Bristol Schools Application Data 2022 – City Lags Behind in Secondary Offers

June 25, 2022 Chopsy Baby

Bristol lags behind the national average for allocating first preference secondary school places, according to data released by the Department for Education this week.

The percentage of families being allocated their first preference has increased each year. But, for the academic year 2022/23, 77.1 per cent of families were allocated their first school preference whilst the England national average was 83.3 per cent.

Link to data: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/294ec20e-fa0e-4fce-9248-429300abfeb0

Primary school allocations in Bristol were the same as the national average with both standing at 92.2 per cent. This is reflective of falling primary school rolls in Bristol. This has resulted in the closure of three schools, though secondary school places have reached crisis point, as have school places for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send).

Bristol City Council received 4,732 applications for the year 2022/23. Of these, 3,649 were offered their first preference. A total of 541 were offered their second preference and 216 their third preference. There were 326 families who were offered a place at a school which was not one of their three preferences submitted to the Local Authority (LA) as part of the application process. No families were left without a school place at some location within the city.

A total of 406 pupils were offered places at secondary schools outside of Bristol for 2022/23. This has dropped from 536 in 2018/19, 493 in 2019/20, 433 in 2020/21 and 413 in 2021/22. Further data can be read here The data does not differentiate between on-time applications and allocations made through round two, which might account for a discrepancy between the Department for Education’s data tables and Bristol City Council’s press statement.

How each Bristol school allocated their places can be read here: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/schools-learning-early-years/allocation-of-new-year-7-places-for-september-2022

On National Offer Day 2022 – the 01 March – Councillor Asher Craig, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, said: “This is another year where we have seen an increase in the number of children looking for secondary school places in Bristol.

“I am pleased that we have been able to offer many families their first choice this year. This has been in large part thanks to our many strong and popular secondary schools which have worked with our excellent admissions team at Bristol City Council to offer places wherever possible.”

Bristol City Council said at the time: ‘Some families (6.6 per cent) did not receive one of their preferred schools. The majority of these will be families who have applied for schools which allocate places by random allocation, are outside Bristol, or are faith schools.’