Catchment areas - I don’t understand?!

[Rosegoldnights]

DH and I recently moved house to an area with several ‘Outstanding’ primary schools, one ‘Outstanding’ secondary and one ‘Needs Improvement’. I’ve been looking at catchment areas out of interest in anticipation of DC and I am baffled to see that the primary school which is about 0.2miles (5 min walk if that) away is not our ‘catchment’ school - instead if we were applying this year it would be one nearly a mile away across town, which tends to feed into the ‘Needs Improvement’ secondary school.

Clearly by the time we have DC at school (several years away) the schools may be different and maybe catchment areas will shift but can someone explain to me why some catchment areas seem so illogical?

The catchment map for the better secondary school includes a lot of outlying villages which are a good 15 minute drive away in some cases yet doesn’t include our road which would be about a 10 minute walk.

Am just interested to know if this is normal?? AIBU to think catchment areas surely should be more about distance and not arbitrary lines drawn?

Also has anyone been successful in getting DC into their nearest school despite it not being catchment somehow?

Expecting I am probably going to be flamed for a) over thinking and b) being naive but it’s the first time I’ve looked into this. I just expected our DC would go to the one a 5 min walk away...!

If you go to your local authority website or even on the individual schools website they list the criteria on how they decide who gets into a school. So if there are children who are in care, children with special needs, children of staff and, in some schools, siblings of children already at the school they have priority over those who live in the next road to the school.

So to add to my post if you lots of children who priority criteria applies in the year you apply for your child, even if you live opposite the entrance to school gate you will not get in.

The size of a school, and the amount of housing around it, can change a lot.
In the last 10 years, my nearest secondary doubled in size, expanding its catchment area. There is now a massive 1000 house development (family size homes) being built closer than many of the catchment villages. The school has been asked to expand further, but that’s still under consultation. It’s all quite obvious now, but in 10 years time, people will wonder why the road 10 minutes walk from school is not catchment, whilst the village 10 minutes drive away, is.

@RedRumTheHorse

So to add to my post if you lots of children who priority criteria applies in the year you apply for your child, even if you live opposite the entrance to school gate you will not get in.

I went on the local authority website and typed in our postcode and this is how I found out our catchment school is the one across town! Just seems bizarre! I did read the list of criteria about children in care, siblings, catchment etc. and ‘straight line distance’ was the lowest criteria

Where I live the catchments look bizarre but it’s because quite a few of the schools in our town are close together so the catchments tend to balloon out. Our catchment primary is further away than the nearest primary and then feeds into the secondary the other side of town. Where as we are actually a 10 minute walk to the nearest secondary, the catchment one is a 40 minute walk. In practice, we could get our DDs into any one of three schools on distance as well as our catchment and secondary wise we would easily get in on distance every year despite the fact there is catchment, feeder primaries above distance.

@Ellisandra

The size of a school, and the amount of housing around it, can change a lot. In the last 10 years, my nearest secondary doubled in size, expanding its catchment area. There is now a massive 1000 house development (family size homes) being built closer than many of the catchment villages. The school has been asked to expand further, but that’s still under consultation. It’s all quite obvious now, but in 10 years time, people will wonder why the road 10 minutes walk from school is not catchment, whilst the village 10 minutes drive away, is.

I see!! This is similar I think as there’s a very large newish housing estate which I expect has taken up the majority of those school spaces. No wonder it’s an expensive estate!!!

@Ionacat

Where I live the catchments look bizarre but it’s because quite a few of the schools in our town are close together so the catchments tend to balloon out. Our catchment primary is further away than the nearest primary and then feeds into the secondary the other side of town. Where as we are actually a 10 minute walk to the nearest secondary, the catchment one is a 40 minute walk. In practice, we could get our DDs into any one of three schools on distance as well as our catchment and secondary wise we would easily get in on distance every year despite the fact there is catchment, feeder primaries above distance.

Sorry if I’m misunderstanding but do you mean that despite not being ‘catchment’, you are able to get in based on distance?

On the plus side a lot can change for schools in a very short space of time. Ofsted aren't exactly very accurate or thorough and most of their report is a paper exercise. You'll 've Dar better to use your own assessment of a school based on your own child. Anyone relying solely on Ofsted is not bri g fair to their child.

It can be fairly normal. Our outstanding secondary school has a fairly small immediate catchment then jumps loads of streets to pick up outlying villages.

@D4rwin

On the plus side a lot can change for schools in a very short space of time. Ofsted aren't exactly very accurate or thorough and most of their report is a paper exercise. You'll 've Dar better to use your own assessment of a school based on your own child. Anyone relying solely on Ofsted is not bri g fair to their child.

But how do you make your own assessment before the child starts there? I suppose word of mouth but are people generally honest about whether a school is good or not?

@Rosegoldnights Yes we can. Our LEA publishes a table and you can see how the places are allocated. The nearest secondary always goes out to several miles in the distance category. Primaries depend on the birth year but we’re lucky that the vast majority get their first choice catchment or not. The schools when I went round for DD1 said to get your first choice right as you were likely to get it.

[quote Ionacat]@Rosegoldnights Yes we can. Our LEA publishes a table and you can see how the places are allocated. The nearest secondary always goes out to several miles in the distance category. Primaries depend on the birth year but we’re lucky that the vast majority get their first choice catchment or not. The schools when I went round for DD1 said to get your first choice right as you were likely to get it.[/quote]
Interesting - gives me some hope although I suppose depends if our LEA are sensible

@ivfdreaming

It can be fairly normal. Our outstanding secondary school has a fairly small immediate catchment then jumps loads of streets to pick up outlying villages.

I see - maybe this is just the way it is!! If I lived in one of the villages I don’t think I would expect for my DC to go to that school as there’s actually a closer town. Who knows!!

In our area catchment children get priority over those with a sibling at the school. Hence from September I'm expected to get my kids to 2 different schools 1.5 miles ish apart with 5 minutes difference in start and finish times 😫. Council have said it's not their problem, I have to make it work. (Younger one has been allocated catchment school rather than the one where his brother goes). They are reception and y5 with SN so can't walk alone.

It’s usually done on the population around the school, so a village school catchment area might cover several surrounding villages, while a city centre school catchment area would be smaller as the population density is higher.

The proximity of schools also has an effect - there are two primary schools near me that are quite close to each other (separated by a few streets including a main road), so instead of each school being in the middle of a catchment area, they’re each in the ‘corner’ of their catchment areas, if that makes sense.

Also catchment is different for secondary, half of the children at ours are in a different catchment to the other half of the class.

I don't think there are catchment areas as such in primary schools? It's usually done on amount of children in the intake by distance. Maybe the year you're looking at the children all lived closer than you? There are catchment area maps for high schools however. And tho some schools will feed in to some high schools it doesn't guarantee a space unless you also live within catchment

All of this only matters if the school is oversubscribed - is it? If it is worth looking at by how much as our school technically is but the only people would don’t get in live miles away.

You can apply for any school you like regardless or catchment, county, etc.

Catchments often aim to mix the school so you don’t get too much variation in intake. For example, our city has ‘pizza slice’ catchments so the secondary catchments cut through lots of different areas.

@Rosegoldnights Nothing to do with the LEA being sensible. They follow the admission policy. We have a slight surplus of places at the moment and all the schools are good and have been historically so no one is trying to avoid schools.

@DrCoconut

In our area catchment children get priority over those with a sibling at the school. Hence from September I'm expected to get my kids to 2 different schools 1.5 miles ish apart with 5 minutes difference in start and finish times 😫. Council have said it's not their problem, I have to make it work. (Younger one has been allocated catchment school rather than the one where his brother goes). They are reception and y5 with SN so can't walk alone.

Oh god that’s a nightmare!!!

@BacklashStarts

All of this only matters if the school is oversubscribed - is it? If it is worth looking at by how much as our school technically is but the only people would don’t get in live miles away.

You can apply for any school you like regardless or catchment, county, etc.

Catchments often aim to mix the school so you don’t get too much variation in intake. For example, our city has ‘pizza slice’ catchments so the secondary catchments cut through lots of different areas.

I’m not sure whether they are over subscribed or not actually - where would I find that out?

@Looneytune253

I don't think there are catchment areas as such in primary schools? It's usually done on amount of children in the intake by distance. Maybe the year you're looking at the children all lived closer than you? There are catchment area maps for high schools however. And tho some schools will feed in to some high schools it doesn't guarantee a space unless you also live within catchment

Yes I thought primary would be by distance but then when I typed in our postcode it came up with our catchment primary and secondary and neither are the closest schools really. Hmmmm!

I suppose a lot can happen in a few years anyway!

I live near 2 outstanding primaries but knew I would only get into the one closest. I looked at their admissions criteria & the LA shows the furthest distance offer, it was about 250 metres.

I think it is more a case of - you can't assume anything about catchment areas/school admissions and you have to check!

In England, class sizes for infants are limited to 30 children by law. Everyone who applies to a school gets ranked on a list according to certain criteria (usually looked after children, special education needs, siblings within catchment, distance within catchment, siblings outside catchment, other outside catchment etc). So whether or not you can attend a non-catchment school depends on demand. The LA will publish admission data and so you can see e.g. if there are normally spaces for non-catchment children but it will vary year by year.

Where I live, you are unlikely to get into a non-catchment school at reception, but you might in e.g. year 4 or 5 as we have quite a mobile population. Secondary schools catchment here is done by address, not by which primary school they attended.

Some schools discriminate on admissions by faith and in some places, they have tried to break up the link between social economic advantage/expensive house needed and school places, by having a ballot of all the schools in the city.

The main worry for me of applying to a non-catchment school is if you have more than one child - and their is no priority for siblings over catchment children (this is to stop people moving to an area - getting one child into a popular school and then moving away). Pretty difficult to drop off/pick up multiple primary aged children at different schools at the same time.

word of mouth and your own impression of a school is a far better indication than OFSTED> I'm a teacher and am sending my DS to a "Requires Improvement" secondary in September because I know of numerous families with kids in the various schools, one of which is outstanding and from their experiences, and my visits to the school, arranged during the normal day, not just the open evenings, I made the judgement that this one was best for my DS. Catchments do change over time, a new head teacher or leadership team can turn a school up or down in a matter of terms so I wouldn't get too stressed yet.