OnTheWight has obtained the number of Isle of Wight pupils who have applied this year to each of the Island’s secondary schools.
The numbers are very revealing, showing considerable drops at some of them.
Decisions to apply were made by pupils and parents towards the end of last year, so wouldn’t have been influenced by much of the good work that has been done at many of these schools to improve standards.
Two thirds of these schools have considerably smaller numbers of pupils seeking to join them than the number of places that were awarded last year. Applications to one school has dropped so considerably, they are only one in double digits.
Christ the King College heavily over-subscribed
Applications to join two Island schools have gone up. Applications to Medina College increased by nearly a fifth (19.87%). The other, Christ the King College (CtK), is 137% over-subscribed against its previous year’s capacity, somewhat lower than those in the Island teaching profession had originally understood.
CtK have announced, because of considerably increased demand, that they will increase capacity to 270 places this year. This looks as if it will still leave 59 pupils who applied to join CtK in September 2014 disappointed.
The largest drops
The biggest drop in applications is to Sandown Bay Academy, which has dropped by 42%, falling from 229 to 132 – 97 less. In four years, the number of people applying to Sandown Bay have more than halved from 301 to 132.
The smallest number of applications is to Carisbrooke College, with only 78 pupils requesting to join the school, a drop of over 40% from the number of admissions in September 2013. Applications to the school are nearly a third (36%) of the levels of 2011 pupil numbers.
Total applications very similar
1,185 pupils were offered secondary school places in 2013. This year those numbers are down 4 to 1,189.
OnTheWight has recently posed a number of questions to the Isle of Wight council in connection to these figures and hope to being you the replies when we hear back. Update 28.Mar.14: IWC Press office let us know that council officers who can answer questions will not be available until next week.
Update 28.Mar.14 Added Isle of Wight Free School applications number into the mix, following request from readers. These new numbers changed the total applications numbers too.
12:48 Adjusted Ryde numbers 153, the figure the IW Council told OnTheWight, to 193, the figure Ryde just gave. This brought the difference in applicants down further to only 4.
17:50 Had to change another figure supplied by IW Council after The Island Free School comment that it was incorrect.
