Primary school admissions - would this ring alarm bells?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

We live quite close to a super popular primary. Outstanding Ofsted, loads of local links like joint projects with a nature charity, offer foreign languages etc. Also have an attached preschool and their preschoolers are all but guaranteed a place at the school.

We really hoped DD would get a place.

I emailed last term asking when they normally started tours for Sept 2019 - pretty early, I thought! They responded they were already full for 2019-20 only turned out they had got mixed up between academic years and meant 18-19.

I contacted them again to ask about a tour a fortnight ago. No answer. Tried again a week ago. They emailed back asking for my mobile and said they'd ring. They didn't ring for 3 days and when they did, were confused about what I wanted.

They advised I try emailing again (for 4th time!).

I am starting to have serious second thoughts. Do they sound like a disorganised nightmare to you or am I a picky bitch?

OK, application to Reception has its own admissions criteria and they are not allowed to prioritise or guarantee places to children in be nursery. The only reason these children would be ‘virtuslly guaranteed’ a place is because the nursery and the Reception have the same distance criteria and they are local children. However nurseries often have a bigger distance catchment than Reception because of children who stay at home rather than attend, or are in all-Day private childcare nurseries or childminders, used by many working parents.

The school and the LA will publish the admissions criteria, and the LA should publish how places were allocated, e.g tne distance of the last child admitted. So you can get an idea of your chances.

But if it is a state school, attending the nursery will not affect your chance of a Reception place.

Oh: cross posted. Is the school
In England ? I thought nursery attendance could not be a criteria!
Interesting!

Pillow their website says "there is priority for children attending our nursery". It also says there was some type of legal challenge to this which was found in their favour and "this remains our settled and determined policy". Exact quotes! Looks like they are a bit of an outlier?!

Ha x posted with you myself! Yes England.

Interesting.

See the posts by Admission and RustyBear on this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/2298226-School-giving-priority-to-nursery-children

Aren't they already full up for tours this year? Sorry I'm probably being thick as I'm knackered. Good night!

If I've found the correct school, it looks like children in catchment have a higher priority than those who attend the nursery - is that correct? So if you're in catchment then the nursery issue is not relevant as you'd always have priority over them.

To be honest, Jiggery pokery with admissions would raise more questions for me than overworked reception staff.

Lots of hugely favoured ‘outstanding ‘ schools find ways to manage their intake to ensure a high ratio of high achieving kids from a certain demographic. They get good results because they get easy to work with raw material. It is more prevalent at secondary (with their various ‘aptitude’ scholarship places and creating carefully thought about distance criteria (e.g does straight line or ‘shortest safe walking route’ include the most private housing...).

Prioritising nursery children is plainly not fair for many reasons.

I wouldn't say 'sets alarm bells ringing' but would say 'causes queringly raised eyebrows'.

It could be a momentarily disorganised school office person, perhaps a maternity cover or such. (I would not put any weight on the confusion last term - you were too early, they might have just been organising settling in sessions for 2018 starters and totally not in the frame of mind to be thinking about tours for prospective parents.) Some badly functioning e-mail system. It happens.

Or it could be an expression of something deeper. E.g. arrogance (we're oversubscribed anyway and do not need to make any effort) combined with an attitude of communication being a one-way street (they want you to tell them everything, but won't tell you anything) and a 'take it or leave it' approach towards parents' approval - if you don't like something, you are welcome to leave.

So, I would go to the school (if you can eventually get a tour or such), ask questions, listen carefully to the nuances, and ask current parents. Ask them especially about if they feel that there is good cooperation between school and parents, and if they know people who have left the school, if they know why.

But remain open minded.

(Around here, some schools have published 'open mornings', others require you to call upon which they will arrange a small group tour, and others again require you to call upon which they will tell you the dates. The thing about priority admission for nursery children is strange though. Have you read the actual admissions policy, or just what the school writes about the policy? What you quoted sounds more like the latter.)

A school that prioritises children whose parents can afford their on-site nursery would put me off, for sure.

A school that prioritises children whose parents can afford their on-site nursery would put me off, for sure.

Maybe I'm being naïve but I thought the 30 (??) hours free childcare for 3 yr olds was intended to ensure all could attend pre-school, not just those who can afford it?

If so (and I'm really not sure if that's how it works..) then is it any different to a primary school guaranteeing entry into the attached secondary school?

Anyway OP, I wouldn't judge the school on this alone. We found the admin a bit chaotic to begin with but then it improved a lot.

@prh47bridge @admissions
Are schools allowed to prioritise those already at an attached nursery?

Ime, primary schools are not the best at communicating and marketing so no I wouldn't judge them on that. What I would do is go and look at the less popular options as well. My children went to a popular, outstanding primary school filled to the brim with Quinten and Jemimah's who were tutored within an inch of their lives. They failed to spot my daughters serious dyslexia and were useless at helping her. They didn't need to as they had the best SATs in the Borough anyway so my daughter failing was of no interest to them. I suspect a school with a more varied intake and not so popular might have been different but I'll never know.

Are schools allowed to prioritise those already at an attached nursery?

Yes, they can. The current Admissions Code allows schools to do this.

So I spoke to a parent with older children at the school today who said yes, they were an administrative nightmare but still a good school. She said she couldn't even get to look round before her children started.

.....would you send your children to a school you had never been able to look round/ ask questions?

Hm, I might, but I wouldn't based on one parent's word.

You know, once you've chosen a school, psychologically it is very hard to admit you made the wrong choice. People will continue praising a school to the sky, kind of willing it to be so. They will also usually not have anything to compare it to, so will assume that the 'bad' parts will be no better elsewhere and therefore happily overlook them. Until OFSTED comes along and rates it inadequate and all of a sudden they will all be saying 'I always knew it was a rubbish school'...

So I would be asking the parent/s to be very specific. What exactly makes it 'a good school' in their opinion/experience?

For instance, my kids' school. I moan about it a lot on MN... but I haven't moved my kids (yet). There are certain things that I really like about it, and that I understand would be much worse elsewhere; at the same time, there are things that really, really annoy me about it.
If you were asking me, I would happily tell you what I see as the specific positives (compared to what I know of other schools) rather than just say 'it is a good school'. That would then allow you to make a judgement based on the things that matter to you.

But just on the basis of someone saying 'it is still a good school' - no, I wouldn't.