Parents in Herefordshire joined those across England on Friday, March 1 in finding out which secondary school their child will be attending in September 2024.

Herefordshire Council has made 1827 offers of places in schools across the county compared to 1810 in 2022, with the following parental preference success rates:

First preference: 1667 offers, which is 91.2 per cent of the total offers.

Second preference: 107 offers, which is 5.8 per cent of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 97.1 per cent.       

Third preference: 15 offers, which is 0.82 pe cent of the total offers with a cumulative success rate of 97.9 per cent.

This year a very slight increase in the numbers of parents getting a school in one of their three preferences (97.9 per cent compared to 97.8 per cent in 2023).

The remaining 38 places offered (2.1 per cent), were to parents whose preferences could not be met and their offer was for the nearest school to their home address with available spaces.

In previous years, Herefordshire schools were a net importer of pupils, with more pupils from neighbouring counties requesting places in the county’s schools than Herefordshire pupils requesting places in other counties. This year Herefordshire offered 95 places and neighbouring counties offered 99 places to Herefordshire children.

As of today’s date there are nine Herefordshire secondary schools with waiting lists and three have available spaces, the remaining two schools are at their PAN (published admissions number for the year group).

17 known pupils who did not apply for a school place will be allocated a place at the nearest school to their home address with spaces at the end of March.

The council has continued to promote its online application service to parents again this year and 95.1 per cent applied online compared to 90.3 per cent last year.