Independent Education Advice - Kent Secondary School Admissions

Kent Secondary School Admissions 2011

This page is designed primarily for parents resident in Kent, whose children will be transferring to state secondary schools in September 2011. It should be read in conjunction with the pages on Grammar School Admissions and Medway Secondary School Admissions.

For parents applying for any school in Kent or Medway outside the normal admission round, there is a new process for admissions starting in September 2010. You will not be able to approach individual schools directly to apply, although you are of course to be encouraged to talk to them in advance of an application. You will find further details here.

I have wide experience of the secondary school transfer schemes in Kent and Medway, and am happy to place my expertise at your service, advising on choice of schools and patterns of application, drawing on my extensive local knowledge of the area and its schools. I give talks for parents at several Kent primary schools by invitation, and am also happy to talk with groups of parents, as well as individuals. For admissions you may well find my telephone consultation service useful.

Parents who registered online and wish to find out how to obtain decisions on secondary transfer now, should go to the news page on this website.

A new scheme for secondary school admissions for children living in Kent was introduced two years ago. The main changes are: (1) grammar school assessment to take place in September, see details below; (2) there will now be four schools named on the Secondary Common Application Form (SCAF). The full details together with next year's oversubscription rules for individual Foundation and Voluntary Aided Schools are posted at KCC. I have simplified the regulations here.

THE KENT ADMISSION SCHEME

The scheme operates for Kent residents, no matter where the schools for which they are applying are situated, and refers to entry in September 2010.

TIMETABLE

Key Action	Scheme Date
Registration for testing opens	Tuesday 1 June 2010
Closing date for registration	Friday 2 July 2010
Test date for pupils in Kent primary schools	Tuesday 14 & Wednesday 15 September 2010
Test date for out of county pupils	Saturday 18 September 2010
Assessment decision sent to parents	Monday 18 October 2010
National Closing Date for Secondary Common Application Forms (SCAF)	Sunday 31 October 2010
Final closing date for exceptional late applications.	Friday 5 November 2010
National Offer Day: e-mails sent after 4pm and letters sent 1^st class post	Tuesday 1 March 2010
Schools send out welcome letters	Not before Friday 4 March 2011
Date by which places should be accepted or declined	Tuesday 22 March 2011
LA / Schools re-allocate places that have become available from the schools’ waiting lists	Monday 4 April 2011 Friday 6 May 2011 Friday 10 June 2011 Friday 8 July 2011

In each Local Authority (LA), an admissions booklet will be issued by mid September. Each LA has its own closing date, and operates a different process for allocating pupils, for example Kent parents have four choices, and Medway parents have six choices. These booklets contain details of the all important oversubscription rules, which determine if you will be offered a place if too many people apply.

It is essential that all parents, who are considering entering their child for the Kent tests, register their child on a form obtainable from the primary school. Your child cannot take the Kent tests if he or she has not been registered. You cannot apply for a grammar school if your child has not sat the Kent tests. Copies of the registration form will be distributed through primary schools and can be downloaded here.

There is nothing to lose by entering your child for the tests. Parents in Kent livig near the Medway border may also wish to consider entering their child for the Medway tests, which assesses children on different skills. Further details of grammar school admissions are here.

APPLICATIONS

Some scenarios:

If the child has passed the Kent tests, you may name just grammar schools on your SCAF. If your child does not qualify for any of these, because other children have taken up all available places, you will be probably be offered the nearest grammar school with a vacancy, although KCC no longer has an obligation to do so (This is a particular issue in West Kent, but this year also affected children in Canterbury, Dartford, Faversham,Gravesham & Maidstone.
If your child has not taken the eleven plus, you can only apply for non selective schools.
If your child has taken the eleven plus and not passed, and you wish to appeal, you must name the grammar schools you wish to appeal to on the SCAF, together with any non selective schools you wish to apply to.
If your child has passed the eleven plus and you name grammar schools and a non selective school, for example a church comprehensive school, you will be offered the highest school on your list for which your child is eligible. If this is the non selective school then you will be offered it in preference to a grammar school lower down your list.

The process of identifying which one school your child will be offered on National Offer Day is called an Equal Preference Scheme and is quite complex to understand. However...

you will not boost your chances at one school by placing it in a different order than your genuine preference. Sadly, some schools still verbally advise parents otherwise. No Kent or Medway school is told the position where parents have placed a school on the SCAF, and so none can offer a place according to position. You should not place a non-selective school ahead of a grammar school on your form unless it is a real preference, otherwise you may find yourself offered a place at the non-selective school, even though the child has passed the eleven plus.

Kent on Sunday published an article by me in March 2009 that highlighted the main issues with secondary transfer in Kent. Headlines are below. The full article is here.

You must list any school you wish to appeal for on your SCAF. Sadly, you have to wait until National Offer day on 1 March before the school technically rejects your application and only then can you appeal. This year the first appeals were heard in the last week of March (Medway tends to come first), the final ones not being heard until the first week in July.

Details of Open Days and Evenings for admission to secondary schools in Kent in September 2011 have no tyet been published
It is difficult to give general guidance on placing schools in order, as circumstances change enormously from town to town depending on popularity of individual schools and their oversubscription rules. Above all, make sure that you and your child visit the schools you are considering.
Kent, Medway and Bexley all have grammar schools, and Grammar School Applications are considered on a separate page.
For all oversubscribed schools find out if you would have been accepted last year. Ask for the furthest distance from school those pupils lived, who were accepted. Medway and Bexley publish this information in their admission booklets. Many church schools admit children according to their level of church support. Find out which category of religious support was the lowest accepted.
If the school is described as “Community” or “Voluntary Controlled”, oversubscription rules are laid down by the LA. Parents in towns such as Ashford, where all schools are of this type, can choose local schools in preference order without difficulty. Each “Voluntary Aided” or “Foundation” school makes its own rules and you need to check these out to find if you are likely to be offered a place.
Check the rules about free school transport, which only apply if you live more than three miles from your nearest appropriate school, or for certain church schools. These rules are detailed in the School Admission Booklet for your LA. See the page on School Transport and Appeals. Try and make sure that you will be eligible for at least one school on your list, otherwise you will be allocated the nearest one with vacancies, which may not be to your liking.
In Kent, most non-selective schools formally cater for pupils of all abilities. These include several newer comprehensive and church schools, built mainly in rural areas in the 1970s. Thirty are foundation schools and make their own rules for selection if they are oversubscribed. Eleven church schools are scattered round the county. Several of these are highly selective on religious criteria (one reason they regularly appear at the top of performance tables). Their oversubscription rules also vary from school to school and you should plan a year ahead to meet these if you do not currently fit.
There are currently seventeen Academies in Kent operating or being planned, and a further three in Medway, independent of the County Councils. Further details are at Academies.
Parents applying for secondary school places may be given a supplementary form “only where the additional information is required for the governing body to apply their oversubscription criteria to the application”. You are under no obligation to provide information which is not required for this purpose. No form should ask parents to state what preferences they have named on their SCAF, or the order in which they have stated their preferences, as no school requires this to apply its oversubscription criteria. KCC advise you to delete any such question and mark it “N/A” or “not applicable”.
"Late" Catholic Baptisms are surging as "marginal or lapsed Catholics" desire to secure a place at an oversubscribed Catholic school. Research published by the Pastoral Research Centre Trust (01/08) shows baptisms of children between one and thirteen years of age have surged to 30% of the total from 5% fifty years ago. Over the same period cradle baptisms have fallen from 85% to 64%. The Trust research establishes entrance to popular schools as the key reason for this.
for 2010 entry, 80% of Kent families were offered their first choice school in March, up from 70% the previous year becuase of the change in admission arrangements. In Medway, 85% of children secured one of their first two choices in March.
In Kent, a previous system for placing children after 1st March called reallocation has been abolished. Now, each school in Kent will keep a waiting list and fill vacancies from this list, in order. This means there is no advantage in having no school offered on your list in March. You need to apply to go on the waiting list, but you cannot go on a grammar school waiting list unless your child has passed the Kent test. In Kent you can apply late at this stage for fresh schools not named on the SCAF. In Medway for 2010 entry you could apply late just for schools if you live in Kent, but not in Medway. 2011 late entry in Medway may be different again.
Both Kent and Medway have an online application system on which parents can change choices up to the closing date. One concern for primary heads is that because they do not see these forms, they are unable to check if parents have made sensible decisions. Conversely, parents can hide decisions from the school, – valuable where certain primary schools strongly encourage certain applications. Online applicants will be able to access decisions after 4p.m. on 1st March. Paper applicants will receive decisions by post on 2nd March.
Most schools now have specialist status, specialising in areas such as: mathematics & ICT, humanities, or sport. Some select up to 10% of pupils on aptitude. A few Kent schools select a proportion of children by tests of academic ability, including Homewood (20%), Chaucer Technology College (15%), and Archbishop’s (15%). Find out what the tests are so that your child is prepared.
For some parents, choice of school is determined by the desire to avoid being offered an unpopular school. I think the best news is the improvement in some of Kent’s weakest schools over the past few years. If all schools are satisfactory, then the pressure on families is greatly reduced.
Voluntary Aided Church Schools are required to have their admission rules approved by the Diocesan Board of Education. Rochester Diocese does not carry out its statutory obligations, and it is reported that Canterbury Diocese does not. One consequence of the latter is that several schools in Canterbury Diocese have admission rules that do not meet statutory requirements.
All Kent schools allow late applications after March 30th. According to Medway Council, Kent pupils can apply after this date for Medway Grammar schools also.

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Kent Secondary School Admissions 2011