'catchment' (priority admissions area) question

[brilliotic]

Out of interest, this question has been playing on my mind for a few years.

In our area all community schools (i.e. non-faith) have the same oversubscription criteria, starting with LAC/FLAC, then Exceptional Needs, then Siblings, then 'Children for whom it is the nearest school', then any other children.

As every address will have exactly one 'nearest school', this effectively creates a kind of 'catchment'. Every child should have exactly one school for which they are 'in catchment' so to say; here they have priority and should usually get a place, if so desired. Of course in crowded years it is possible that not all in-catchment children do actually get a place, especially seeing as siblings have priority over catchment. But in theory this should be the fall-back school.

Now there are a number of faith schools with their own admissions criteria as well.
What happens if a child's closest school is such a faith school? They would therefore not be in 'catchment' of any non-faith school, and hence not have that fall-back option. And they may very well not qualify for the faith school either, due to lack of faith credentials.

Is that the classic definition of a school black hole? So all schools except the faith schools have 'catchment' or priority areas, but due to the existence of a faith school that you would never get into, your address is not within any priority area.
Or is the 'closest school' priority area definition usually defined as closest non-faith school. I can't seem to find any small print, just the summary that says 'closest school' but could well believe that the small print actually excludes faith schools from this, thus meaning that every address has one school for which they are within the priority area.

Anyone know?

[LilyDisney]

Closest school doesn't take faith schools into account.

Technically our closest school is a Catholic one.

But we're not catholic.

So it didn't count. Therefore my daughter got a place in our closest non-faith school, which is very heavily oversubscribed.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

It's closest school that is still under council care too.

[admission]

It is normally the closest school under local authority control which therefore excludes faith schools. What does need to be clear is what academies are there in the area because they are their own admission authority, therefore not under local authority control and will have their own admission criteria.
It is quite possible that parents may well find themselves in a "black hole" where the nearest LA school is a considerable distance away and with a distance criteria could therefore not get a place at a maintained school.
If you want to PM me with the local authority I will see if I can find the small print in the LA website which should give a more detailed explanation of the situation. Also the name of what you believe is your nearest LA school.

[AlpacasPackOwls]

There are 10 primary schools in our town. All but one are faith schools (CofE and Catholic). How does that work if they don't count for catchment?

[brilliotic]

Thanks everyone! I thought that must be the case.

Thanks admission, I won't burden you with looking this up, especially as it is just out of curiosity that I ask. It doesn't impact us personally and though it might affect friends, the LA run schools around here have not been oversubscribed recently so it wouldn't make much difference to anyone at the moment. It's not as if someone were preparing an appeal on the grounds of having been placed in the wrong category because their nearest school is a faith school and shouldn't apply.