to be utterly pissed off that having a child already at the school has no bearing on getting a place if you do not live in the catchment area?

[samram]

Ok, This news to me.

Having just rang the school admission line to make sure they had my dd4 application form i was told that already having my elder daughter attending the school has no bearing on my application if i do not live in the catchment area!
Im so worried now - i mean how can i possibly be in two places at once?
Its not even like my elder daughter is old enough to walk home on her own (she's 6 in a few weeks)

Does any know if this is correct or have any advice? Thanks

There is a real misunderstanding on this thread as to 'catchment'. Very few schools set a catchment area as such as this could leave them very open to appeal. Catchment will vary year to year based on all the other criteria. So you may think that living in a street 0.2 miles away will get you in and one year it might but the next year there could be a larger number of siblings and so catchment shrinks. Catchment changes as to the fulfilment of all other criteria. A rule of thumb is to look at the furthest distance a fresh non statement, non sibling application gets in from, discounting religious criteria.

I think the concept of catchment seems to vary widely throughout the country.

Some LAs have a lottery approach, in our LA the town schools don't have a catchment, you make your choices and they allocate based on

-Children in public care.
-Children with SEN
-Siblings
-Pupils who live closer to the preferred school than any other school.

However the village schools do have a catchment area and this is where if siblings had priority over catchment which is what the OP is saying should happen, you have the potential scenario of a family moving to a village to get into the school - the parents make big sacrifices in terms of housing and maybe not having a car - siblings then take priority and the village child is not allocated a place in their village school but in a town 8 miles away with no way for the parent to get them to the school.

Cameron
-Pupils who live closer to the preferred school than any other school.

That rule very clearly defines a catchment area!

Rather sensibly, I might add.

It's not always that simple re catchment, especially with village schools.

We are about 3 miles from our local town, and about 3 miles in the other direction from our catchment school, which is in another village. This school serves about 4 or 5 villages, and many of the houses in the town are much closer to the school than those in some of the outlying villages. Nonetheless, the school serves the villages in its catchment first, and then any kids from out of catchment, including those who might want to drive out from town.

This seems sensible to me, given that every village would have had its own school at one stage, and they were gradually closed. This catchment arrangement protects the one remaining village school as a resource for the children whose village schools have been closed.

Really hard - catchments do change, so what if you were in catchment when first one got in and then changed? The real problem I think is makignsure all schools are OK, so we can all just go to our nearest school.
BTW- I belive in sibling rule , good for siblings to be at school together if poss

like i said earlier though i don't think this catchment info (in terms of miles) relates everywhere - near me the schools "catchment" if you like is the whole town - everyone in the town gets priority and gets in automatically and the extra spaces go elsewhere - the town boundary doesn't change every year - even though my daughters school is oversubscribed - its only so because people apply outside of town - everyone in the town automatically gets in, and those living 0.1 miles from school are equal to those 1.5 miles from school as long as they live in the same town/village - think lots of school work like this?

Yes, round here, catchment for popular primaries is on distance, and is generally around 0.3 miles.

Coalition are you in the London area? It's just that our catchment school is further away than 0.3 miles. I think.

Yes, London - they aren't catchemnts as such, that's just the furthest distance a child got in on distance criteria.

For my nearest schools the furthest distances were:-

0.243
0.130
0.183
0.388

miles.

Between 2 and 5 times as many people applied so those schools than there were places available.

Haven't read all the other posts but yes it's common. Statemented children, 'looked after', sibling in catchment (based on distance) then distance from school. In my LA even if you live in the catchment if all the places are filled up before it gets to you then even if you are in catchment you may not get a place, as it's closest first iyswim. If an area is very populated (like the LA I live in) then you could miss out by 0.1 mile.

So YABU as those that live in catchment / sibling in catchment should be prioritised before those out of catchment with a sibling, otherwise the system would not be fair.

Do some LA's still have catchment areas then?

In my LA it just goes on distance. There is no catchment area cos the the distance where the last child who gets in lives is different every year, depending on how many looked after children, children with statements and children with siblings there are.

my dd is starting primary in september and will be going to out local primary, which is an excellent school. however in 2 years our LEA is changing the catchment areas from catchment to as the crow flys, which will move all the catchment areas.
this means my ds who is due to start school that year will be closer to a different school, which quite frankly is a shit school and ds will go there over my dead body.
i will be very angry if he doesn't get into the same school as dd, through no fault of mine.

So, at the moment even though the shit school is closer in distance, you are out of catchment for it?

yes, the shit school is the local c of e primary, but there is a major trunk road between us and it, which is the catchment boundary for 4 schools. 2 on one side and and 2 on the other. imagine a cross with a school in each section. the catchment school we're with at the moment is in the bottom left (where we live) and the shit school is in the bottom right.
the 'good school' ATCF is 0.3m from us and the 'Crap' school is 0.28m from us so it makes it our new local school.
it has just this week been moved into special measures,

Do the catchment borders for any of the schools overlap. Or are there 4 completely separate ones so you can only live in the catchment for 1 school?

I know where my friend lives she is in the overlapping bit so is actually in the catchment for 2 schools.

Just because it is nearer it doesn't mean you won't get a place at the other school. Siblings take priority and if they are doing it as the crow flies then they won't have the sibling in catchment/out of catchment priority.

it's really complicated, basically they all overlap as you get towards the middle of the cross, so i live in the catchment area for all 4 schools, BUT the top 2 are both outstanding schools and my street is at the edge of the catchment and i have no chance of getting my kids into either of them as there is a massive newbuild estate between the 2 schools and me, and both schools are massivly over subscribed.

so that leaves me with the good school and the crap one, at the moment the lea uses road distance as criteria, and this makes the good school closer. my dd goes to the preschool and loves it there.

the lea use
1.looked after children
2.special needs.
3.distance
4.siblings.

so it is highly likely that ds would be be offered the crap school on distance unless it changes in the next 2 years.
dh and i are actually considering moving house to be nearer the school we want.

I always thought if they went on distance (in your case road distance at the moment) then they don't have a catchment area as it depends on each year how far away the last person who gets in lives from the school?