Looking for a school place at second level? Read this!

It’s hardly that time of year again, is it? The evenings are closing in. As the kids go up the stairs at night, it’s time for parents to ask themselves, What school will offer a place to their 6^th class child?

Every year it is the same. It used to be worst, not that that is any compensation to parents. One school on Wexford used to have a sleep over outside its gates so as to get an application form. I slept out under the stars in circumstances reminiscent of a 1980’s queue for tickets to Slane!

The days when we sat entrance exams to see who could go to secondary school or not are also long gone. Schools cannot select a pupil based solely on their academic ability. My own Dad was a primary school principal who used to enter me each Saturday in entrance exams when I was in 6^th class. Because I was his son, he reckoned I’d be offered a place. He would subsequently use that offer to barter to ensure another pupil could progress to second level. That was how it was done in the day when the school leaving age was 14 and a school did not have to make any offer. Thankfully that’s behind us.

However many parents are unclear as to how the system operates. So here’s a brief guide as to how it works in Wexford.  Second level schools require any parent hoping to send a child to their school to apply using their application form. It should be completed setting out basic information that is needed to determine a child’s eligibility and any other learning difficulties or health issues that the school may reasonably be expected to know if they are to act in loco parentis.

The school can charge to process the application and usually this charge is offset against the voluntary contribution should the parents accept a place for their child in that school. The school will send a receipt for the money and acknowledge the application. Different schools have different cut off dates after which applications are not accepted.

In Wexford each October schools will be processing these applications with a view to making offers of places in early November. Each school is run by a patron. Each patron will advise their school as to how to offer places that is robust and stands up under legal scrutiny.

Schools are entitled to prioritise certain applicants for places. If the applicant has a sibling in the school or one who is a past pupil, if they are the child of a past pupil (this criteria still remains despite Labour putting in place the provision to remove it) or the child of an employee or member of the board of management, they are entitled to a place. After the closing date the applications are assessed and any applicants classified under these headings are selected for an offer of a place.

Every other applicant is then allocated a number regardless of when they applied and they are put into an open draw for the remaining places.

So if a school has 200 applicants for 80 places and 20 applicants have a right to a place, the remaining 180 are put into a draw for the remaining 60 places. Each number is drawn out in sequence in the presence of an independent witness. The first 60 will be offered the remaining places and the balance (120) will be placed on a waiting list based on the position they were in the draw. So position 61 means that you are 1^st on the waiting list, position 101 means you are 40^th on the waiting list.

Schools then write to all parents setting out for each child their position. And that’s when the process starts to drag. In reality my own school would have upwards of 250 applicants each year for about 100-110 places, St Peters would have slightly more. Presentation and Loreto have about 130-150 places each, Selskar College has an intake of about 50.

Some parents get an offer and accept straight away. Great! That is always my advice to any parent. Then there are people who get an offer from school A but really want school B where they are on the waiting list. More live outside the town and won’t accept an offer from a local school which will offer places slightly later anyway. Some people get no offer at all and are on 2 waiting lists.

An appeal can only be lodged where a decision not to admit has been made. My advice to each parent is simple. If you don’t get the offer in a school you wish to go to, ring, write or email to say that you want your child retained on the waiting list and that you are offered a place should one become available. Slowly parents make decisions but as you go past Christmas, naturally some parents get anxious, especially if they have one child.

If like myself you and your spouse have no connection to the applicant school it’s irrelevant where you come from. You are relying on the open draw for a place for your child and you may have to tough it out. It’s one thing that I have some sympathy for mangers in schools operating this system. Some parents do sit on 2 offers hoping to pick and choose in their own time. That’s unfair to other applicants.

What is a reality is that the advice from patrons to the school is so robust that it withstands challenge at appeal. I used to be a great believer in encouraging an appeal. Now I see it otherwise as it can raise false hope.  It might work if something was overlooked in the processing stage. It may be the failure to find within a reasonable distance another school that will provide for a child’s special educational needs. In other words, if a school specialises in high end of the spectrum in Asperger’s Syndrome and the applicant was not offered a place and no other school provided what the pupil need, that might be a reasonable grounds to lodge an appeal.

However, I’ve never seen a challenge to a decision in Wexford citing grounds of religion, ethnic or sexual orientation or desire for a school ethos. If the grounds are that a child was offered a place in a school different to where the friends are going, it is not going to succeed.  Neither is a challenge based on a school being the sole provider of a subject.

Appeals sometimes do work. A number of years ago in Cork a boys school was obliged on appeal to offer a place to a girl because they never specified it was a boys only school.  I often wonder how that pupil coped in a classroom in an all male environment from the age of 12 onwards.

In some cases it will be May or June before the intake for September is determined. In one case I got to hear about a parent who got a job offer in another part of Ireland and who moved freeing up a place in July.  Needless to say, someone else got a nice surprise offer of a late place afterwards. Nothing is certain in a school till I come back in September and see who is before me in my class. It’s a hard slog for parents, it’s an uncertain time for parents but hang in there.

There are some parents who don’t get a place in Wexford and who may secure a place in either Bridgetown, Enniscorthy or New Ross. Here’s the irony, they may well pass on the road each day a parent from one of those areas driving their child to a school in Wexford. At first glance there’s something unfair about that but it’s not the schools call.  The Department of Education decide what is built where and when. They may well point to the in their mind sufficient places within the county and not wish to increase either staff or capacity even temporarily.

It’s a system, it’s not perfect, and they aren’t going to change it in the near future. Best of luck wherever your child ends up for the next 5-6 years.