As you are aware, parents will be notified of their child’s post primary school place on Saturday, 12 June 2021 from 9.00am through the Education Authority’s online portal. The Wallace High School will be posting out letters of offer, along with enrolment forms and details about the virtual induction event.
If your child has not been successful, please read the information below before contacting the school, as the information may answer your queries.
This year the school received a significantly larger amount of applications. As we did not use academic selection, the Board of Governors applied the non-academic criteria to all applications, namely:
(a) Children who are currently attending the Preparatory Department of the School.
(b) Children who have a child of the family enrolled in the School on the date of transfer.
(c) Children whose twin or triplet sibling(s) has (have) already been admitted to the School.
(d) Children who have a child of the family who attended the School.
(e) Children who have a parent who was a pupil of the School.
(f) Children who are transferring from primary schools from which the School has received pupils within the last five years (see accompanying list) and who are the elder/eldest children in their respective families or who are the first in the family to transfer to a mainstream school or who are the only child in their family.
(g) Other children who are transferring from primary schools from which the School has received pupils within the last five years (see accompanying list).
(h) Children *entitled to free school meals at the time of application.
* “entitled to free school meals” will mean children who are listed on the Education Authority register as entitled to free school meals at the date on which their parent has signed their post-primary Transfer Application. If a child becomes eligible subsequent to this but prior to the final publication by the Board of Governors of allocated places, i.e. 12 April 2021, the parent must inform the school so that this criterion can be applied to the application.
(i) Random computer generated tie-breaker. The following independently verified random selection process, as determined by the Board of Governors and overseen by The Admissions Committee, shall be applied to determine the remaining applications to be accepted:
- each application to be considered at this stage is allocated a random number electronically generated within Microsoft Excel;
- the applications are then ranked in order of the random number with higher numbers having preference.
Once the admissions number of 170 has been reached, second, third, fourth and later preference applications will not be considered unless they meet criteria which are ranked higher than those already provisionally admitted.
Each applicant to The Wallace High School was scored according to the criteria met. If a child met more than one criterion, he/she would have a combined score and ranked accordingly.
This year, the 170th place was where the applicant had a combination of the criteria (e) and (g). As there were more applications than available places, these applications were randomised.
If your child applied for The Wallace High School and was not offered a place, he/she is automatically on the waiting list, ranked by the assigned score of the non-academic criteria met.
The waiting list is in operation for the whole of the Year 8 academic year, so if there is any movement during the year, the school will contact the parents of the next child on the waiting list. If you change your contact details during the year, please ensure you inform the school.
We hope your child settles and is happy in their allocated school. However, if you do not hear from us during Year 8 and would still like your child to move to The Wallace High School for Year 9 in September 2022, there is a separate application process to follow.
Please refer to the information on the following link https://www.wallacehigh.org/about/admissions-criteria/admissions-non-yr8/. There is an application form to download and send it in to the school by email (cmcdowell@wallacehigh.net) or post, along with copies of your son’s/daughter’s Year 8 school report(s). If a place becomes available for the cohort entering into Year 9, each application is considered according to the admissions criteria.
Last modified: June 11, 2021
