Primary admissions for Sept 2009 - starting to think about strategy now, advice please

[barbamama]

Won't bore you with details but does anyone in Surrey understand how the allocation system works.

Choice of 5 primaries in our town:
one Excellent (outstanding Ofsted)
two Good, 1 church, 1 not
two crap

Want to go to excellent one, obviously, but v oversubscribed, obviously. Failed to get a place at pre-school for Sept 2008.

Live equidistant from this one, good church one and one of the crap ones.

My question is: should I put the excellent oversubscribed one that we want ONLY on the form or will this just result in getting offered a place at one of the crap ones. OR should I put it number one and the equidistant church one second as we won't get it as not churchgoers? Does a third choice make any difference?

i.e if we really are only interested in one school can you just put one, or two, choices? Is this common? Is this wise?

Which school are you in the catchment area for? Or aren't there any?

I don't think that exists here anymore - they use straight line distance as one of the admissions criteria in a points system after special educational needs, adopted children, fostered children, social factors, sibling etc (and church going'ness for the church school I presume). None of these apply to my ds so I think the only criteria that could be used in the decision process is straight line distance to the school. If I use the online calculator on the LEA website for this we are equal distance (0.8 miles) from one of the crap ones and the excellent one that we want (that he didn;t get a preschool place in as too far away!! i.e all places used up before our road)(but less nursery places than reception places)) and third one 0.9 miles is the church one. I guess we are pretty much "in the catchement" for all of them?

How far are you from non-church good school?

You should put 3 choices. If you don't put a second or third choice and you don't get your first choice, then you are likely to be allocated a totally different school.

Surrey now does an equal preference system - so you should be able to put the excellent school first, even if you don't think you'll get in, and this shouldn't reduce your chances of getting into your second choice.

I would also speak to Surrey County Council, and ask them for this year's APA (admission priority area) for each of the schools - ie where they are taking children in from for September 2008. This will give you an idea of how likely you are to get in to which school - it changes from year to year of course so it's just a guide.

Also look very carefully at the admission criteria, you shouldn't have to be churchgoers to get into the Church School.

Also speak to your neighbours, observe what school uniforms are worn by their children...

barba

Your second choice is the most important one you are going to make. It must be one you have a good chance of getting into.

If you only put one school on your form you risk disaster. Your form will go to one side to be considered once every single other second and third choice has been allocated. You will have effectively put your form on the bottom of the pile.

To make it clearer - say you and someone else both choose "excellent" school as first choice. THey choose a "good" school for second choice but you leave it blank (or put "excellent" school in again) and they then put second "good" school down for third choice and you leave it blank or repeat.

When it comes to allocating places neither of you get's first choice. That's easy.

Now to second choice. The other person then gets put forward for any remaining places at "good" school - but you don't. And third choice? They get put forward for other "good" school but you don't.

All the other non-first choices are dealt wiht and squeezed into avaibale school places.

Then, last of all, the forms with blanks are looked at - well, fancy that! No spaces left at "good" school one or two...

Don't do it....your second choice is the most important. Use it wisely.

1.3 miles so:

A = crap school #1 (0.8 miles)
B = excellent school we want (0.8 miles but slightly further in metres)
C = good church school (0.9 miles)
D = good school (1.3 miles)
E - crap school #2 (1.4 miles)

I hope there are no stalkers around, could probably work out my address!

Also, these assessments of the schools are my own simplified generalisations if anyone knows them.

Most LEAs go for catchment with siblings, catchment no siblings, siblings out of catchment. If you are none of these for the "excellent" one then I would imagine you are unlikely to get a place.

You can check with the school how many siblings are expected to apply (they may well have an idea) and whether they ever take out of catchment (if it's oversubscribed, that doesn't mean it is oversubscribed in catchment IYSWIM)

If you put the school you want and no other and are not in catchment etc (see above list) then you will be offered a place somewhere, probably a school not so many people apply to. So that's prob not a great idea. You can just put one choice of course (I did for DD starting juniors - I only want her to go where DS1 is) but I wouldn't do that unless I was sure we would get in (her year is undersubscribed at infant level so not a worry).

Thing is, even if you put 3 schools down, if none of them is yr catchment area school and all are full from catchment area pupils, they could offer you a place anywhere really.

Don't really understand that catchment thing. What school does the LEA say you are in catchmnet for?

thanks surreymummy and g - just seen your posts. That is really helpful to know.

so choice 1 has to be excellent school we want. Then church one for number 2? (as we would consider this one though I really was under the impression it was a no go - we are not even married) and good ok one as number 3?

Do you think the fact he didn't get a preschool place is significant?

Oh OK I took so long to post that others have posted more intelligently.

gagarin puts it well. You need to put in 3 choices certainly, they won't say oh, OK she has only put one choice so we must give her that IYSWIM.

Yes, where do other children in yr street go?

that's what I wondered - would they say "this is an easy one she only wants this one which is her equidistant closest so we will give her it" or "put it to the bottom of the pile to do at the end" in which case will get random undersubscribed school. Think you've all answered that for me. It is a bit difficult to judge about uniforms as a lot of the local children go to the private schools and our particular street is all elderly people, pretty much, apart from us. BUT i do see a lot of children a bit further up (closer to the excellent one) who go there. For pre-school, there were 120 odd appliactions for 56 places. We were told forget it, you're not even in the first 12 waiting list places, someone I know who lives a couple of streets up (closer) is number 9 on the list.

Will definitely get those stats for this year I think.

I'm in Herts but some things will definitely be the same:

Use all 3 choices - you'd have to be mad not to.

If you didn't get a place at the pre-school you are highly unlikely to get a place in reception so - as others have said - your 2nd and 3rd choices are the ones to consider.

Check that the church schools don't have separate rules for admission.

Make sure that you see the tables of how many children were allocated places at each schol under each criteria. If you look at the figures for the past 2 or 3 years it will give you a rough guide as to your chances of getting in.

Try to find out if yours is a 'blip' year. Some years have unusually high or low numbers of children or siblings, which will affect your chances.

Find out whether 'Crap school A' is undersubscribed. If it's not then you leave it off the form at your peril. You will usually get highest priority for your nearest school but if it isn't on your form and it's oversubscribed you could get somewhere miles away.

but of course pre-school is decided by the school not the LEA. I assumed the LEA had some supercomputer somewhere grinding through all the permutations to work out who should get what. Sounds like it is a bit more subjective though. How do they decide between giving someone slightly further away heir number 1 and someone slightly closer their number 2, say?

I think catchement area is pretty meaningless now for Surrey, I think you can apply to any school in the county?? But presumably straightline distance is one of the decison making criteria (but how? I want to know the formula!!)

I would do as Surr3ymummy suggests and check all the APAs. It might be worth putting good non-church school ahead of good church school if 1.3 miles isn't a ridiculous distance.

I thought you meant pre school as in nursery attached to the school? In Herts those applications are handled by County, too.

In Herts the distance travelled to school is measured to the nearest centimetre!

Thank goodness mine are in secondary school now - friends of ours are currently enduring the nightmare of having been allocated 'crap' school that wasn't one of their 3 choices. It's close to a travellers' site and has a lot of discipline problems with Irish traveller children coming and going.

Nightmare. I can't believe it is like this for 3 year olds for state schools. It shouldn't be such a stressful lottery. BTW I did mean the pre-school/nursery which is part of the school I want him to go to, in Surrey you apply to the school for this, You only apply to the LEA for Reception. I didn't realise it was so variable between LEAs? I fear I better start saving the pennies ...

thanks for your advice

I am the woman who went out with a GPS device to measure distances with my friend to check that the LEA figures were correct..

TOTAL nightmare! She is really stressed... I am trying to be supportive.

Good luck with yours

barbamama - there is another interesting aspect to this discussion (ducks behind large tree) which is to have confidence that your lo will do well in any school, and to get totally focused on the school with the best Ofsted/results misses the point.

First you must visit the schools. You may hate "excellent" school because they are up themselves bigtime. You may love "crap" school because they truly care about their LOs!

My two have always gone to schools that others in the area have been horrified at the thought of! In fact the secondary we chose achieves well below the national average - but my two got As & A*s aplenty and bags of ability to get on with anyone!

Pre-school/nursery doesn't necessarily guarantee a place in the main school - a child in my dd's nursery year was denied a place in the main school (ranked 2nd in the borough - after a Church school) and was offered a "sink" school on a notorious council estate so his grandparents paid for him to go privately until he got a place where his parents preferred. To date, he's not reappeared . But he was a long way out of catchment.

Apart from that, do look at the ethos of the school at the moment as well as what secondary schools they feed. Schools can and do change character very quickly.

Pre-school/nursery doesn't necessarily guarantee a place in the main school - a child in my dd's nursery year was denied a place in the main school (ranked 2nd in the borough - after a Church school) and was offered a "sink" school on a notorious council estate so his grandparents paid for him to go privately until he got a place where his parents preferred. To date, he's not reappeared . But he was a long way out of catchment.

Apart from that, do look at the ethos of the school at the moment as well as what secondary schools they feed. Schools can and do change character very quickly.

Whoops sorry about that.

thanks, all POV welcome. I have visited the excellent and the non-church good one. I regularly drive past the 2 crap ones (though not suggesting that is the same as a visit). Rightly or wrongly I know I am the kind of person that would not be happy with "high achieving in the less well thought of school". I am not entirely convinced about going the whole hog for private education but I know that I "need" my children to be in schools with good reputations locally. Just the way I am. Also used to live in an area that got very badly affected by an influx of, for want of a better word, chav famillies and I just don't want my children growing up in that environment. Not sure I want them mixing purely with over priveledged people a la private but, for us, the happy medium is children of other middle class professional famillies that value education and are supportive of the schools efforts. Where we live that means the excellent school or the church school. Otherwise I think we will consider private, reluctantly. Obviously my children don't care at this point and it is too early to see how academic they will be but I want to put them in an environment that gives them plenty of opportunities and supports our way of thinking.

Depending on where you are, it might also be worth looking outside the town a bit. I found a fab infant school actually a few miles from where I was living, but tucked away. Being slightly more rural it did actually have quite a large catchment area, and was also very close to another very good school.

This meant it took children from quite a distance. For me it was very handy as it was fairly close to the A3 which I needed to get on to for work anyway.

So consider looking around a bit...

another good idea, thanks. That is the other problem, the excellent school is right by the train station for travelling into London and the nursery the baby will be going to on the days I am working. The other ones are on the outskirts of the town and I would have tp drive and deal with traffic and double back for nursery etc.

Can I literally apply to any school in Surrey, in thoery, even viilage ones outside the town say?

Yes you can apply for any school, so it is worth looking slightly further afield if it makes sense from a commuting point of view. Then go and see the head and check out whether they were undersubscribed. Being undersubcribed doesn't mean they're not a good school.