FAMILIES ACROSS BRISTOL OFFERED THEIR SECONDARY SCHOOL PLACES

Today (1 March) is National Offer Day with Bristol families receiving offers of secondary school places across the city.

All families who applied to Bristol schools have been offered a place.

This year 4,945 applications for places were received – com pared to 5,008 in 2022*.

Over 90 per cent of families (92%) have been offered one of their top three preferences, with over 75 per cent of families (75.6%) being offered their top choice, slightly down on last year, when 76.9 per cent were offered their first preference.

This year some parents will also receive offers from the two new free schools - Oasis Academy Daventry Road and Oasis Academy Temple Quarter - which are set to open in temporary accommodation in September.

Offers of a school place at these two new schools will be made directly by Oasis Academy, who operates the schools. Therefore, some families will receive two offers of a school place this year, one from Oasis and one from Bristol City Council, and they will be able to decide which school offer they accept.

Councillor Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor with responsibility for Education, said: “We knew that the high numbers of applications for a Year 7 place, with some schools unable to continue offering additional places, and the new schools falling outside of the co-ordinated admissions process, made this a challenging year for our school place planning. However, our admissions team have worked with schools, and I am pleased that we are able to ensure that all Bristol families received an offer of a secondary school place.”

Some families (8%) did not receive one of their preferred schools, which is slightly higher than last year (6.6%). The main reasons for this are that families have applied for schools which allocate places by random allocation, are outside of the Bristol area, or are faith schools.

Parents and carers would have received emails with offers throughout the morning on 1 March and have two weeks to respond to their offer via the Parent Portal. If they have not yet received an email, parents and carers are advised to check their spam filter.

Anyone not receiving an offer for their preferred school will be given information about how to stay on the waiting list and the appeals process.

For more information about the offers process visit the Bristol City Council website.