School Application "Securing the right school place for your child is one of the most important things you can do for your child" - Make sure you get it right.

Inside the School admissions guide

Foreword
“Statistics published by the Department for Education show 15.4% of the nearly 513,000 children who applied to start state secondary schools this September didn't get into the school their parents wanted” (The Guardian,March 2011)

Those are shocking statistics. As a parent you know what school your child will best suit. It is heartbreaking when you are told they have to go somewhere else - especially if it is a school you really don’t want them to attend.

This is where School Admissions Guide can help. Minimize the risk of the above happening to you and your child. Know how the system works, know what you should do and shouldn’t do to get them into the right school for them.

I have been a member of several school admission appeal panels in a professional capacity, and then later as a mother who has been through the school applications process with my child, I can assure you getting the application right is crucial.

Starting school can be either a traumatic or exciting time for your child. This Guide aims to help you through the admissions process to maximize your child's chance in getting offered the right school for them, and therefore making the transition to school a much less stressful experience for you and
your child. I hope that this guide helps you, and please let me know about your success.
Maria Jones-Fraser

Introduction
In this book we guide you through the school admission application process. Research really is the most important thing, we can’t stress this enough. Therefore the whole first section is all about what research you should do before filling in the application form. Understanding your chances of being
offered a place at a particular school is key. It is pointless listing a school as your first preference if you have a slim or no chance of your child getting a place there. We explain the often complicated admissions criteria, and the system used to allocate places. This way you can make educated decisions about the schools you apply to.

Don’t forget that our other book - ‘What school is best for Your Child?’ talks about the different kinds of schools in England. This book is included as a FREE bonus when you purchase this School Admissions Guide and can be downloaded from our website, check the email you received from us.
The next section is about how to best fill in the application form, and about gathering the right evidence to support your application.

We hope that after you have followed all our advice that you receive good news and your child is offered a place at a school you prefer. However this does not always happen. If you decide to appeal against a decision to not offer your child a school place, please refer to the other book included FREE with this Guide. ‘How to win and not worry at school appeals’ guides you through the appeals process and offers you invaluable hints and tips for your appeal case and the appeal hearing.
Good luck with your application.

What is OFSTED?
OFSTED stands for, OFfice for STandards in EDucation. Many parents place a lot of importance on what OFSTED say about a particular school. This section outlines what OFSTED actually do, and discusses how important OFSTED reports are in choosing a school for your
child.

OFSTED carries out inspections of each school in England. They then publish these results and the report can be read by anyone at www.ofsted.gov.uk/ reports. Schools have a duty to provide you with their OFSTED report if you request it (they may charge you for photocopying if your child is not at that school).

Inspection judgements
Each school is judged in 2 main categories:
1. Overall effectiveness: how good is the school?
2. The school's capacity for sustained improvement.

What the inspection judgements mean?
Grade Judgement Description
Grade 1 - Outstanding An outstanding school providing exceptionally well for all its pupils needs.
Grade 2 - Good A school that is good and serving its pupils well.
Grade 3 - Satisfactory A satisfactory school is providing adequately for its pupils.
Grade 4 - Inadequate An inadequate school needing to make significant improvement in order to meet the needs of its pupils. OFSTED inspectors will make further visits until it improves.

Schools are also judged in other categories; from pupil attendance and behaviour to the quality of teaching. Are OFSTED reports a good indication of a school’s performance? A criticism of OFSTED reports is that the inspectors only see a snapshot of what the school is like, and not what is it like on a day to day basis. Under the system before 2005, schools had several months to prepare for an Inspection.

This allowed them much more scope in letting the inspectors see what they wanted them to see. It also encouraged much disruption to the school.

When I was at school, I remember a huge amount of panic from the staff when OFSTED inspectors were due. Suddenly the school looked very different from what it usually did. This was surely not a good system. The rules are different now, schools tend to get two days notice, and inspectors
tend to be on site at the school for two to three days instead of a week.

I must admit, when I was looking at moving house, I looked at all the local schools OFSTED reports and dismissed some houses instantly as the local school had a majority of 3‘s in it’s OFSTED report. Looking back, I think this was foolish. I didn’t read the reports carefully, I just looked at the numbers. I should have looked a bit deeper. Sometimes a year group can drag down the score of a school. A few badly behaved children can cause chaos, we know that. How the school reacts to situations and manages issues can be so much more important. If a child is happy in primary school, is this more important than whether all the children pass their SATs? All schools have strengths and weaknesses.
If a school has an outstanding report, they tend to sing it from the rooftops, and if the report is poor OFSTED can recommend placing the school into'Special Measures.'

Special Measures
If a school is judged to be inadequate (in one or more areas) and the inspectors believe it needs additional help to improve, it can be placed into Special Measures. Sometimes this can mean the school receives more support from it's local authority, additional funding and resources and more frequent inspections from OFSTED.

When a school has been placed into Special Measures, staff (Managers and Teaching Staff) can be dismissed and the governing body can be replaced by OFSTED. The extra support that the school then receives from the local authority remains until the school is deemed to have sufficiently improved. Instead of being placed in Special Measures some schools are issued with a Notice to Improve. This happens when the inspectors believe a failing school will be able to improve itself.

Conclusions
I think it is wise to check OFSTED reports, but place more importance on other issues like visiting the school. I would always value the opinions of other parents and pupils that attend the school. This isn’t always practical though and some parents have to rely on OFSTED reports for help in deciding whether to apply to a particular school.

Remember that schools and pupils change. Try and look at why an OFSTED report shows a school failing or succeeding. For example, is it a particular year group that is causing bad results, is there a local issue that has affected performance? If your local school has a poor OSFTED report - talk to the
head teacher about it. Ask them what they are doing to improve the quality of education in their school. At the end of the day, the more information you can get about a school the better. Beware though of placing too much emphasis on one source.

End of selection.

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