A record number of children were offered their first choice for secondary schools in Bristol this year. In the city, 78.34 percent of children (3,910) got a place at their first-choice school, the highest percentage since data was collected in 2018.
In total, 94 per cent of applicants were given a top-three preference school for September. Families were told of the offers on March 1, after 5,061 applications were made to Bristol City Council. This was an increase of 2.3 percent on last year’s number (4,945).
There was also a record number of children who were offered their second choice, 11.84 percent (591 children).
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It means the total number of children who were offered a preference school was 4,700, 94.17 percent of all applicants, also the highest since the data was collected in 2018.
Of those who applied, 5.8 per cent did not receive one of their preferred schools, which is down from eight percent the year before. The council said in a statement: “This is because the majority of these families will have applied for schools which allocate places by random allocation, are outside of Bristol, or are faith schools.”
Councillor Asher Craig, deputy mayor with responsibility for children’s services, education, and equalities, said: “I’m so pleased that we have been able to offer over 94 per cent of families one of their top three choices of secondary school for September.
"We have seen an increase of applicants from last year and the demand for school places is clearly growing, but our admissions team have worked hard with schools to make sure that all Bristol families receive an offer for a secondary school place.”
In South Gloucestershire, 3.322 applications were received on time and 83 percent of children received their first-choice preference. Eight percent of children received their second choice and three percent got their third choice. In South Gloucestershire, 455 children had offers accepted in other Local Authorities.
A South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson said: “All residents who made an on-time application have been offered a school place. This has been possible because of the ongoing support from existing local schools in agreeing to go above their published admission number resulting in the majority of students being offered a place at one of the preferred schools listed on the application form."
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