To ask the likelihood of your child getting allocated to a school if they already attend the nursery

[orangeleopard]

Posting for traffic on here. But as the title says my son already attends the nursery at the school that we would like for him to be able to attend the primary school at. We find out tomorrow and I’m a little stressed as he is on the pathway to be diagnosed with autism and doesn’t do well with change so I kind of am really hoping he gets into his current school. Especially as they’ve been incredibly good with helping with his needs. It’s the second nearest school with only being 0.9 miles away whilst the nearest school is 0.7 miles. Not much of a difference so I’m hoping I don’t get the nearest school based on only 0.2 mile difference.

Do they give first priority to the nursery children or is that not taken into effect at all?

Bloody hell. We have the opposite problem. 30 places, 21 requested as choice 1, 21 pupils in September. Every local primary is the same. None have filled their reception classes. Not sure what the population blip is, these were the kids already conceived / born when the pandemic hit but it's Def a small year. I worry about our single form entry school surviving if the numbers are steadily this low

Another person baffled that it's got to this point before you've thought to query it. How can you apply for a place without doing any of the reading around it?

If there's no safe walking route you may be entitled to help with transport, even if the distance is under whatever the distance that is that's considered reasonable - I think it's 2 miles for primary school but I could be wrong.
It does depend on what other schools are available and where you applied though. Basically if you're considered to have chosen to put yourself in that position you won't get any help, but of it's either your nearest school or (I think but am not certain) the LEA placed you somewhere with no safe walk because you applied to your nearest school but they couldn't admit you, then you may well get support with transport. It can't hurt to ask anyway. There's a village near us where the school is about quarter of a mile from a few houses on a moderately busy road with no footpath and the LEA transport the kids from those houses to school by taxi every day.

@orangeleopard you may need to prepare yourself if you hadn't read up on how admissions work

Hope you got your first choice

Our nursery is a feeder for our school, so our criteria is nursery, looked after, siblings, catchment but this is rare nowadays

I hope you put down more than one choice too.

Unless you’re in Wales - proximity to school gets higher priority than siblings in school.

How did you get on op?

@RandomButtons siblings certainly get higher priority than distance every school I'v looked at.

There are the odd schools that have nursery in criteria but it's not deemed in line with admissions code as far ac I know.

@heavencakes I presume RandomButtons means In Catchment children get priority over Out of Catchment siblings. Its normal in areas with fixed catchments.

While I agree that it’s a bit odd to be questioning this now, I also think some of these comments are getting a bit snippy.

i understood the admissions criteria for the schools we put down inside out and upside down. It didn’t affect the chance of getting in. It did mean I knew to put a ‘safe’ option, even though I didn’t like the school, I suppose - but ultimately there were either going to be more children ahead of us on the list than there were places, or there weren’t. Knowing the admissions criteria didn’t change that.

How did it go op?