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Original poster

Unadequate school, outside catchment area

29 replies

Turefu · 28/01/2022 09:49

Hello!
We live in rural Yorkshire area. My son is in year 5 and the only secondary school is unadequate. I really don't want him to go there. There's grammar school 20 miles away, but it's outside catchment area. There's also catholic school in nearby (12 miles) city, very good one and very oversubscribed. I would consider moving, just can't do it right now for various reasons. Any advice? How to get into school outside catchement area?

OP posts:
Original poster
Turefu · 28/01/2022 15:29

Hi , thank you for replies. There’s grammar 20 miles away, but they accept based on location rather then performance . My son is clever enough to pass exam, will he get very top notch score? I don’t know. Local school’s rating was done in 2016. Previous one “required improvement “.
I’ve got rental home nearly an hour away from my home. There’s another grammar four miles away. I guess I could move there. But probably I would need to live there at the time of 11plus exam and it’d be very difficult .

OP posts:
TeenPlusCat · 28/01/2022 10:51

What you do is list the schools in your true order of preference, and make sure the inadequate one is on the list somewhere.

Have you been to visit the inadequate one? How old is the rating? Schools with poor ratings get a lot of extra help to improve. Plus also be careful of 'local reputation' as these can easily be 10 years out of date.

Lots of schools are 'oversubscribed' but people get into them. In an area where you can list 3 schools, then an average school might expect to be '3x oversubscribed' as they count all applications, not just those that put them first.

When viewing schools, take a good notice of all the reasons why your DS 'needs' to go there. e.g. He plays the clarinet and the catholic school has an orchestra but the one you don't like doesn't. Those are the kind of points that can help if you choose to appeal. Almost anything real might help except Ofsted rating or GCSE results.

Renting nearby without selling existing property with a view to moving back is almost always considered fraud.

Blankscreen · 28/01/2022 10:04

You shouldn't do it but some people will rent in the catchment area to get in. Depends on the rules of your local authority whether this would be considered fraud

Even in areas where it isn't allowed people do it every year and get away with it (I know of 2 last year that did it).

When you say you can't move is that you can't sell and buy or can't actually change location for other reasons?

Otherwise you are sadly stuck

Hersetta427 · 28/01/2022 09:54

If you can't move then not sure what your options are. Does the grammar school accept some pupils from outside catmint purely based on test scores and do you believe that your DC could ace give a top mark?

Are there any other grammars that do offer places purely based on test scores or any state schools that offer places based on an aptitude that make distance irrelevant?