Equal preference application for primary

[sillytilly]

Can someone explain it to me? Do the schools honsestly not take your preference into account when offerign places?

[Clary]

I can only speak for my LEA but yes, here they do.

How it works where I live is that you will be given your first preference if there is space. If not enough space for all first prefs, criteria about catchment, siblings etc come into play.

In actual fact I don?t think any children in this city failed to get into their first-choice school if they were in catchment for the current FS2 year. Obv some will have failed to get in to popular schools with smaller admissions (just one form) but they will have been overly hopeful applicants out of catchment. They will then have been offered their second place if available and so on.

I understand that the above situation does not obtain in London where there don?t seem to be catchment areas at all (judging from other threads here).

What are you worried about in particular?

[dinny]

thanks for the answer (Dinny here, name back to normal now, didn't sit well!)

we are applying for a usually-over-subscribed CofE school (not in London)

we will be living within catchment but aren't going to get a priest's letter

it is a double form entry, so 60 kids

just want to make sure won't be penalised from our 2nd choice if we put the church school as first (plus have dd to get into the same school, she'll be Y3)

sorry, that's v badly explained!

[Clary]

Well I am sure if you are in catchment you should get in, but why not inquire of the school how they do it? Church schools follow different rules I think (eg wrt priest?s letter)

Are you moving house or why do you have a yr3 child as well?

[dinny]

Clary,
have been to the school/met head etc etc but all they say about it is "a letter will help your application"

but we aren't likely to be able to get a letter, iyswim

yes, we are moving next year, will have reception-aged child and Y3 then

[christywhisty]

In our area the schools do not know what preference you put. They just know that an application has been made. The Lea then sort it out. They look at all the acceptances then give you your highest prefrence.

[dinny]

ah, that sounds hopeful if the LEA where we are moving do that

though presumably if they are oversubscribed they lallocate according to their critera (ie. letter from priest)

just thinking though, wonder how the LEA allocate the first 60 places....distance? presumably they don't deal with priests' letters....

[izzywizzyletsgetbusy]

We have an "equal preference" system now (this year was the first year they had done it that way!)

It actually worked in our benefit I think because we (stupidly, some might say!) put a local RC school first - we're CofE, it's over-subscribed, so we didn't get in. But we did get our second choice (a CofE school further away) which was also over-subscribed - so on last year's system would have probably been taken up with people who had put it first. (Our third choice was actually our closest school but so ridiculously over-subscribed that you have to practically live on the doorstep to get in - which we don't).

Do check with the Council that they are definitely operating this system before you fill in the form though as it can make a huge difference. If ours hadn't been doing it this way, I wouldn't have dared risk putting our first choice down!

Good luck with it all!