Special needs "status"

[MrsSnape]

We currently live in the catchment area of all the worst schools in the city.
I have no realistic chance of moving before DS1 starts secondary school but he has his heart set on an over-subscribed school OUT of the catchment area and so realistically he has no chance of getting in...

But then I realised that schools have to give priority to children with "special needs", my son is dyspraxic and has extra help at school (action + or something?) and has been described as having special needs but he has no formal diagnosis or a specific condition or anything...I know it sounds awful but is this "special needs enough" to get him into this specific school or by "special needs" do they mean something else?

I think you would have to prove that your local school cannot cater for his special needs, but the far school can.

You have my sympathy, its about time that the governant did something to more evenly spread the middle class kids between various schools. Our local secondary school only had 23% of its kids get 5 GCSEs last year, but the school on the posh side of town got 72%.

My son is partially deaf, I think that being in a class with quiet well behaved children would help him a lot. Unfortunately its what everyone else wants for their kids.

Usually it means a formal statement of special educational needs that names the school (sorry, not what you really wanted to hear).

It just might be worth going and asking each school what they do to help children with dyspraxia. The application forms do have a space to record your reasons for a particular school. I'm just not sure how much weight they give to it, in all honesty.