Thousands of families across Merseyside will find out where their children will go to secondary school after midnight tonight.
March 1 is national offer day for secondary school pupils and many parents across the country, who put down their preferences back in October, are waiting to see if their first choices is available.
From midnight, parents will receive an email from their local authority detailing at which school their child has received a place.
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For those parents unhappy with the school offered to their children, each local authority has an appeals procedure in place.
In Sefton, the council has released information ahead of offer day about how parents can find out about their child’s school offer – with the process much the same for neighbouring Knowsley, Liverpool and Wirral.
Parents can log in on the council’s portal from 1st March to see the offer and will also be notified by email.
The council has advised parents on its website: “Please note: emails are automatically generated and will not be received by all applicants at the same time.
“Please be patient and use your portal account to view the school offer in the first instance.”
For those who did not apply using the portal, offer letters are sent out by first class mail on March 1 and should reach families within 2 working days.
Any late applications or late changes received after 11 January will begin to be processed the following day, March 2.
Parents can appeal decisions they are unhappy with by April 12, with hearings to decide appeals to take place in the summer months ready.
In Sefton and Knowsley, parents are asked to make three preference choices, all of which have equal weighting, meaning that schools consider each applications without reference to what preference that parents have given.
In Liverpool and Wirral, parents are offered five preferences.
Places are usually allocated according to a coordinated admissions policy, although voluntary aided and academy and private schools also able to set their own criteria as agreed by their governing body for when there are more applications than places and may include separate application forms of admissions tests.
In Sefton, all academies, with the exception of St Michael’s apply local authority admission criteria, which includes either catchment
areas, feeder schools, and/or distance from home to school.
Each school also sets a proximity to decide how many places can be offered under each criterion.
Those who are not offered a place they have applied for will be placed on a waiting list and offered a place should that become available.
Parents whose children have not received one of their higher preferences will also be contacted by their local authority with information about how to appeal the decision.
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