Birmingham School Admissions

[TeethingBabyHelp]

Does anybody have any knowledge of Birmingham school admissions please? I’ve called the council admissions line today and the chap I spoke to really didn’t seem confident in what he was saying and I’m worried I’ll do the wrong thing!

We are looking at reception admissions. We have a catholic school which is our first choice, we’re catholic and meet all the supplementary criteria that we’d need to submit to the school. However we’re half a mile away and it’s massively oversubscribed so it’s unlikely that we’ll get in. The reason we'd prefer this school is that our DS will be able to do his first communion and confirmation all through school with peers instead of us having to organise separate classes (through the same church the school is attached to but outside of school time).

The second school is a lovely non faith school and we’re much closer to this one, 0.3 miles so much more likely to get in. Looking at the distance cut off we'd have got a place for the last 3 years.

My question is, if we put catholic school as first choice but don’t get in (as I suspect we won’t but it’s not impossible) - will I have ruined my chances of getting into the second school that we’re close to? Would people who put our second school as first choice get preference, even if they live further away?

This is so long and fairly dull, thank you so much if you’ve made it this far

No you won't.

All schools in England have to follow the Admissions Code, which requires an even preference system. You can put your schools in your genuine order if oreference.

Each school, or the LA for schools which are in their own admissions authority, is given a list of all applicants (not info on where in the form they were out) and then they rank applicants according to how well they fit the published criteria (and nothing else)

The list is then returned to the LA who does something like a giant game of Candy Crush to turn the lists into a single offer per candidate.

Your preference is only ever looked at if you qualify for more than one school. In those circumstances, you will be offered the you listed highest.

Thank you so much @meditrina - thats really helpful. That's what I thought was the case but it doesn't clarify it anywhere on the website - I think they should put your exact explanation on the website to cut down some calls!!

Thanks again