Secondary school offers 2023 - additional information

If you have submitted an online application for your child’s secondary school place. You will be aware that secondary school places will be offered on Wednesday 1 March 2023.

This update is to provide you with some useful information about the process and point you to additional support that will be available online.

As you applied online, you will be sent an email informing you which secondary school has been offered to your child.  Emails will be sent on Wednesday 1 March 2023, and we expect that you will receive your email by 4pm. 

The exact time will depend on your email service provider. If you have not received any emails, please ensure you check your junk mail folder as the email could be in there. Your junk folder could be called 'junk', 'trash' or 'spam'.

Alternatively, you can log back into your account to see the result of your application.

All parents who made a paper or telephone application will be sent a decision letter via post.  All letters leave the office on the 1 March.  They are posted Second Class so they should arrive (depending on Royal Mail) on Friday 3 March

Please do not contact Coventry City Council before you have received the offer of a school place.

If for any reason you have not received your letter or email by 3 March 2023, we will provide you with information on the outcome of your application over the telephone. 

If you applied after the closing date of 31 October 2022 then you will not receive an offer of a school place on 1 March. You will be notified in early April of your school place offer.

If you did not make an application, then please apply as soon as possible.

Next steps

If your circumstances have changed and you want to change your application to request different schools, then please email your request to 11plus@coventry.gov.uk or call 024 76975445 by 15 March with any new requests.

If your child has not been offered a place at any of the schools you applied for, this will be because the school(s) received more applications than there were places available and other children met the admission criteria more closely than your child. The Local Authority is legally obliged to offer a school place and therefore your child will have been offered a place at the nearest school from the home address that had a place available after we had completed the allocation. If you are not happy with the distance of the school to your home address you may be entitled to a free travel pass for your child. The school place offered (preference 8) will not be removed from your child until a place can be offered at an alternative school.

You will be placed on the waiting lists for the schools where your application has been refused and you will have the right of appeal. In the meantime, you can make requests for places at other schools. Please email your request to 11plus@coventry.gov.uk or call 024 76975445 by 15 March with any new requests.

From 16 March we will put together all late applications and changes of preference and complete a second round of offers in early April. Any places which become available will be offered according to those who have the highest priority on the school waiting lists which are organised according to the admissions policy of each school.  

Waiting lists

If you do not receive an offer of a place at one of your higher preference schools your child's name will automatically be placed on the waiting lists for those schools and will remain on these lists until the end of the Autumn term (31 December). Applications are prioritised according to the admissions policy of each school.

Having a place on the waiting list is no guarantee that a place will become available. For the September 2022 admissions process, oversubscribed schools offered on average 5 places to those on waiting lists

The position your child is at on the waiting list is as at the day you enquire. There will be no changes to the waiting list from 1 March until we have completed the second allocation round so information on changes to waiting list positions will only be available from 5 April 2023.

The Admissions team will contact you if a school place becomes available for your child from a waiting list.

Parents who have applied for places outside the city should contact the appropriate authority direct to discuss the appeals process and the position on any waiting lists. 

Appeals

You have the right to appeal at any school that you have applied for and had written confirmation of being refused admission. 

If you are considering the possibility of submitting an appeal, please read the advice regarding appeals on the School Admissions website carefully.

You can only appeal against the refusal of a place at a school you applied for.

Appeals are heard and decided by panels that are completely independent of the council and the school(s).

Consider the likelihood of your appeal being successful.

For example, were you realistic with the preferences you submitted for your child?

Appeals are generally only successful if you or your child have exceptional reasons for needing admission to a particular school.

There are no guarantees that any appeal will be successful (see below for the number heard and success rates for appeals administered by Coventry City Council over the last three years).

Percentage of successful appeals in 2020 to 2022

School year

No of appeals heard

% of successful appeals

Secondary transfer 2022

102

12%

Secondary transfer 2021

224

12%

Secondary transfer 2020

125

22%

Please find below a list of schools whose appeals are administered by the Local Authority. Should you wish to appeal for any of these schools, the closing date for submitting your written appeal is 18 April 2023 with a second round closing date of 9 June 2023.

If you submit an appeal after this date, it will be classed as a late appeal and will be heard after the on-time appeals, and it may not be heard before the beginning of September 2023.

  • Barr’s Hill School
  • Coundon Court School
  • Grace Academy
  • Lyng Hall School
  • Meadow Park School
  • President Kennedy School
  • Stoke Park School

You will be able to access the appeal form online from 1 March 2023.

All other Coventry Secondary school appeals are administered by the schools themselves, further information on deadline dates and who to contact can be found on our Appeals timetable.