Primary School Admissions 2016 - We Can Help!

[LocalEditorNottingham]

Applications for a reception place for September 2016 close on Friday 15th January. If you’ve yet to complete your application and need a bit of help deciding on which school, or in what order to place your preferences, we may be able to help.

You can apply online, in about 20 minutes, for Nottingham City Schools or Nottinghamshire County Schools

WHICH SCHOOL?
Our Education section includes listings for all Nottingham schools, state and private, with links to inspection reports and summary statistics, here.

If you click on ‘Get more information’ for the schools you’re interested in, a new tab will open for each one, showing useful statistics, for easy comparison.

This includes catchment information, showing where pupils currently attending the school live. This is not necessarily the same as the school’s official catchment area. To find this, click on the link to visit the school’s own website. Or, use Nottingham City Council’s interactive map of schools or Nottinghamshire County Council’s ‘Find My Nearest’ to identify your catchment and other nearby schools.

Remember though, that living within the school’s catchment area does not guarantee you a place, if the school is oversubscribed. This is why it is important to use all your options on the application form, in order of preference. In the event that you don’t get a place at your preferred school, you won’t be leaving things to chance. Though, you are not guaranteed to be offered a place at any of your preferred schools, just a school place.

You might want to look up your catchment secondary school, its admissions criteria and find out which primaries are its feeder schools. Many secondary schools take children in catchment and from a feeder primary, before other children in catchment. This might influence your primary preferences, especially if your catchment secondary is oversubscribed.

TALK TO OTHER PARENTS
If you’d like to ask other local Mumsnetters about a particular school, or making a choice between schools, please do start a thread here in Local Talk.

IMPORTANT DATES
The closing date for reception applications is Friday 15th January 2016.

18th April is offers day, online applicants will receive emails, letters will follow a few days later.

17th May is the deadline for lodging appeals.

Best of luck!

Interested in above comment re feeder schools. I keep hearing from teachers that NCC no longer operates this way: it's purely based on geography. This policy changed in 2010-ish, I believe?

Thank you. Are you referring to Nottingham City Council?

I checked a handful of secondary schools' admissions criteria and found that some in the Notts County Council area say they take children from 'catchment + feeder school' before 'others in catchment'. The Catholic secondaries say they give priority to Catholic children attending their linked primaries.

Given there are a number of types of school in the Nottingham area, the safest advice seemed to be to check the criteria of individual schools.

Hello...
Just wanted your kind advice?
I have just been offered a house in turney street ng2 2lg and I have absolutely no idea about Nottingham as I live in Manchester.
I have 3 children that need schools and nursery..How are the schools in there and more importantly is it safe enough to bring up children?
Please help?
Many thanks
Shiama

Hi
That's in a part of town called the Meadows. It's not brilliant and there are definitely social problems, but many people live there and love it. Have you looked at the local schools?

Hello Shiama,

I remember looking at a house in Turney St once. It's is on the outside edge of the Old Meadows (Victorian terrace houses), not so close to the New Meadows (modern houses, not so nice, some boarded up at the moment). The Old Meadows has quite a strong community feel, residents' association etc. It's 'high density terraced housing', quite tightly packed but there's a lot of green space nearby, with children's playgrounds and it's next to the river.

Other good things about The Meadows include being close to town, it's walkable, also lots of public transport - buses and the tram - and amenities e.g. there's Portland Leisure Centre really close to Turney St, a library, some shops. Eden soft play is great.

There is quite a high crime rate, lots of burglary, you'd need good security as standard. I've stayed with friends there as an adult and would say it felt safe generally. How it feels to live there probably varies a bit from street to street and depends on the neighbours - as anywhere.

Turney St has a good 'feel' to me because it's quite open (opens onto main road at one end). Haven't experienced living there though.

I did look up one of the local primaries recently and it was rated outstanding - but check which would be your catchment school. I don't know them 'from the inside' at all.

Hope that's some help.