Guide to moving up to secondary school

Secondary schools in Buckinghamshire are for children aged 11 to 18, and include the following types of school:

• Upper/all-ability schools – for children of all abilities
• Grammar schools - for children who qualify through the Secondary Transfer Testing process
• Special schools - for children with an Education, Health & Care Plan.

Each secondary school is classed as an Academy or a Community, or Foundation school.

Academies are independent state schools and are established by sponsors from business, faith or voluntary groups (free schools), or as a result of schools converting in line with Government legislation. The admission authority for academies is the governing body or trust, which sets and applies the oversubscription criteria (admission rules) which can include faith rules.

Community schools are managed by the Local Authority (LA) and the LA is the admission authority.

For foundation schools the governing body is the admission authority and they set and apply the admission rules.

All schools have Admission Rules (otherwise known as admission arrangements or oversubscription criteria) which are used to decide which children should be offered places if there are more applications than places available. Schools that are oversubscribed (schools that do not have enough places to offer to each child who wants one) will follow these rules when allocating places. For ease, we are going to call these 'admission rules' throughout this guide.

You can use the school directory to see which type each school is classed as, and you can link to the school's website where you can view the school's admissions policy. Schools do have different rules, and possibly deadlines, so you must check these before making your application.