Waiting lists when schools use a lottery

[probablyveryunreasonable]

We are looking at a secondary schools for our DC for a couple of years time and one has a very different admissions criteria to the others in the area. After from SEN and looked after children, the school then take 10% on sport or drama (but give no details of how this is tested!), then catchment, then out of catchment.

It states that if any catergory is over subsribed, a lottery will be used.

So my query is, if a lottery is used, how would a waiting list work after initial allocations. I have twins so would be very wary of applying to a school where a lottery is used anyway, but it does look like a great school.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

[Salskey]

If any places become available between now and Aug, the random allocation process (lottery) is used again for the available place.

[crazymum53]

I would check if they give priority to siblings - if they do so, if one twin gets allocated a place the other one will too. If there is no sibling policy you may end up with dcs at 2 different schools!

[prh47bridge]

As Salskey says, they must hold a fresh lottery each time a place comes up.

I'm afraid crazymum53 is wrong. If they have sibling priority and one twin gets a place it will put the other twin at the head of the waiting list. It will not mean they get a place straight away in most schools. However, if another place came up the second twin would get it unless there were other siblings on the waiting list. Even if there were other siblings on the waiting list the twin would stand a good chance as the lottery would only involve siblings since they would be higher priority than the rest of the children on the waiting list.

However, if the school does not have sibling priority, one twin being admitted will not have any effect on the second twin's chances.

[crazymum53]

I was writing about first round allocations not waiting lists.

[probablyveryunreasonable]

Yes I hadn't thought of one getting in making the other one count under sibling rule - I have just checked, there is a sibling rule.

Criteria is SEN/Medical/LAC, siblings, Sports/ Drama, Catchment, non catchment - so not quite as I stated before, sorry.

So if one twin got in on initial allocations, then the other twin would become a sibling, which means they would also have to get in on the first round, as they would be higher priority than the other categories. But if neither got in on first round, there would in effect be no waiting list, just a lottery for each place. So if one got in, the other would go top or near to, depending on any late siblings etc.

Surely lottery systems are open to abuse. I know that in the past they used to do a lottery for catchment (catchment area is now smaller) and amazingly every year those from private housing got in, lots from the council estate didn't. I am amazed this is allowed!

[prh47bridge]

Even on initial allocations one twin getting in does not generally guarantee admission for the other. If the first twin is the last child admitted, for example, the second twin won't get a place. Even if they are not the last child admitted the LA may take the view that the places are being allocated simultaneously and therefore the second twin will not get sibling priority until after the initial allocations.

[crazymum53]

I would double-check the policy on sibling rule for twins with your LEA before applying to any schools as this does seem to vary. I can only really comment on my LEAs policy which is as stated whereas prh is more aware of the overall picture nationally.
At this stage I wouldn't really rule out any school but yes there are often concerns about how fair lottery systems really are and whether they are random. The result you have described could be because fewer children from the council estate had this school as their first preference.