary school today.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY

This year Cambs County Council received nearly 6,700 applications for secondary school places - an increase of more than 300 compared to the last academic year.

A total of 6691 applications were received by the deadline of 31 October 2018.

Of these more than 5990 (89.5%) resulted in children being offered a place at their first preference school compared to 5561 last year.

A further 449 (6.7%) children have received the offer of a place at their second or third preference school.

Jonathan Lewis, Service Director for Education for Cambridgeshire County Council said:

"We dealt with significantly more applications for secondary school places in the county this year and we expect this trend to continue for the coming years and are planning for this by working with existing schools to increase their capacity and to plan for new secondary schools in the areas where demand is greatest with a planned investment in secondary school places of £200m between 2019-20 and 2023-24.

We advise all applicants to use all three of their preferences when applying for a secondary school place and to ensure that they include their catchment school as one of their preferences to give themselves the best chance of securing a place."

PETERBOROUGH CITY

This year Peterborough City Council say they received a total of 2,710 applications for secondary school places - an increase of 83 compared to the last academic year.

This year Peterborough City Council admissions team received on-time applications from 89.4% of residents - a total of 2,710 applications.

Of the 2,710 applications, 2,350 children were allocated a place at their first preference school representing 85.6% of applications, an increase on last year’s percentage (82%).

In total 97.1% of children have secured an offer for either their first, second or third preference schools.

This year a total of 79 students will receive an offer which was not one of their preference schools. This is considerably lower than last year when 142 students were not allocated a place at a preference school.

Jonathan Lewis, Service Director for Education for Peterborough City Council said:

"Yet again we have dealt with more applications for secondary school places this year. We expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future and will plan accordingly.

Secondary school is a big milestone in a child’s life and it’s fantastic to see that a very high percentage of children have been offered a place at their first preference school. It also reflects our careful planning and investment which has meant more first preferences for parents in Peterborough.

We do advise all applicants to use all of their three preferences when applying for a secondary school place and to ensure they include their catchment school as one of their preferences to give them the best possible chance of securing a place.”

Parents who applied online are able to log on to the council's website from today (1 March) to find out about their child’s place.

Letters and emails will also be sent to all.

Parents have the right to appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel about any offered place. Details of how to appeal are included with the offer letters, on the Peterborough City Council website and on the applicants preferred schools website.