Parents: How likely is it to get a school out of the catchment area?

[Cherrybaby]

Hi everyone,

Im quite unashamedly wanting to place DD in a really good nursery that is attached to an outstanding primary school so that she can follow on with the said priamry school.

However

At the moment, we live in a shit area. We ARE planning to have moved to a good area (where I'll be finding the nursery/school), by the end of the year.

What I want to know is, how likely is it that I get DD on the waiting list for a school now, that we are obviously out of the catchment area at the moment?

Somebody tell me what to do please. Im all confused. Its my first time.

Assuming that you are talking about state schools and are in the UK I doubt that you can go on a waiting list. Most areas operate a centralised application system. You generally apply a few months before they are due to start.

A couple of nurseries I aproached have told me that they have a waiting list of upto two years! And they're not independent! This has made me assume all primary school and nurseries have waiting lists.

How old is she ? Attendance at a specific nursery is no guarantee of a place at the school itself and it is really dependant on demand for places within the catchment in any given year, then probably siblings out fo catchment would be offered places before your dd. Your LA will publish data as to how many have been admitted under each admission criteria in past years and if any were out of catchment last year. You can't apply before the admission timetable, with a deadline during the academic year she turns 4 (usually in Autumn or Spring Term), so there will be no "waiting list" as such yet for her year group.

The admission procedure for school nurseries is separate - usually handled by the school or preschool itself rather than LA. Many nurseries aren't state funded but you cna claim Early Years funding for the cost of up to 15 hours. they will have their own criteria, may be in church halls, daycare settings or permanent locations rather than on school premises, and may well have a waiting list.

I would very much expect there to waiting lists for the nurseries, although in our fairly rural area we have places at our pre-school .

As others have said, entrance to primary school is handled centrally and we have to apply in October 2010 for entry in September 2011. We're just starting to look at primary schools. DS is at a lovely pre-school which is attached to a great primary but because we are out of the priority area he is pretty much bottom of the list for entry. I doubt we'll get in but we'll bung in an application anyway.

Have a look at the council website where you can get specific info for your area.

Where I live, nurseries attached to state primaries have to be applied for centrally too. Usually it is fairly easy to get a place though because they run two sessions per day and some people use private nurseries or pre-schools for various reasons so demand is not as high for nursery places as it is for school places. And there is no automatic progression here either.

I don't know about your particular situation, but the majority of schools don't have 'catchment areas', but calculate the distance from your house to the school. That is generally measured in a straight line (although some authorities do it differently - the admissions booklet should explain it).

That means that the closer you live to a school, the more likely you are to get in (assuming that 'distance' is in fact one of their admissons rules - you'd need to check that).

However, how close you'd need to live to a school to get in would depend on what sort of demand for the places there is in that given year. So if loads of people applied, you would have to live closer to the school to get a place. If fewer people applied, more of the people who lived a bit further out from the school would get places. So the size of the 'catchment area' would change every year.

This can also be affected by siblings of existing pupils, who are usually given priority over people living close to the school. If there are lots of siblings, only people living very close to the school are likely to get places. If there aren't many siblings, people from further away would be more likely to get in. The siblings issue usually applies to primary schools rather than nurseries.

However, some schools do have catchment areas. Look at the admission rules for the school (you will be able to find them on your local authority's website) and it will tell you whether that school uses catchment areas / distance / completely different admission rules.

And DecorHate is absolutely right - usually there is no advantage to having gone to a school's nursery when it comes to getting a place at Reception. Check the primary school's admissions rules - unless they state that children from the linked nursery as one of their admissions rules, it would be illegal for them to give preference to children who had been to their nursery.

Give the school(s) a ring and ask them to explain the admissions process to you. You can also contact your local authority and ask to speak to someone in their admissions team whose job it is to help parents understand and go through the process.

HTH.