Primary school admission - how is distance measured?

[n13arw]

Curious to know if school places are worked out on distance, as the crow flies or on a journey? I presume as the crow flies given that a journey can be so variable.

Also, do councils still use the catchment area, or is it purely based on distance? It's North Yorkshire county council if anyone has any info on this specifically.

I'd call them to find out but the offices are now closer until Monday!

Thanks!

As the crow flies. The catchment area thing will be school dependent.

Your council should have sent you a booklet with all this info on it.

If your kids aren't starting this year, search your Councils name and primary/secondary school admissions and the info will come up.

The admissions policy will be on the schools website or the website of the local council. There are usually priority groups that they assign places to in an order like this “looked after children”, “exceptional medical needs”, catchment area, siblings at the school, religious requirements etc.l but each school / council can be different.

Thanks! Didn't get a booklet. DS starts in Sept. I know someone who got into our first choice (we didn't) who lives further away from us but is in 'catchment'. Made me wonder!

"In catchment" may very be above distance in the rules.

The info is here https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/education-and-learning/school-admissions/finding-school

Scroll down

It totally depends on the schools criteria to be honest.

However most do as the crow flies but most schools will have catchment as a criteria above those out of catchment so even if you're closer as the crow flies you'd be further down the list because you're not in the catchment.

You might think of catchment as a circle around the school, but our old infants school was on the very edge of its catchment area, if that makes sense. If you were three streets away from it to the east you were out of catchment, and the catchment area stretched further to the west.

Ahh thank you. Looks like being in catchment is a higher priority than distance from school. Seems silly really!