Starting secondary school

All secondary school offers go out on 1 March 2018.

 Each school you have named on your application will be given a status. Here's what they mean:

• Offered - a place has been offered at this school
• Higher preference offered or Declined - a place has been offered at a higher named preference school
• No offer or Pending– we were unable to offer a place at this school. An offer has been made at a lower preference
• Withdrawn – we were unable to consider this preference. This is usually because the preference is a grammar school and the child has not been assessed as grammar.

Remember:

• if you apply online you'll receive your child's offer by email after 4pm on 1 March
• if you apply by paper, we'll post your offer letter on 1 March, so you will receive it after that date
• your offer will come from the local authority where you live, not where the school is offered
• we can’t guarantee your child will get a place at one of the schools you named on your application

What you can do next

Once you receive your offer you need to decide whether to accept or refuse the school place.

Information on how to do this will be in the Next Steps Guide published here on offer day.

You must accept or refuse your offer by Friday 23 March 2018.

• You should accept the place offered, even if you're looking to go on a waiting list or appeal, as there's no guarantee you will be successful.
• An accepted place can always be released later, but a refused place can't always be given back.
• Refusing a school place doesn't give you a higher priority on waiting lists or in appeals.

If you're unhappy with the offer

If you’re unhappy with the school place we offered your child, you can:

• ask us to add your child to the waiting list for any Medway school (you can't ask to go on the waiting list of a grammar school if your child hasn't passed the Medway Test)
• submit an appeal for any of the schools you named on your application that have not offered your child a place.

How we decide what school is offered to your child

We allocate all school places based on each school's oversubscription criteria.

This means you're not guaranteed a school place at one of the schools you named on your application. However, we try our best to offer your child a place at one of your highest preferred schools.

For children who pass the Medway Test, the majority are offered places at a grammar school, but sometimes we offer them a place at a non-selective school because it's named as a higher preference on the application.

The schools that you name are not told which order you put them in. The order of your preferences is between you and us (Medway Council) for the purpose of allocating places only.

If you aren't offered one of your preferences

If we haven't been able to offer your child a place at one of the schools named on your application, this will be because either:

• There were more applications for a school than places available and other applicants had a higher priority for a place based on the school's oversubscription criteria
• It is a grammar school and your child hasn't been assessed as selective (grammar) through the Medway Test.

If you aren't offered a place at any of the schools you named on your application, we’ll offer your child a place at the nearest school to your home address with a vacancy.