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SG13 or SG14

Posted: Thu 19 May, 2016 6:44 pm
by lotus112
Hi all

Looking to move into Hertford but am confused and worried about schooling....so my first of probably many questions:

Is there any difference in the 2 postal codes SG13 and SG14 as far as getting my 13 year old and 11 year old into the state schools in the area?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 3:44 am
by Joe
If you want to find out which schools cover each of the postcodes you can do so here http://schoolsfinder.direct.gov.uk/schoolsfinder

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 8:37 am
by Kateg28
To be honest I don't think there is a major issue. We are spoilt for choice with senior schools who are all very good, sometimes in very different ways and you have a certain amount of luxury in being able to choose. Two of them are single sex schools (one for each) and 3 are mixed so you have a choice of 4.

I lived in a village near Ware when my son went up to senior school and he is in a Hertford school (for another few days and then onto Uni).

Personally I really do not think the postcode will matter too much. Have you visited the schools?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 10:24 am
by codek2
Actually it does matter a lot, but it's not just down to postcode, it's more nuanced than that.

At the moment simon balle is over subscribed, that means their locality is much reduced - so last year very few people from the villages got in.

The key thing really is making sure the school of choice is your closest school - if sele is your closest school then you may struggle to get in to any other.

Also consider registering on schoolguru - this site has a wealth of hertford admissions data and is extremely useful!

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 3:02 pm
by highwood38
If they're 11 and 13 then they'd be an in year entry anyway presumably, so they'd only get in when there was a space.

The admissions rules in Hertford are generally (though some schools are different):

SEN/children in care;
siblings (in distance order);
non-siblings for whom it is the nearest school (in distance order);
non-siblings for whom it is not their nearest school (in distance).

The attached was my attempt a while ago to try and figure out the boundaries (we were moving house and it was kind of important - the lines show the approx divides between the various mixed schools, I ignored Presdales and Richard Hale) - at the minute there were still places for Simon Balle for non-siblings/not nearest school. Given how crazy the primary school places have been for the past few years, and given Simon Balle is now all-through (ie they admit 60 at age 5 then another 110 at age 11) I reckon that will change and there may only be places for nearest school children. Though Simon Balle also I think changed the sibling priority for either the age 5 entry or age 11 entry so you lose it if you move out of Hertford town.

The council publishes previous years admission statistics which tell you the furthest child admitted under each relevant category (for schools that do it on distance and that the council is the admitting authority). I think Richard Hale and Presdales also do a weird random allocation within the priority areas to ensure everyone in each priority are has an equal chance of getting in. Every school should have its admission criteria on the website.

Here is the latest allocation info: http://www.hertsdirect.org/docs/pdf/adm ... 280416.pdf

According to that the final catchment for Simon balle last year was 3.2km (for non-nearest children) so this year you'd have got in from most of Hertford.

Also I'm not saying anything bad about Sele - it's just it's undersubscribed so you'd get in from anywhere so it's not really relevant to the discussion!

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 5:10 pm
by lotus112
Thank you for all the quick replies.
It sure is very confusing.

Does anyone know why the Sele school is undersubscribed when the other secondarys all seem oversubsribed?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 5:14 pm
by lotus112
Kateg28 wrote:To be honest I don't think there is a major issue. We are spoilt for choice with senior schools who are all very good, sometimes in very different ways and you have a certain amount of luxury in being able to choose. Two of them are single sex schools (one for each) and 3 are mixed so you have a choice of 4.

I lived in a village near Ware when my son went up to senior school and he is in a Hertford school (for another few days and then onto Uni).

Personally I really do not think the postcode will matter too much. Have you visited the schools?
No have not visited any of the schools yet.
It is all very daunting.....not sure what to do....my gut feeling is that we will be allocated the Sele school as that for some unknown reason is "undersubscribed"

Is it really so bad that no one wants to be schooled there?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 5:18 pm
by lotus112
codek2 wrote:Actually it does matter a lot, but it's not just down to postcode, it's more nuanced than that.

At the moment simon balle is over subscribed, that means their locality is much reduced - so last year very few people from the villages got in.

The key thing really is making sure the school of choice is your closest school - if sele is your closest school then you may struggle to get in to any other.

Also consider registering on schoolguru - this site has a wealth of hertford admissions data and is extremely useful!

Thanks...will look into schoolguru.
If a school is oversubscribed does this mean there are no places until next September?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 5:28 pm
by lotus112
Joe wrote:If you want to find out which schools cover each of the postcodes you can do so here http://schoolsfinder.direct.gov.uk/schoolsfinder

Thank you Joe

Through this link I discovered that the Sele school only achieved 35% 5x GCSE's graded A-C last year.
This has to be a real concern???

What do you think?

Re: SG13 or SG14

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2016 5:36 pm
by highwood38