DM schools admissions sad facing

[AgaPanthers]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2591696/Moving-house-near-good-school-doesnt-work-Family-devastated-told-11-year-old-girl-join-friends-new-secondary-BEDROOM-WINDOW.html

Apparently they moved to go to this school and are mystified as to how their primary school classmates got in.

The admissions document makes it pretty clear:

haberdashersaskes.fluencycms.co.uk/Mainfolder/Crayford-additional-information-booklet-2014.pdf

Basically they have fair banding with a distance policy. Depending on your band the cut off distance could be between half a mile and over a mile.

The school from the photo looks to be more than half a mile away, so that's that really

Not sure how this is news.

I suppose a lottery would be fairer, and eliminate the entitlement complex that you deserve to get in based on your postcode.

[Arohaitis]

Do you only get transport if you don't apply for your local school?
I wasn't aware of that slant on the rule is that new?

How is that defined?
is it as the crow flies or by shortest route (or shortest lit walking route!) what if the LA you are in and the LA which contains your 'closest' school have different rules so LA one defines a school in LA2 area as your closest and vice versa (but both are full anyway) what if your closest school very actively practices a religion you do not follow? what if you hadn't a chance of getting into your closest so you applied for schools you thought you did have a chance of getting into and then didn't

Just curious…..

[prh47bridge]

Do you only get transport if you don't apply for your local school?

It is the other way around. You will only get transport if you applied for your local school but didn't get in.

[Arohaitis]

Yes sorry it was a typo
do you have any comments on my other points we nearly ended up on transport and they were never raised by anyone so I wondered if it was new

hence my curiosity

[Arohaitis]

sorry there should be a ? there
typing and doing other things….

[looknow]

I would be interested to know how many properties are rented out near to the school by parents with y6 hopefuls.

This really should be clamped down on.

I agree that sibling priority should not exist in secondary schools.

[tallulah]

tiggytape I know there are people who fall into a black hole. There are several areas like that here. But the people in our paper I was mentioning had actually named the 3 (most popular) schools plus which district they lived in, so it was obvious they weren't going to get in.

I'd have been sympathetic if they were their 3 closest schools and they hadn't got anywhere. Surely commonsense says you put as your third choice a school you at least have a chance of getting in to?

[prh47bridge]

Arohaitis

As tiggytape says the law regarding free transport is only interested in the shortest walking distance. The rules used by your LA to determine admissions are irrelevant. Your closest school for transport purposes is always the one with the shortest walking distance.

If you choose not to apply to your nearest school on religious grounds you generally lose any entitlement to free transport. Note that the rules are different for families entitled to free school meals - they are, under some circumstances, entitled to free transport to the nearest school of their religion.

If you don't apply to the nearest school because you believe you have no chance of a place you will generally not be entitled to free transport. You may have an argument for free transport if you can show that you would not have got a place if you had applied but in most LAs it would be a battle with no guarantee of success.

[tallulah]

I've just looked it up, and this particular child lives 6.5 miles from his first choice school. The school has a defined Area of First Responsibility and an Area of Prime Responsibility. He is nowhere near either.

Second choice is 2.8 miles away, furthest distance 2013 = 1.19 miles and third is 3.1 miles away, furthest distance offered 2013 = 0.92 miles. Totally unrealistic. 660 kids applied to both of these schools - 216 places at one and 189 at the other.

[meditrina]

And that's one of the reasons why I don't like lotteries. It removes the 'safest bet' option for everyone. It's bad enough that some locations fall into 'black holes' but extending that uncertaintly to everyone does not seem an improvement to me.

[autumnleavesdancing]

In this case the parents only named ONE school on their CAF form out of a potential 6. It's all very well putting aspirational or over subscribed schools on your CAF, but parents should always name a 'safe bet' as last choice. There is PLENTY of education and information available online, in libraries and at primary schools before CAF forms are due in, ignore it at your peril!

[AgaPanthers]

I don't think lotteries are necessarily bad. The parents that spend hundreds of thousands on buying in catchment will just have to put a bit more work in. I don't think they will just give up. But it does remove the exclusivity from schools, which is a good thing.