1 in 5 parents fail to get their first choice of school...

[faraday]

IS this a reasonable accusation or indictment against our government?

It strikes me that I could put DS down for a highly over subscribed and popular girls' school 200 miles away, a place he stood no chance of getting into then have my 'failure' to get my 'first choice' seen as a policy failure rather than as me being completely unrealistic!

OK, I exaggerate for effect, of course, but the raw statistics would look the same if I applied for a 'great' school for which I was most definitely out of geographically assigned catchment thus (DS) stands little chance of attending.

We didn't get into our first 2 choices and were allocated a school I wouldn't have even thought of.

Our neighbour got a great school she hadn't put down as there are schools closer.

When I asked how the excess places were allocated when schools were full I was told 'they pull the names out of a hat'

This was for reception

I think it's a meaningless statistic, cos it doesn't differentiate between parents who put down an over-subscribed school that they're out of area for 'just on the offchance'. Some of these families might be perfectly happy with their second or even third choices. Other families might have only one decent school for miles around and for them failing to get first choice is a real disaster.

The number of people not getting first choice was bound to rise after the new admissions code banned schools from insisting that parents put them first. Loads of faith schools around here used to do that, so people used to have to take an educated guess at their child's chances of meeting the criteria, and put down the one school they hoped they'd qualify for. Whereas now there's nothing to stop you having a go for even quite unrealistic schools.

The statistic that would be interesting is the number of parents who are genuinely unhappy with their allocated school.

It's very hard when the catchment area encompasses a number of schools. We put the first 2 closest 2 us as we felt this would be more realistic. Apparently we could have put the outstanding one much further away as it was still in the catchment area but we felt being too far away we wouldn't have stood a chance to get in so it would have been a wasted choice.

We have 3 estates that had 3 planned schools only 2 were ever built and the 3rd was cancelled so there will always be oversubscription here. When the schools first opened they took any child near or far as in order to get funding you need children. When ds 1's turn to start school he was never going to get a place (we have since found out) as the siblings of these first children would always have got priority -and did. Ds was 18th on the waiting list for the 1st school (.4 miles away) and 13th on the 2nd (.5 miles away) There was NO WAY we were ever going to get our first choice despite them being the most logical and nearest. What school should we have put down? The excellent one that was far away?

It's very hard at the moment as they have increased the size of the catchment area yet still use distance to detrmin place allocation after other criteria has been filled (siblings ect ect)

Agree, it can be pretty meaningless.

Yes, I'd agree that a 'dissatisfaction' survey might be more useful!

Just shows how ridiculous the idea of "choice" is.