Primary school place help advice please!

[Al982124]

So my eldest is 4 , reception this September

I did 3 choices

1. School we are just outside catchment of (only just) but outstanding
2. School the closest to us which is also good
3. School a little further but also good

The top one from what I heard gets lots of applications each year. I wont have my heart set on getting it

But does this mean we'd get option 2then? I spoke to the teacher when we visited and she said its not over subscribed the last 2 years they've had smaller classes, so did the 3rd choice when I viewed them , also had smaller Intake.

And we're right by it

Just curious how it works

If you’re correct that option 1 is often oversubscribed and you live further than the last accepted child last year, then yes, assuming no wild swings in birth numbers then you’d most likely get a place at school 2.

The la takes the applications.
They order for each school based on who best meets the criteria.
Then they draw lines at the number of spaces in the school, eg 30 or 60.

Then they look above the lines.
If anyone appears more than once they look at the parental preference and give the more preferred school and remove from the less preferred ones.

This leaves spaces in the lists so the Then shuffle everyone up into the spaces.

Then they repeat looking for duplicate names.

Keep going until no duplicate names above the lines.

If there are still children with no place then they find schools with spaces and put the children into those spaces.

All done by computer but that is the basic algorithm.

So if you don't qualify for school 1 but are in the top 30 or whatever for school 2, then yes you get school 2.

Oh and fyi there is a Primary Education board that may be generally helpful now your child is starting school.