About school applications for reception 2015...

[elfycat]

To remind you that you need to apply by Mid-January (15th seems to be the day).

And AIBU to bump this for the next few weeks?

You need to apply, even if you live next door to the school, even if your child is attending the preschool attached to the school, even if a sibling already goes. There are no automatic places at state schools.

There were quite a few shocked parents last year who got a random school that they didn't want their child to be at. If you do not apply for a place and someone else does - they will get it. Even if they are out of catchment and you are in the area they will get the place.

Most, if not all counties have on-line submissions. If you have time to read MN you have time to nip in and start the application, or start by just getting the log-in sorted. Do it now before you forget and get caught up in the frenzy of Christmas and the post-Xmas exhaustion.

[GoodArvo]

You should put the schools in your genuine order of preference. If you don't get 1st choice, you will still be considered for choices 2 and 3 etc. It won't matter if choice 1 was a long shot.

I knew someone who put the school her child was at nursery at followed by 2 completely unrealistic choices. She had more options but didn't put the other fine and realistic school down. She was horrified when her child didn't get any school and acted like she was such a victim when really she'd just been unrealistic and silly.

[YvesJutteau]

I'll definitely multiply-check, then. The website says "You may not have to complete this application if your child has a Statement of Special Educational Needs. For further information please contact either your Authority's School Admissions Team or their Special Educational Needs section BEFORE completing an online application form."

Various professionals have told me I don't need to, but the rules may have changed. At the very least I want to have something in writing on local authority headed paper or from a .gov.uk email address telling me that I definitely don't, so that I can wave it around at any appeal...

[wejammin]

How do you find out whether a school is oversubscribed and how many sibling places you expect will be taken up? Ring the school or the LEA?

[bearwithspecs]

Bart the order of preference only comes in to play if you qualify for more than 1 school. If you in the top 60 for the 2 form school and top 30 for the 1 form school, they you get your first choice. The school have no idea where you placed them and it does not sway where you get offered

[bearwithspecs]

Good that is a very common story - people bury heads in sand. I have had three nursery parents say recently that they will only put down our school and 2 others (faith) even though they live way too far and don't go to church. They think the lea have to give them one of them / nope!!

[bearwithspecs]

Sorry wejamin - data will be on lea web site. Re distances etc Siblings is an unknown normally but 2/3 is not uncommon

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

This is a really good thread.

Can I add something:-

If someone tells you that they know someone who knows someone "in the know" and that person says that you are more likely to get in to your favourite school if you:-

1. Put it first
   
2. Don't put down any other choices
   
3. Sleep with the headmaster
   
4. Go to the school nursery
   
5. Turn up to the school Xmas fair
   
6. Some other ridiculous thing that contradicts what the official advice says
   

Then please please kill ignore them.

Oh and using all six (or whatever) choices is sensible even if you are sure that you will get into your chosen school. All the schools that you don't list are treated as equal last choices by the LA. unless you are genuinely indifferent to every single one then give a preference. Better to get into the rubbish school round the corner than the rubbish school 7 miles away. Better to get into the good school 7.2 miles away than the rubbish one 7.1 miles away.

[ShadowKat]

wejammin - the primary school admissions brochure on our council website has a section in the back where they list every primary school, with detail on the admissions limit for 2015, and detail on number of applicants listing that school in previous round of admissions - split to specify numbers listing it as 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices - , and then detail on criteria used for the last pupil admitted if the school was over subscribed.

So I can see which schools were oversubscribed last year, and by how much. The council don't have previous years brochures easily visible on their website, but I found links to the last few years brochures using Google.

It'd be worthwhile checking on your council website to see if they publish similar statistics.

Obviously no way of knowing for sure whether a school will be oversubscribed for the 2015 intake until the current round of applications is finished, but looking at the last few years of stats for the schools you're considering would give you an idea.

[addictedtosugar]

Mumoftwo
for us, nursery attendance does come into play - as deciding factor 7, after excepted/siblings/catchment/equal distance and some other factors.

So, I would say while there are loads of really useful hints and tips, you must read YOUR LEA info to check if it applies to you.

Bart put down the schools in order you genuinely want to be considered for them. The order only determines which one you get offered if you qualify for more than one.

[FishWithABicycle]

CynthiaRose do use the last of your choices for the mediocre nearby school - if you don't get any of your higher preferences you could easily end up being given an equally mediocre school much further away - you can't guarantee there will be spare space at the nearby one and it could end up being filled up by the LA with people from further away than you who also didn't get their choices - when there's a shortage of places even terrible schools admit their full quota.

My more general contribution of advice to the thread: It's ok to calm down a bit. Your child's education will be much more strongly affected by you being engaged with their schoolwork and ensuring they read with you every day than it will by whether they get a place at the less-good nearby school or the outstanding further away school. Your child's long term happiness and willingness to engage with education and strive to achieve the best they can will depend more on their school's ethos, culture, and attitude to things like bullying than it does on the school's academic performance or Ofsted rating.

so: Yes get the form in on time. Yes use all the choices. Yes make sure one of those choices, even if last on the list, is one you would have been sure to get into based on published furthest-distance-admitted data for previous years. But don't agonise about it. It's all going to be ok.

[BikeRunSki]

If, for example you want a church school, you have to have been going to the attached church for a significant amount of time

Not always. The only school we are in catchment for is a church school.

To be fair to the people who have no idea about school applications, I didn't either and had no communication at all from council, nursery, HV - anybody. I only knew what I needed to do because a woman I knew with an older child told me.

[Notso]

I'm in Wales and we had to apply by the 28th of November.

[FishWithABicycle]

Some church schools don't have faith admission criteria and some are equally happy with church attendance at any Trinitarian church without preference for the attached church. Assume nothing, find out the proper criteria for the specific school you want.

[ShadowKat]

There's a difference between Catholic and Church of England church schools in our council.

If you want to go to a Catholic school, you just need to provide proof of baptism. But if you want a Church of England school, you need some degree of church attendance as well - but how much exactly seems to vary from school to school.

But I guess it varies nationally so the important thing is to read the information for your own local area.

[bartsimpsonsoul]

Thanks guys. So I guess now DH and I need to agree on the same school (any idea how thats done?)

[MrsHathaway]

I am not surprised people don't knowwen to apply - we see dozens of threads here saying "pfb was born on - does he start school in 2015 or 2016?" If you aren't involved in the school process then your only knowledge of it is your own experience, which doesn't help hugely.

Due to an oddity in our LA we actually applied in August ( in order that the online system would be live at 00.01 on Monday 1 Sept they set it live before they went home on Friday 29/8). I am twitchy, though, and tempted to edit the application to make sure I get a date in the usual range...

I am another who is evangelical about proper applications. In fact, I think I will arrange to add it to our toddler group newsletter.

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

addicted That's interesting. I've never heard of nursery attendance being counted in a state school before. (Private schools are different as it means an extra year of fees for them.)

How does it work in practice though - I'd have thought that with distance as a higher thing it is almost impossible to have a tie to break.

Unles you live in an area with lots of very large blocks of flats I guess. Does anyone know if ground floor people are counted as closer than 1st floor etc?

[ShadowKat]

Our council say in the brochure that if a school's oversubscribed and the two possibilities for the last place live in the same block of flats (so equidistant according to the distance criteria they use), then they pick the candidate for the last place at random.

[bearwithspecs]

I am sure lots of London MNers will know re flats! I know of one state school that gives priority to its nursery children. Generally however it has been deemed against the admissions code

[addictedtosugar]

Opps, sorry, attending the nursery FT was above distance for 2014 admission, and is absent from 2015 admission.
MUST put in DS2's form - and read it all to see what else has changed!

[meditrina]

Giving priority to children in the schools nursery became a permissible criterion in the last revision of the Admissions Code. It applies only if it is explicitly stated in the school's published criteria for 2015 entry.

[LL12]

Don't always believe what some head teachers tell you, especially when it comes to the exceptional medical/social needs.
My friend looked around a (secondary school, although would still apply to primary) which was not her catchment and would never get a place in, the headmaster told her to write in the exceptional social needs that his parents were separated and that he was in the choir for the local church so it would be quicker to get to choir practice if he went to that school.
He truly seemed to think that if she wrote that it would push her son up in the admissions criteria and of course she believed him.

It goes to show even some head teachers don't have a clue.

[DaygloYellowLady]

Notso - we're in Glasgow and ours had to be in in November too. Mind you its a lot easier here, the council automatically assumes you'll want a place at your catchment area school
and you either confirm or deny that
and if you want to go somewhere
else you apply for there. Its unusual
not to get a place but you hear in
January so there's loads of time to get something sorted.