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...!

My DDs primary school give priority to anyone who lives in a certain village about 2 miles from it above catchmenet because they are not in catchment for any school and would be too far away to get a place anywhere. Some years they have no children from that village so that criteria gets ignored.

The secondary school nearest the village has a similar criteria. It's to stop education blackspots where the children are entitled to a school place but can't get into a school.

A quick look at gov.uk shows this isn’t quite true, looks like councils say what’s needed and the academies schools then compete to provide. “Councils are not allowed to provide schools where there is need.”

Backlash
Councils are responsible for getting all kids into schools - the government makes great headlines about which LEAs "fail" the most kids
but they do not have the power to build and run a school

"academies compete" - yeah right

There can be differences between catchment and distance. So for my school, it is done on siblings, distance within catchment and then distance. This year a number of children in catchment didn’t get in and it was a bit controversial as there were lots of siblings from out of area.

The school we share a wall with (it backs into our garden) is small so only has 1 class of 30
Per year their criteria is at foster / local authority stuff kids, siblings and then distance. Despite sharing a wall DS1 didn’t get in there due to large number of siblings needing places.

He got into a school a little walk away that was worse according to ofsted but was outstanding by the time he finished yr 1 so I’m happy!

I'm I London so don't understand this. I thought only Scotland had "catchment" areas? So you have to put your catchment school as preference?

@JanewaysBun what happens in London?

London boroughs don’t have catchments, but they do tend to have distance as an admission criterion. Lots of local authorities in England use true catchments but it’s not clear if OP’s does.

@JanewaysBun

I'm I London so don't understand this. I thought only Scotland had "catchment" areas? So you have to put your catchment school as preference?

You don't have to, but it's a good idea to put it amongst your choices in case you don't get a place at any of your preferred schools, as you will usually get a place there, and it's better than putting e.g. 3 schools that you don't qualify for and then getting a place at a random school miles away.

There is no requirement to have a School catchment area in England.
Some schools may have one and another may not.
The shape of any catchment also varies and is often not a regular shape.
It may have been set for a historic reason and be the parish boundary.
A child might therefore be in the catchment 2 miles north of the school but outside the catchment 100 meters south.

I'm I London so don't understand this. I thought only Scotland had "catchment" areas? So you have to put your catchment school as preference?
And in the real world
most schools have catchments
because the buses are rather essential when the catchment is miles and miles across

Artie, you would struggle to move anywhere cheaper than the catchment area of the school I chose. It's an extremely deprived area where you can get a 3 bed house for £70k, maybe less. Rents around £450 - £500 pcm for family houses. Drug dealers and kerb crawling on open display. But the school is excellent even though it's ofsted is average. I was mindful of the fact that DS3 may not get a place but it's very inconvenient. DS2 goes there as he is autistic and I don't consider the local junior school able to meet his needs. It's an outwood academy and they are awful. I was lucky to get a place out of area for him and won't be moving him. The infants is ok so I'm not concerned about DS3's education but he will be on the waiting list to transfer as soon as possible so as to avoid the juniors in year 3 if nothing else.

@ListeningQuietly why so snarky? London is certainly the real world, with around 14% of the UK population, including some of the poorest as well as the richest families. Of the remaining 86% of people, a large percentage will still need to rely on their own transportation to school, whether a parent's car, cycling, walking or regular public transport, school buses are not the norm where any of my (spread out) family live.