To tell you to read this thread if your DC starts school in Sept!

[seamstressmummy]

This thread saved my skin last year, so I am paying back the karma.

15th January seems to be the closing date again.

• remember it is preferences, not choices
• they do not HAVE to give you one of the schools on your list
• make sure you have a dead cert banker in there!

cake that was our position too.

In our area if one child goes to school in that area they are obliged to find you a place at another school on the same area.

Due to holidays. I was told this at our appeal

I did it when his pre school gave me the form in september but i'm still panicking at the thought of sending my 4 year old to a big school on his own. ( i know he'll be fine and will love it, just having a pfb moment)

Each school should publish its admission criteria on its website and these should also be available on the local authority website so you can check the rules that will be applied when school places are offered.

This year I've applied for a secondary school for DS1 and will shortly be applying for a reception place for DS2 so I've been reading up!

Here are my a few things to remember:

Applying early will make no difference to your application. All applications received on time will be considered equally.

The LA does NOT have to give you one of your choices, its obligation is to offer you a place.

If you are not offered a place that you want,accept it anyway and then appeal. Otherwise your child could be left without a place at all.

Personally I will only be putting one choice as we meet the sibling rule (as DS1 is on roll at time of application) and we meet the next criteria as its our closest school so there should be no problem.

Primary schools don't actually have 'catchment' areas though do they IME? Apart from faith schools (including CofE village schools) who can set their own criteria and usually have a specific parish.

But for the school I work in, its just.straight up distance from the school, and.obviously this varies from year to year, depending on how many kids live where, how many siblings etc. So one year you might be in the 'catchment area' the next t not.

From what.I have seen its slightly different for secondary, at least in my area - my house is in the 'catchment' for the nearest co-ed comprehensive.

The number of people who are surprised that DS doesn't attend the school I work at and can't understand why he doesn't is astonishing as well!

Gloria - My county has catchment areas available to view online?? I thought this was the norm but perhaps not?

My council only has catchment areas for faith schools. These tend to be based around specific parishes.

Non-faith schools have no formal catchment areas, and distance cut-offs are by closest walking distance.

Oh I see Lozster - yes it must vary by council then.

holidayroad was the poster in the pfb admissions thread

Excellent, I was just nosing for threads about this. We're unfortunate as we've only just moved back to the country, so we've missed all the open days. Happily most schools have accommodated a quick walk around, but our nearest won't

Those of you saying "I'm just putting down the school my older DC is at as I'm not doing more than one drop off/pick up" - the LA aren't obliged to offer you a place based around your child care arrangements. If you have a child in the school & siblings get priority, then you probably have a good idea if your DC will get in or not as you'll know the other younger siblings & will have a rough idea of how many there are. If siblings don't get priority or something else happens that means your child doesn't get a place at "your" school, surely it is better to have a say in the matter by putting down some other choices of schools where you think your DC would get a good education, be happy etc and where two pick ups/drop offs would be more achievable than if, for some reason, your child doesn't get a place and is randomly allocated a space in a school by the council.
We "know" DC2 will get a place at DC1's school as, after cared for children, he is one of the closest living siblings to the school. I have still listed other options, one of which would be really inconvenient but offers a better experience than the next closest school to us.

Do I put my 4 choices in the order of least likely to most likely to get in? Logically it seems I should do that but not sure if I'm right? My catchment school is the least preferred option so I know I'm putting that at the bottom, but wavering about the other 3.

I really don't understand why you wouldn't put something for your other choices. It won't affect your first choice, and if by some freak of nature there were hundreds of siblings living closer, then why not stick down the next two least worst?

Unless you really are rural as fuck and literally do not have another school within 30 miles.

No. You put them in your genuine order of preference. The LA can only offer you 1 place. If you put your favourite last because you are most likely to get in and you could be offered a place that school and another higher up the list, they will remove you from the school you really wanted because you have told them that you would prefer the other one.

I fit into the 'rural as fuck' category educated

The primary school my DC attended had a catchment area, but being in it was third or fourth on the priority list, and it usually have places to people outside the catchment but close to school (the catchment was based on a local ward boundary).
Another local school has a weird catchment based on the ancient (not current) church parish boundary. This can be useful for people who live quite a way away and want their children to go there.

Well not 30 miles from next nearest school but quite a drive.

Petallic - put your 4 choices in order of how much you want them. The school you want most as the first choice, the school you want least as the last choice.

The equal preferences system used means, that they rank all applications for e.g. School A, school B, school C, school D without looking at whether school A /B/C/D is the first or last choice.
Let's assume each school takes 30 children. The top 30 children for each school intake, ranked by admissions criteria, are eligible to be offered places. The schools don't know whether they're the first or last preference, so that has no effect on whether a child makes their cut-off.
If little Johnny is eligible for all 4 schools, then he gets allocated the one his parents have put as their first choice. The space he would have taken in the lesser preferred schools can then be allocated to another child. If he is eligible for 3 schools, he gets allocated the one that's most preferred out of the 3 he's eligible for. And so on.

If you list the schools in order of how likely you are to get them rather than how much you like them, then you may miss out on the school you like best.

I too have the paranoia that the admission we have done for DD will get lost lol

We have chosen our 3, number 1 we have wanted since we went to a fete years ago, last year they had 7 non siblings go in to reception, this year they have told us they only know of 11 siblings so hopefully we have a good chance to get one of the remaining places.

The thing that I am struggling with at the moment is that each option has massively different childcare needs for us as a family, it's all so uncertain it's making me nervous every!

Ironically our 3rd choice that is the closest school is the worst for us childcare wise as before and after school provision is rubbish so we will probably need to find a child minder if that is the case

Apologies op , looked at the wrong thread

Does anyone know what happens to children with an ehcp? (Education and health care plan)... My son has severe autism and we are trying to get him a place at special school but we keep getting told there are very few spaces so he won't get a place. We are not happy about putting him in mainstream at all so haven't applied as we feel by applying we would be giving a signal to the council that we are happy for him to go. IF we do decide to apply for mainstream after the closing date does anyone know what would happen? I'm guessing it's just dependent on whether they have spaces but wondered if children with an ehcp get any sort of preference / different allocation?

Failing to get a place anywhere isn't the end of the world for us as we would keep him at home for another year and try again for the followin September (he is June 12 born).

(Should add we are in the process of applying for a special school via our ehcp co ordinator).

Fairylea I would ask those questions in the SN area. I know on the old statements, the statement listed a school and that school pretty much had to take you.

Thank you mummytime, I've chatted on the sn boards previously. I just can't seem to find out what happens from a mainstream perspective if you missing the application deadline. Oh well I guess we'll find out soon enough!

Thanks bondjamesbond that makes sense, thanks for your explanation - far clearer than anything I had found so far on my LAs website

Fairylea, in theory and usually in practice you should be able to get the ms school of your choice named on the ehcp. What I have known happen though is someone not getting the school they wanted because too many other parents of children with ehcps had named it during the normal admission round.