Shropshire ranks top of West Midlands table for primary and secondary school placements
Shropshire Council is again one of the top councils for first preference and preferred school placements in the West Midlands, latest figures from the Department for Education show.
Library image of a school scene
Figures released last week for secondary and primary applications and offers statistics, now places Shropshire at the top of the West Midlands table.
The secondary and primary school applications and offers statistics provide the number of applications and offers made for secondary and primary school entry in September 2024, and the proportion which received preferred offers.
Secondary Schools
For secondary schools, Shropshire Council outperformed both regional and national figures. Ranking first in the West Midlands, Shropshire achieved 98.4 % of offers for a preferred secondary school, with 89.7% securing their first preference. These figures compare, and are better than, the England averages of 96% and 82.9%, and the West Midlands averages of 95.2% and 80%, respectively
Primary schools
Shropshire also took first place in the table for primary school placements, achieving 99.81% of offers for a preferred school, with 98.25% achieving first preference for their primary school. These are better than the England averages of 98.79% and 93.16%, and the West Midlands averages of 98.86% and 93.8%, respectively.
David Shaw, Assistant Director of Education and Achievement, Shropshire Council said:
“We are delighted that we continue to rank so highly for both secondary and primary school applications compared with other councils in the region.
“Notably the percentage of on-time applicants who received their first preference is higher than it has been in any of the last ten years. Likewise, the percentage of pupils who received an offer of one of their preferred schools is higher than it has been over the last ten years, which is tremendous news.
“This follows a challenging year when a national growth in the numbers of pupils transferring to secondary school this September saw a record number of applications for places.
“This is therefore great news for our children and families, who deserve the best education possible. We want to thank our Admissions Team and School Place Planning colleagues for their hard work and dedication in managing the high volume of secondary applications this year and delivering such excellent results.
“We also want to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of our senior secondary school leaders in accommodating such large numbers this year, which has made this possible, and so our thanks are extended to them also.
“Our teams have worked hard over many years to ensure that as many children as possible are able to attend their preferred school. The council’s long-term strategy, of securing the right number of school places, in the right locations and at the right time, has been highly successful and has contributed in no small part to these results.”
Further information
Rankings
Secondary school
The council ranked 1st (up from 4th last year) for any preference met across the West Midlands Region and maintained its 3rd position from last year for 1st preference requests.
A similar picture is seen when you compare against the council’s statistical neighbours, Shropshire, like last year, is ranked 9th for 1st Preference met, however we have moved from 9th last year to 5th position for any preference met this year.
Primary school
Again the data shows that Shropshire Council out performed both regional and national figures. Data from the DfE shows that we are ranked 1st for 1st preference requests met and 2nd for any preference met across the West Midlands. In addition we ranked 2nd against our statistical neighbours for 1st preference met and 4th for any preference met, which is a significant improvement on previous years.
Secondary and primary school applications and offers data
Secondary and primary applications and offers data is collected from councils. The offers were made, and data collected, based on the national offer days of 1 March 2024 (secondary) and 16 April 2024 (primary).
Figures are provided at national, regional, and council level. A time series is provided from 2014, when primary data was first collected following the inaugural primary national offer day.
The application and offer data is gathered at pupil level from which school level figures can be produced.
