Can you apply for a school in another "council"?

[ASecretLemonadeDrinker]

Trying to make some tough choices - DS is at a lovely school where we used to live (and still own a house - rented out), but DS2 will be going to school sept 2012. Are we allowed to apply for him to go whre DS1 is? We are 15 odd miles away, totally different council (same county though, not that that matters I guess) and we do still have a house there....

You can apply. They might even have a priority for siblings. Speak to the school and ask them. If they are normally oversubscribed and give priority to catchment children you probably don't have any chance. Irrelevant that you own a house there unless you actually live in it.

Am I allowed to apply? It's not against the law? They have 3 reception classes - two in use so I am hopeful they will never be oversubscribed...

Yes you can, especially if your other child is there - in fact that counts for more 'points' than the distance from your house, so you shouldn't have a problem.

You can apply for schools in a different county so I am sure you can apply to a different council within the same county.

You will have to apply via the authority in which the school is, not the one you live in.

It does depend on the admissions criteria used - in some siblings will be higher than distance but others would put siblings out of catchment lower than non-siblings in catchment. Others have no sibling priority at all.

Yes you can - and their priority rules should be published on the council website. It won't matter about your house there, only about where you are currently living, but siblings will probably have priority anyway.

Wordsmith, sibling priority is not always the case, it depends on the admission policy. Speaking to the school directly is the best thing IMO.

Ask the school for their admissions criteria - or go on the council's website, it should give you the criteria for applying. As others have said, you can apply to schools in different areas. Many schools do give preference to children who have brothers or sisters already at the school.

Where we live (on boundary of local authority K and local authority B) we can as it is rural, and some schools in the K are closer to people in B and vice versa. They have got a lot more strict with secondary though as one of the best performing (in terms of A Level grades) state secondaries in England is in B. (We are in K though, and across the road from a seconday school, so no chance there).

Anyway, in many cases I belive you can, but i think it is particular to the two local authorities involved.

Yes my kids go to a different LEA but we live close. Ours is a rural area.

You must apply to the LEA you currently live in for the place in the 'other' county.

Thanks for all your replies :)

You can apply to any school anywhere in the country. As others have said you apply through your own LA.