Please explain this to me-complete novice!!

[SeaShellsFiringUpTheQuattro]

My Ds is 2.3yo, we are renting in a good school catchment area, but he goes to a nursery and eventually preschool at Dh's place of work, out if catchment (we moved into area a year ago)

I am completely new to this lark!

Do preschools determine place allocation or is that a myth?

What happens if the school whose catchment we are in is c of e and we are not?

Should I have been playing the system since he was born and how do I catch up?!!

If we buy out of the area once he is at school, where would his little sister go and would he have to move schools?

When do we start the enrollment process for primary school?

I'm in the most competitive part of Poole if anyone knows the area.

Many thanks in advance...I appreciate it's lots of questions!!

Thanks for the data-there is over 35% L4 maths level difference between the 2 schools close to us the reason for the cost of housing around here becomes painfully obvious now...

HTH
once you get into the nitty gritty of the numbers and know the local area, many things start to become clearer!!!

Yes, I'd agree to look at the cva. I think it's really important not to look at raw scores in isolation. Or ofsted reports in isolation. Lots of factors skew the reality of what happens in individual schools and you need to look at all these things together and VISIT, which is really important.

Also, bear in mind if you look at L4 league tables that School A may be number 1 because they got 85% L4 and above. They may have 5% SEN. School B may be number 2 because they only got 75% L4 and above but they may have 20% SEN. A little deeper delving could reveal that of that 85%, School A got 20% L5s, whereas School B got 60% L5s. So, which school is a) More inclusive? and b) stretching the most able pupils the best?

I'd say it was the school at number 2.

Obviously, I've made up these figures but they are just to highlight how to cannot look at any of the data/info in isolation and assume one school is better than the other.

And yes, it's a bloody minefield and all you can do is do your hoimework and hope for the best which is usually fine.

Why won't they get into the CofE school? Have you looked into this? You could always contact the school to ask about their admission criterea?

My DS goes to a CofE school as we are in catchment. I don't think he's ever been inside a church, and we are all far from religious.

Agreed.
VC and VA schools are still normal state schools.
DS and DD primary school is CofE and I am most definitely not.

Is Lilliput the CofE school you are talking about? It's very good, and as far as I know you don't have to be CofE to attend.

Msfox-yes it is, that's reassuring if we end up moving closer to Poole-keeps our options open :)

Ho hum...glad I actually started thinking about all this now!!

VA schools can apply their own admission criteria so they can stipulate things like baptism and regular church attendance in their published admissions list. I don't know much about VC schools but fairly sure they follow the LEA published admissions procedure.

So, if the school on your street in a VA Catholic school then can admit the RC child 2miles away before you if that follows their published ad code.

Most RC schools are VA but IME, much fewer CofE schools are therefore most will go on catchment or siblings depending upon which your LEA gives priority to.

If you go onto the website of the school you have in mind it will tell you. Alternatively, check out the school on your LEA website.

Lilliput is a voluntary controlled C of E school. The school admission criteria are detailed below and whilst the admission authority is the Local Authority the admission criteria does have a faith based criteria in it, though it is confusing.

COMMUNITY AND VOLUNTARY CONTROLLED FIRST, PRIMARY, COMBINED AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS
All the admission authorities within Poole operate an equal preference admissions system. This means that all first, second and third preference applications are considered together. The local authority will offer the highest ranked preference possible.
Where there are more applications than places available the following criteria will be used, in numerical order, to decide the priority list for the offering of places up to the school's Published Admission Number for the admission year group:
1
Pupils who are ?Children in Care? (see Note 1)
2
Pupils who live (see Note 2) within the school?s catchment area. If there are too many applications from the catchment area, criteria 3 (a) to (e), will be used in order to prioritise the applications with criterion 4 used as the final determining factor.
3
Pupils who live (see Note 2) outside the school?s catchment area, in the following priority order:
a)
Pupils who have a sibling (see Note 3) who is already on the roll of the school and will continue to attend the school at the time of admission.
b)
Pupils who have a significant medical or psychological condition where the application is supported by appropriate written evidence from a Consultant for medical grounds or a Clinical Psychologist for psychological grounds, giving reasons why only a specific school can meet the medical or psychological needs of the individual pupil.
c)
For Church of England Voluntary Controlled schools only - children who are members of the Anglican Church who attend worship at least once a month and whose parents request admission on religious grounds (see Note 4).
d)
For Church of England Voluntary Controlled schools only - children who attend a mainstream Christian church and who attend worship at least once a month and whose parents request admission on religious grounds (see Note 5).
e)
All other pupils who do not qualify in any of the categories (a) to (d) above.
4
If a school is oversubscribed in any of the categories 1, 2, and 3 (a) to (e) above, pupils who live (see Note 2) closest to the school will be given priority. The distance is measured by a Geographical Information System (see Notes 6 & 7).

In effect the admission criteria will be children in care then
a) siblings who are in-catchment
b) significant medical or psychological conditions who are in-catchment
c) children who are members of the Anglican Church who attend worship at least once a month and whose parents request admission on religious grounds who are in catchment
d) children who attend a mainstream Christian church and who attend worship at least once a month and whose parents request admission on religious grounds who are in catchment
e) all other in catchment children
f) all out of catchment children in the order a) to e) above

In each subcategory distance will be the final criteria to give order. It does not take a genius to work out that parents are going to develop religion to be able to meet category c and d and get the priority they fell they will need to get into the school.

Thanks :)