To ask what your thoughts are on siblings getting priority at over-subscribed schools?

[goingeversoslowlymad]

So the letters have gone out advising parents which school they have gained a place for their 4/5 yr old for September. As happens every year as dc1's school is badly over subscribed, there have been people who have lost out.

The school admission criteria gives priority to children who already have siblings in the school, after they have been admitted it then goes down to catchment area and distance from the school. Is this the norm most places? There was quite a lot of bad feeling today when I was at the park. A few of the mums were really angry and saying that the school is discriminating against first-born and only children as it is making it impossible to get a place. I felt a bit guilty as DC2 was one of those who got a place.

I can really see their argument and really do feel for them but what is the solution? I would not physically be able to get my children to 2 different schools in the mornings. Sorry if this has been done before but would just love to know if there is a fairer solution.

exactly, the definition settled on was to stop using sibling criteria altogether. This was a couple of years ago now, in my school, but most other local schools have adopted it too.

The problem is not siblings, the problem is a lack of good alternative schools, making people fight and bitch for places at selective ones.

For one of the richest countries in the world, that is a totally disgraceful situation, I can't believe people aren't demanding major changes!

At our local secondary school a rather high number of applicants were found to have falsely claimed they had a sibling at the school so the LA obviously do check quite carefully.

I think the sibling rule makes total sense for primary school age children but I don't see why they have it for secondary school. By that age children can make their own way to and from school and it isn't really an issue if siblings are at different schools.

I think this thread illustrates that different parts of the country need different admission criteria. We are a world away from London.

In answer to a previous poster questioning the fairness of DC2, 3 and possibly 4 following their sister to a school 9 miles away and saying a housing estate might 'spring up' it might but I would be incredibly surprised. We are VERY rural as I said, birth rates are dropping and we have NO over subscribed schools here. Hence why we got DD1 in from 9 miles away. The head who showed us round that (outstanding) school was very keen for us to apply as they want to keep the PAN at 60 and not have it cut to 45 so they are 'aiming to take' between 48-50 children to keep smaller classes IYSWIM but they need that number to apply. They are actively 'advertising' their places.

And everyone drives here, honestly. We don't know anyone who doesn't. We have one bus a day.

I'm sure this has already been said (but I'm only halfway through so far and want to read all the comments) - but the catchment area changes all the time! We live in SE London and two yrs ago thought DS1 would get a place at school where he was at pre-school 7 mins walk away. The catchment area that year (or the furthest non-sib place) turned about to be about 300 metres away! And there were truly masses of siblings. (No we did not get a place there, didn't get any of our six choices in fact...) We may well reach a point where siblings would have been in catchment the previous year but due to lots of PFBs nearer to the school, the catchment changes and the sibs don't get places - even though the parents haven't moved! Crazy. Not sure of the solution. Lots of the families I know don't own cars (us), and not all schools have breakfast clubs etc - and also, what if you had decided (financially or otherwise) to be a SAHM/SAHD? You may not fancy having to take one child to breakfast club to get the other to school on time when part of your SAHM/SAHD plan was to all have family breakfast together! I think having siblings together makes sense for lots of reasons, but I do feel for those who live close to schools and can't get in. Tricky.

Siblings aren't prioritised in Warwickshire. It's a nightmare here. The majority of LAs do prioritise siblings but not all. The fallout for families is horrific. We run a campaign group called Siblings at the Same School after my friend and I found ourselves facing having to tell our 4 year olds they'd not been accepted to same schools as big brothers. Note: we are each local to our schools being 0.3 of a mile and 0.8 of mile respectively. We were both accepted in our schools for eldest children, neither of our schools were considered Ofsted Outstanding or particularly desirable at point of original application, we simply picked nearest BUT NOT catchment schools. Roll on 2 years, we apply for second children and devastated not to have been accepted. 4 years later, we're still campaigning locally. Look us up on FB. We've been contacted by affected families all over the country. It's a mess. The problem is not enough planning for places and a system which invites parental choice in an attempt to drive competition between schools to raise standards. The victims are very young children and their families. We have evidence from an expert in Child Psychology from University of Chester that separating young children from their siblings can be damaging to them, affecting their sense of self and place within their world. Last summer Warwickshire County Council commissioned a task group to look into whether siblings should be prioritised. It was a cross-party panel and corporate council group. After 8 weeks of assessing all the data, interviewing all interested and relevant participants, they overwhelmingly voted to recommend siblings should be prioritised. The recommendation was thrown out of Cabinet and the council decided to do nothing. Someone in the Dept for Education needs to grow a pair and sort this mess out for the good of all family unity and stability in our communities.