Didn’t get into any choices, placed into Catholic School - help

interesting, I wonder if you'd give this opinion if a Catholic child had been placed in a Muslim or Jewish school?
OP - consider contacting Humansits UK, they may well be able to offer advice and support on challenging a school place if you are of a different or no religion.

If your preferred school admits on distance, hopefully you will be close to the top of the waiting list if other friends who live nearby got a place.

From my experience many of the Catholic schools are better and there are usually plenty of non Catholic parents seeking places in them because of that. To get state funding they used to have to have a minimum of 15% non Catholic students. I wouldn't be too hasty about rejecting the place especially if you can opt out of things like mass etc. My oldest non Catholic child went to a catholic primary and it was great school.

Yes what @PanelChair says. Check if a mistake was made, usually relating to distance.

You can appeal and you need to find things about the appealed-for school that are only offered there (eg child plays flute and school has an orchestra).

Go on as many WLs as you like – for any school which you would prefer. Did you list your nearest school? If not you can still go o that WL and you are likely to be high up if you are close.

I would raise a stink and start going though the appeals process especially as you didn't even list the school.

Don’t raise a stink, whatever that means in practice. Unless a mistake of the kind outlined in terms of distance has been made, the admissions process has been followed correctly. If there is no space for your DC at your preferred, listed schools, the LA is quite entitled to offer you a school you did not list.

But there is often a lot of WL movement in London so it may well work out OK.

First of all, check whether there’s been a mistake (for example, being in a primary school in the same federation should have placed your son in a higher category in the oversubscription criteria).

There is no “someone” who had decided that one faith or another is “practically the same thing”. Where a child does not fulfil the admissions criteria for any of the preferred schools, they will be allocated the nearest school with a place.

Think about what the preferred school can offer your child that he won’t get at the allocated school, but remember that, to win an appeal, you will need a stronger argument than not wanting a Catholic school.

Join waiting lists for any other schools you would be willing to accept.

@morozova89 Chances are there is nothing you can do.

Did you use all 6 choices in the application form? There is literally zero advantage and plenty of disadvantages in not using every one of the 6 options you are given in London.

Most schools in London tend to use distance as the main admission criterion.
Do you know how far you live from each of the schools? Estimate in in google maps https://support.google.com/maps/answer/1628031?hl=en-GB&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
The council will use its own system, but google maps is a decent estimate

Did the schools or council publish the maximum admission distances?

If you live 1500 metres from the school and the maximum admission distance was 2000 metres, there must have been a mistake and you should appeal.
if you live 3000 metres from the school and the maximum admission distance was 1000 metres, nothing you can do, sorry.

Do the schools use other criteria? Some use random lotteries, but not that many.

OP, I am not religious, and I think state-funded schools which discriminate based on faith are an abomination which would be unconstitutional in many countries. But too many Brits are brainwashed into thinking that whatever is our tradition should never be changed. We would never accept state-funded hospitals discriminating on faith, so why we accept it for schools is beyond me.
Having said that, not all faith schools are the same.
Not all faith schools indoctrinate children as if we were still in the middle ages.

Have you looked into this school? I'd start doing some research into it.

Also find out which schools in the area are undersubscribed or have short waiting lists.
Councils should publish admission results. Any schools for which "all preferences were allocated" or something like that is undersubscribed.
Some councils, not all, also publish a list of schools undersubscribed or with short waiting lists, including in neighbouring boroughs. Eg https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2026-03/schools-with-vacancies-or-short-waiting-lists-2026.pdf

Maybe there is another undersubscribed school you might like better than this faith one. Start doing your research now

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams I suspect that someone has decided on your behalf that Orthodox Christian or Ukrainian Greek is "practically the same thing".

Why do you say that? London is full of undersubscribed schools, including faith ones.
It is perfectly possible that this was the closest undersubscribed school to the OP

I suspect that someone has decided on your behalf that Orthodox Christian or Ukrainian Greek is "practically the same thing". I would raise a stink and start going though the appeals process especially as you didn't even list the school. If you take a look at the schools boards you should find plenty of threads on how to go about appealing.
https://www.gov.uk/schools-admissions/appealing-a-schools-decision
You need to go to your specific local authority to do the appeal. I would make it asap and also talk to the primary school. If there are lots of children feeding through they may have specific feedback.