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...!

I used to live very close to a primary school... Could hear the school bell for example. We were right on the boundary of catchment (priority area). It went several miles in another direction, including villages. It was because there were several schools clustered in the centre, so they split the area up like a pizza so everyone had a nearest school.

For several years DDs attended schools which has to take everyone in catchment, regardless of numbers, as the next nearest school was over 10 miles. Year groups varied from 7 to 27 children.

Currently where we live,we are too far from the nearest and only walkable school, even for reception admissions. The 'catchment school' is 10-15 mins drive... But under 2 miles straight line... Ignoring the farmers field and military training area in between the houses and the school. Mine attend another school in town as that's where there was space when we moved.

So yes, it can be normal not to qualify for your closest school.

It's because new developments cause catchment black spots.

Say a town has 10 new small developments all in different parts of town. They need 2 new primary schools to provide enough places for residents. The old schools don't have the space to expand. The new developments don't have enough children to justify a new school for each development.

If school places were allocated purely on distance, you would have some people (usually in outlying areas) who didn't get a place at their closest school. They would be even less likely to get a place at the second, third, fourth closest schools because they are even further away and, therefore, there will likely be even more people ahead of them in the queue. You then end up with some children having to travel to the opposite side of town to the nearest school with a space. You may even have siblings from the blackspots only being able to get places at different schools.

The local authorities bend the catchment areas so everyone is likely to get a place at a school a reasonable distance from their home. There are even some schools that have a reverse distance policy so priority goes to those who live on the outskirts of the catchment.

Sometimes the boundaries are based on geographical features. It's the case in my town. You can live one side of the boundary but actually be closer to the school(s) on the other side of the boundary.

I was quite shocked when I saw the catchments for our two local primaries; they both have pretty logical areas around them but then they have one of the two new estates (built at almost exactly the same time) each - but they each have the one further away from them, like a little island in the others' catchment! I'm sure there's a good historic reason but it does seem quite suspect to me because it means the middle class, leafy school just happened to get the very expensive, gated estate on the redeveloped dock and the school with a much less affluent intake in the first place just happened to get the much cheaper estate with a high proportion of social and affordable housing.

Yea the catchment area for the secondary school near us opens up one way and not the other... it’s a free school and conveniently opens up towards the rich area writing off the more deprived area which is right by it!

It’s normal where I live - the catchment areas are very strict and not perfect circles around the schools. They sort of balloon out as a PP said. You have to check where the house is zoned when buying and it makes a huge difference to house prices around here.

The LEA website should have the stats about over subscription.

The reputation of the catchment school will have played a part in the price you payed for your house.

Paid, even

This is all very interesting and enlightening - I am going to see if I can dig into admissions data. I mean, we didn’t buy the house because of a particular school or anything like that, it’s generally a very good area for schools but I would ideally like to be able to get into the nearest schools!!

In my area of London, not sure about all areas though, it literally is as the crow flies so there is no catchment as such but the closer you live to a school the better your chances.
Much more logical.

You may also find lots of highly sought after in-catchment school places are taken up by siblings. So yes, you may live virtually on top of the school BUT if it's your eldest, you will be disadvantaged over those with older siblings also in the school (plus looked after children and those with additional needs who would come above yours in allocation priority).

It's never a good idea to 'plan so far ahead' for the best schools because they may not be in five/six/seven schools what they currently are.

What you will find that many new developments and newer houses generally are often out with catchment despite being close / closer. It’s a sort of old money versus new money in a lot of places. The builders of new houses / developments will say things like “500 metres to outstanding school” as if to suggest it is in catchment . The best way to know if it is truly in catchment is the price - a house in catchment will be significantly more expensive than a similar / worse house in a catchment area for a top secondary school .

Are you sure that they are true catchments?

True catchment areas (sometimes also called priority admission areas) do not move without public consultation.

Many local authorities use distance as a criterion but do not have fixed catchments, so the distance for the furthest child who got in changes each year. All London boroughs are like this. Confusingly people often refer to these as catchments, estate agents being the very worst culprits.

@Doggybiccys

What you will find that many new developments and newer houses generally are often out with catchment despite being close / closer. It’s a sort of old money versus new money in a lot of places. The builders of new houses / developments will say things like “500 metres to outstanding school” as if to suggest it is in catchment . The best way to know if it is truly in catchment is the price - a house in catchment will be significantly more expensive than a similar / worse house in a catchment area for a top secondary school .

Conversely I think the new estate is now catchment for the ‘better’ school and the more established road I live on has been kicked out - is what I presume has happened!!

Our school catchment is on the website, it’s an outstanding school that’s oversubscribed. I wonder what on earth will happen when they build the new 200 houses estate down the road. Where are all those children supposed to go and where are all the children who would have got in supposed to go when there isn’t another school to go to nearby.

@zigaziga

In my area of London, not sure about all areas though, it literally is as the crow flies so there is no catchment as such but the closer you live to a school the better your chances. Much more logical.

It is like this for primary and secondary schools in my borough but for secondary schools in the neighbouring borough some secondaries bend their catchment area to ensure children through out that borough can get places. This is so kids have a choice of a mixed and single sex school within that borough.

OP: This is the data for Hampshire www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/admissions/data
You need to find a similar page for your LA (unless of course it happens to be Hants anyway)
That will help you see whether you would have got into particular schools in previous years.

Not many schools near me have set catchment areas...they're mainly by distance.

What are the admission criteria for the closest school??

There are areas around here that a house could be in catchments for school a. Yet school b is closer and has no set catchment so a child could go to either school.

And admission also depends on birth numbers. My DC school one year DC got in from 1.5 mile away (it's a distance criteria) then year after a DC didn't get in from 0.5 mile away as there were a lot of siblings.

We were similar in that the secondary school in our catchment area was definitely not within walking distance, but the closer school in the next catchment area was! We were literally 2 houses past the border that sent us to the next catchment area, where the school was much further away.
Luckily for us, dds junior school was a feeder school to the closer secondary.

We’re a street away from the catchment area for my sons school. I applied for that on and another one that we’re in parish for but no where near the catchment area for and none in my catchment area. He got into first choice (street away one - also very good ofsted report) however, when he started only 17 children were in his year and they can take 25.

This seems to be a thorny issue among parents! Many people who move close to a "good school" seem to often miss out on places which seems bizarre to me! If DC not going to School for a wee while may be lots of changes by then anyway ,Small year groups may be easier to access.

I remember when I moved across town as a kid and my mum applied for my secondary school, we were gutted that the one literally across the road was out of catchment and I had to walk 30 mins to the one that was. It felt so silly.

Phone up the primary school office and ask if your road is likely to get a place in an average year. They are very used to answering this question.

Catchement area is an old fashioned idea it isn’t helpful to use anymore now that it is done using the priority criteria. There is a school near me that some years takea kids feom ten miles away and some yearshas a maximum distance of 0.4 miles. It just depends how many local/priority people have kids that age... If a year has a lot of children who already have siblings at the school then that year will have a tiny catchement but the next year may be way bigger.

This isn’t something you can research properly online, all the websites will tell you is what happened last year, speak to the schools.

In a town with several schools, distance alone would form circles that would either overlap some some addresses have many schools within catchment and/or have holes between the catchments and leave all the outlying areas without a catchment. The current system used in my locality which is more like a distorted, organic pie chart to reflect popularity and ensure all addresses have a catchment area. I don't know if this system is used elsewhere but it seems sensible and I've not come across another system that works better.