High School Application Woes

Firstly I cannot even fathom that I have a soon to be teenager as I feel like I merely celebrated my 21st Birthday last year lol. As if this daunting reality is not stressful enough I now have to contend with High School Applications as well, and for those that have not yet gone through this process, brace yourself - you are in for a rollercoaster ride. We (future 2020 Grade 8's) in the Western Cape are part of a lucky group of people who get to pilot a new online application system with the Western Cape Education Department (Yeah Us - Not). This year in conjunction with following the normal hard copy process we have to do a similar online process which in retrospect is not all that bad and honestly it gives us stressed out parents some feeling of power in tracking the progress of our applications. Being the OCD person that I am I researched the heck out of future High Schools and created a spreadsheet, this was then utilized by my kid's current primary school to provide other parents with some guidance. The reality is that none of us actually knew what the process would entail and this uncertainty merely fuels the stress fire we already have burning within. So we begin our online process by visiting here https://wcedonline.westerncape.gov.za/, we go to Learner Enrollment and register using the parents information, once completed you then go and register your child using their CEMIS (found on Grade 6 report or ID number). Once you have done that the wizard takes you to complete some information on your child *please note that you should include all sports done by your child not just current sports*. Then you proceed to select the schools this section is critical and should be in the correct order because should you fail to select a school the WCED (Western Cape Education Dept.) will automatically select one for you after the cut off date in June 2019 and they will select the school on your preference list that has accepted you. Every school you add moves the list around, so my suggestion is to add all the schools first, then to shift them around according to your preference. Once that is done you go and upload all your supporting documents which is everything except a DNA sample LOL (proof of address, Unabridged birth certificate, Grade 6 final report etc). Once done click submit, once you submit your online application is final you cannot go back and make changes, what you can do is go back to change uploaded documents however the application itself is there to stay. If you really need to you can delete the application completely and redo everything should you have made a big mistake. There is 3 sections for uploading School documents this is merely your hard copy applications that you can upload here if you kept electronic copies this however is not a must. Once done you have 14 days to get your hard copy application forms along with supporting documents to the school, once the school acknowledges receipt it will reflect this on the site, don't panic if your school does not do this within the allotted 14 days as it will not kick out your application. A few things that came up during my 8, yes that right 8 applications (hey I figure with 8 applications he should get in somewhere right) are the following. For parents whose kids turn 13 years old this year, your child most likely would not have an Unabridged certificate only an Abridged (the only difference here is the fact that both parents are listed on the Unabridged vs just the mother on the Abridged). This then means that you need to go to Home Affairs and apply for an Unabridged which is yet another tedious task in the line of High School applications, a tip though is if you are doing this for your eldest get it done for your younger kids at the same time so that you don't have to do this again in the future. For those parents with younger kids make sure your child is an all rounder (Academic, Sport and Cultural) because all 8 of the school open days had the same message, we want the best, we want an all rounder, we want a well rounded child - I think they forget given the complexities of the workload that kids have nowadays in primary school, getting home between 4pm and 5pm, doing homework from 6pm till 7.30pm where are we to fit all these additional activities??? Add to this the sections that my poor kid had to complete on all these forms and the 2 scholarship exams he had to write over and above doing one of the hardest primary schools year is a lot for a little person to deal with. 8 Open Days later, 2 scholarship exams and numerous trips to drop off documents I feel that I am sure I have an ulcer and a few extra grey hairs. Now we wait till 07 June 2019 which honestly seems like a lifetime away and hopefully your child will get into their chosen school and you will be celebrating the day away as if your child won the Nobel Peace Prize. Happy Applications Folks.