Do I have a foolproof way to get the primary place at desired school?

[TeenAndTween]

No of course I don't.

This is a public service announcement to anyone with a child due to start school in September in England.

• use all your choices
• put them in your preferred order
• make sure you have a safe bet on there somewhere, even if you don't like it much
• get your application in on time

Better to have a rubbish school on your doorstep than one 10 miles away.
Just putting down one choice doesn't force them to give you it.
Don't lie about where you live, it's dishonest.

Read the admissions criteria, remember they may have changed since your eldest first went 10 years ago.

If you have detailed questions or a complicated situation then ask on the Primary board under Education as there are some very helpful experts there.

For pedants. AIBU to raise points about school applications that some people may be unaware of to stop them making a massive mistake with their applications?

You could always move to a sensible country where you child simply goes to the local neighbourhood school, like all the children do, and there is no arsing around, and everyone is happy because all of the schools are of pretty good quality?

Are English schools really of more varied quality than in other countries?
Or is there just more visibility of the variability by virtue of Ofsted reports, league tables etc? (Genuine question, if slightly off topic)

Quality isn't objective.

League tables are usually ranked by results, which is fine but doesn't take into account ...

1. Value added (are the children getting high grades because they're well taught at school or because they're tutored elsewhere or because they are naturally academic?)

1. Proportions of ESOL (are the children being taught in their native language, or a second/third/fourth? When did they start learning English relative to the testing?)

1. Proportions of FSM/PP (how disadvantaged is the catchment/population? At extremes, are the children malnourished?)

And so on. Add "performance related" pay to the mix and you get sink schools who can't get enough teachers to cover all the classes, let alone a motivated and motivating fully qualified and experienced teacher in every lesson.

I think the main problem with admissions has to do with the actually good and admirable refusal to overload classes - nominally thirty for infants with some defensible exceptions.

If you admit everyone in a given area then some classes are 20 and some 45. Other countries accept that; we don't.

Does anyone know the stats for this year?

I vaguely remember someone saying last year that there had been a baby boom four/five years before and therefore there was a big squeeze on places.

This makes for very interesting reading. As a mother and teacher in Scotland and I've never experienced this.

We are generally a "oh you live in the catchment? Welcome" or a "not in the catchment? Apply and if space is available welcome, if not your catchment school will have you". None of this order of preference and admissions policies etc.
High Schools are the same - the child automatically gets in to the one linked with their primary or they can apply for another, with space made at the linked school should the application fail.

Also class sizes are never above 25 for P1; 30 for P2 and P3; 33 for P4-7 and 25 for a composite. Schools cannot become oversubscribed as, although classes may be big they are not allowed to go over those numbers without creating additional classes, thus making them smaller.

The English system baffles me and must put so much pressure on children and parents; it seems like an awful process to go through once, never mind multiple times.

Sailorcherries - the system should work pretty much the same as Scotland, only without catchments but you'd get into your nearest school, and possibly one further away if there was a spare place - but there doesn't seem to have been enough places provided in the right locations for where people with small children live.

We live under half a mile to a school that in the days of catchments was the catchment school for our road - but when we applied for dc1's place, we didn't get him in as there were more than 90 children who either lived closer or had a sibling at the school. Bringing back catchments wouldn't help us as the school can't expand any further and the law says there can't be more than 30 in a class. Surely in Scotland there's a limit to the number of children a school can take, even if they do live within the catchment area. (The problem in our town is more social change that a large % of the houses no longer have people privately educating)

Maybe populations havent changed as much in Scotland? In our area the school have all expanded, a new school added and thats only just about enough; within a mile radius

Careful with the sibling link. A lot of LAs have started taking their sibling link out to avoid this being taken advantage off.

I spent months doing double school runs until DD won her appeal and offered a place at DSs school.

YY to not lying. DCs school is out of catchment (No spaces for them in nearest schools) also, attending church a few times wont always get you into the faith schools either . DD never got offered a place and she was baptised catholic and her dad (my ex) still goes to mass.

There are schools which are struggling with capacity in parts of Scotland - Edinburgh especially. Our local school is one which, going back 10 years, had a stupidly small catchment area meaning that about half of the pupils were "out of catchment" although in many cases they could see the school from their windows. The council had a school closure purge in about 2006 and tried to close it on the basis it was something like 45% occupied with catchment pupils, but the parents fought and won. They redrew the catchment to what it should have been in the first place.

10 years on it's bursting at the seams due to the birth boom (the one that was happening when the council closed the schools, fannies!) and they've already expanded it once and are basically out of space again. It's in the city centre, on a small plot, in a listed building. I think there is one available room left then they're out of possible expansion gaps.

AFAIK there haven't been cases yet of children not getting a place at their catchment school, but there are schools where libraries, IT rooms, corridors, lunch halls, portacabins, annexes, churches etc are being used as teaching space and it's only a matter of time before there will be refusals of pupils who are in catchment because some of the schools, like ours, have nowhere left to go. They try to redraw boundaries but in some areas the neighbouring schools are in the same position.

One of the high schools threatened to not take all 'catchment' children last year and it just about caused outright war :D. Edinburgh has the option of being educated in the Gallic medium - there used to be a Gaelic unit at one of the primary schools and then gaelic provision at a high school, which was also the one normally associated with that primary and the (jointly) highest performing school in the city in an area with very expensive housing as a result. Children from anywhere in Edinburgh who wanted a gaelic education would go to these schools , so some parents use gaelic education as a backdoor way of getting their children in to this school. Which was fine and dandy until they moved the primary unit to be its own distinct school in a different part of the city - the high school has remained the same for now but it's full to capacity and so said they might have to not take all of the catchment children which would be done on distance; the setup meant that the children getting turned away would have been those from the gaelic primary. There were some VERY grumpy angry shouty parents

I understand some areas in Scotland have issues with capacity and not enough space, but it's hardly going to turn in to the English allocations system overnight. That seems to be a result of long term poor planning on behalf of the LAs.

Maybe I'm short sighted on the matter (our town has 20 primary schools and 5 high schools no more than 2-3 miles away from each other, 5 at a push) but this allocations system and the extent some parents will go to is just mind blowing.

Teenandtween - Not my experience with the faith schools I work with. Looked after children is generally the second criteria after ECHP.

If you get a place you don't want, you can stay on the waiting list (via the LA) for the school/s you do want. There's many more places coming up in the early years than you'd think- people move for all the usual kinds of reasons plus specially much at that stage- upsizing for new babies coming along etc.

It's a pain transferring your DC mid year etc but if there's genuinely that much difference between the schools then it will be worth doing it for your DC in the end.
On the other hand you may find the school you didn't want, surprises you in a good way.

It's stressful having so much uncertainty but try to go with the flow- in time it will work out.

Accepting a place at your last choice school does not disadvantage you in getting a waiting list place later. Even after the start of term.

Your chance of getting a waiting list place is not increased by having no other place.

Like KC225 you may well get a place in a favoured school at the last minute but do not turn down the allocated pace in order to do so. The LA is obliged to offer you a school place. If you turn it down they have met their obligation and you may we'll find yourself with no place at all.

After allocations You can go on waiting lists for several schools, even those you didn't apply to in the first place.

KC225's experience is a beacon of hope for those on waiting lists, however it would be terrible advice to say refuse an allocated place. Unless you are fully prepared to go private or Home Ed, of course.

Also, many people discover that actually the less popular 3rd choice is actually a great school and their child is happy and doing well.

If you do apply for a faith school over other schools then don't come onto MN in a year complaining that your child is having to learn hymns and read Bible stories - that is what you are signing up for. Equally look carefully at the religious nature of all the schools. Some non denominational schools are more religious than some CofE. If you are an atheist then don't assume a community school will be less religious.

Fill your form up, put down a banker option, or ideally two.

Even if you don't get your ideal school, go on waiting lists, embrace the school you have while realising that children can and do move for all sorts of reasons. My dd1 went to a massively oversubscribed school (2 applicants per place, 75% places offered to siblings). By year 5 only about half the original class remained - many had moved house, gone private etc. Even dd2 had moved to a different school due to her class having major unaddressed issues. Places do come up further down the line but by that stage you might be really haapy with the place that they have.

Don't promise your child they will be going to a particular school until allocations are out.
Don't be negative to your child about other schools - they might have friends going there.
(Possibly applies more to secondary than primary depending on how switched on your little one is).

Paddington Re adoption and faith schools. Our local faith school also now puts all adopted at the top. However I do think it is wrong that this isn't mandatory, and it is something that adopters need to be aware of as otherwise they could get caught out.

Sailorcherries I agree we are much better off with our system- the problems in Edinburgh are undeniably down to the council being absurdly short sighted. They are already talking about having to have a shared annexe for two of the high schools; one was rebuilt I think last year, and the other isn't even finished yet but is basically over capacity the minute it opens. And they've already agreed that the old building can be converted into flats.

Teen The criteria for overseas adopted children getting priority should come into law quite soon. Ours are adopted from overseas and ours DC2 isn't due to start till Sept 2018 so I haven't kept track but it will be soon.
And the Pupil Premium for adopted children doesn't specifically have to be spent on them - I think this may be a change.

Teen The criteria for overseas adopted children getting priority should come into law quite soon. Ours are adopted from overseas and ours DC2 isn't due to start till Sept 2018 so I haven't kept track but it will be soon.
And the Pupil Premium for adopted children doesn't specifically have to be spent on them - I think this may be a change.

I also agree about faith over LAC. It is actually especially hard on Catholic LAC whose birth (and adoptive if relevant) parents want them educated as Catholic, but whose early lives were too chaotic to organise a baptism. Some FCs and adoptive parents before the AO have been denied permission for baptism.

Please don't assume that an undersubscribed school may not be a good one. Sometimes a local schools improvement, is far ahead of it's local historical reputation (which may be out of date). This year the highest KS2 SATs locally are at the school which is usually very undersubscribed.
drspouse some faith schools (particularly Catholic ones) local to me have SEN, LAC in faith then other children of faith and then other LAC, so it can happen.

I'd also go with the school you get allocated and embrace it. I see so many parents swayed to avoid a certain school due to a very out dated reputation...if you still hate it later then there are always chances to move. Our massively over subscribed school ( 4 applications per place, 3 form entry) always has spaces coming up and its a transient area and people move on. Both my DC have had several new DC in their class since they started.

Or just live in a rural area, where there are more school places than there are children!

I only put DD down for one school - the one in our village because it was the only one we could get her to. We already had an older sibling at the school, the school confirmed that their expected numbers were under and again, they offered places to children who live in other villages, up to and over 6 miles away.

Even then, her year is not full.

Rural living is a totally different ball game ime.

Read the online form properly.

I know someone who put her choices in reverse order because she had been convinced by her SIL that that was the way they were numbered. Duly offered her 'first choice' school, which was actually her last.