Primary School Applications

[bluewisteria]

My sister in law put the same school name in every choice on the application form, ie the same school repeated six times.

Does this make any difference....??

We have only one local primary I really want my daughter to go to, but we are likely to have to appeal as we are not particularly close and there will be a very high number of siblings applying for 2014 entry.

Thanking you kindly

[uneedme]

It was very silly of your sil to do that. If she doesnt get in her child will be placed in the closest school with spaces.

Only 1% of appeals are successful. Simply wanting your child so go to a particular school wont work. You would have to prove that the lea have made a mistake or that your child has a SEN that only that particular school can cater for.

[gintastic]

Not only will it make no difference, it's madness. I know all counties admission policies vary, but here what would happen is that if you didn't get a place at the one school you had requested, you'd be given a place at the nearest school that has a place. Could be miles and miles away. We are told to always put are catchment school, even if its 3rd choice (only get 3), otherwise who knows where you will end up. In Oxford they are bussing 4yo children across the city due to lack of spaces...

[Trazzletoes]

I have no direct experience but remember watching a programme about school places where someone did that and the woman at the LEA was calling her to explain that she needed to put different schools for each entry. Which I thought was fairly generous of her.

As far as I'm aware it makes no difference at all, except for her child losing out on having any other options.

[gintastic]

You won't win an appeal just because you want your child to go to that school. For YR, Y1 and Y2, the infant class size regulations means they WILL NOT admit if class sizes will be more than 30 unless administration error. A child was admitted to DD's primary school last year above this limit as county had in error decided they lived further away than they did. Had the correct distance been used, he would have been allocated a place in the normal admission round.

Read the admissions policies very carefully to see how it is done where you live.

[bluewisteria]

Yes, I thought she was too, a bit of a wild card. She got it though, it was about three years ago and she wasn't near to it.

I just wondered if it somehow made a difference statistically when they work out the choices... Haven't really got my head around exactly how places are decided after sen/religious etc priorities - ie if they are soley relying on the choices of school on the form and no other information.

[bluewisteria]

Ah, okay, thank you all. So she simply would have got it anyway.

[gintastic]

Look on your LEA website, admissions policies should be very clear.

[soapboxqueen]

Nope. Other than giving the admissions staff who open it a chuckle

There are many people who believe that either only putting one choice or putting the same choice repeatedly forces the LEAs hand to give them the choice they want. If this were true then everyone would be doing it.

You do not have the right to choose your child's school, only to express a preference. The preference only comes into action if you qualify for more than one school in which case they offer you the school you put the biggest up your list. You are only offered a place if you meet the school's selection criteria. If you have six preferences and you only qualify for one school, that is the school you are offered. Doesn't matter where you put it on your list. If you are offered two or all six, they will offer you your highest preference.

In your sil case, if she is lucky and is offered her preferred school then all is well. However, it will be because she qualified for that school, not because she wrote it six times. If however she doesn't qualify for that school then she will be in a bit of a pickle.

She will have to wait until all of the other children have been given their choices and then she will be given a place at a school that still has vacancies. Doesn't matter if she hates the school, it's 10 miles away or she can't get to it because of transport. The LEA only have to offer a place, not a place that parents like.

By all means she can put her favoured school as top of her list, but the other options are four her to express a preference if she doesn't get that school. She should look at school she stands a good chance of getting into as back ups.

[AbbyR1973]

No you aren't only supposed to apply for 1 school or the same school multiple times over and it doesn't change the outcome of the authorities decision if you do but....

I only applied for 1 school for DS2. DS1 was clearly already at the school so it helped but from DS1 I knew that the ONLY school in our town I would be offered is one of the worst schools in the country and 3 miles away (they put on a "bulge class" in the least popular, least successful school n town!!). We didn't get catchment school last year nor any of our other choices. We had been offered only said dire school and at one point my Mum (ex-primary teacher) was going to home educate for me. Fortunately we didn't have to do this as a places were available at a lovely school in a village a few miles away. It would have been a disaster if DS2 hadn't got in but there is no way he would have gone to the authorities choice and as a single parent I couldn't have done to school runs and gone to work anyway
So there are circumstances where you might only put down one school but you have to consider for you whether no school place is better than place in diabolically awful school.

[prh47bridge]

Applying for the same school multiple times makes absolutely no difference to your chances of getting a place. If your SIL hadn't got a place at her preferred school she would have been offered a place at the nearest school with places available, which would definitely have been an unpopular school and could have been miles away. If she had used her other choices properly she may have been offered a place at one of her other preferences.

[prh47bridge]

Just for clarity, she would only have been offered a place at one of her other preferences if she had failed to get a place at her first choice school. As she did get a place at that school the fact she named the same school six times didn't have any effect. But it could have left her in a much worse position than if she had used per preferences properly.

[Pyrrah]

If there is a dead cert school close to you but that you totally hate, it's always worth putting it on the list in last place - better a school you hate at the end of the road than a school you hate that's 5 miles away.

I never understand why people don't realise that it's a computer that allocates school places, not a person, so no emotion involved or anyone thinking 'well that person REALLY wants that school' or 'Gosh, can't have little Johnny with no school so will have to give him the one that was written down 6 times'.

Problem is that people - like your SIL - do write the same school 6 times and then get a place (that they qualified for in the normal way) and think that the reason was because they only listed the one school. This then leads to urban myths and people really screwing up their applications.

[gintastic]

I will only be putting one school down when I apply for DS for next September, but it is our catchment school (400 yards away) and he already has a sibling at the school. As I help run the preschool, I have a pretty good idea who will be applying and I think he will either be 3rd or 4th on the list - they take 15 and there is no chance of him being not in the top 15 as he will have a sibling priority (which does apply in our LEA, I checked!). You need to be this certain, or you do run the risk of getting a place miles away. And you will have to wait until everyone else has been allocated their space before they look at those who have no space...

[gintastic]

Yeah, I understand - but every school round here is oversubscribed. I think the nearest one who admitted children from out of catchment is about 4 miles away.

Could you potentially get a village school (ours is) with a year group made up of 15 adopted children from all over the area while the 11 or 12 kids who actually live in the village are sent miles away? I guess this is a bit of an extreme example though!

I will put the other 2 nearest schools down despite being pretty sure we wouldn't qualify for a place there either.

Hard to know what to do for the best sometimes...

[gintastic]

I don't think I'll fret too much about it to be honest...

We only get 3 choices, I'll have a think about which ones to put!

[Fuzzymum1]

I was certain DS would get a place at our local school - we live close and no-one in the village has not had a place in the 15 years I've had a connection to the school. I still put down the school in the next village and one in the local town just in case.

[UniS]

The entry group 3 years ago was slightly small compared to the groups the year before and the year after, your SiL just got lucky and the school she wanted were admitting children who lived as far away as they did.

My DS started school 3 years ago, every one who wanted a place got one and there spaces to spare, at DS's school AND the next closest school.