As we are in admissions season again...some top tips for first timers

[BetsyBoop]

On this thread a while ago, I posted some top tips on the admissions system, which people found useful, so here they are again...

1. Visit every school local to you & make your own mind up - don't go on reputation/gossip/Ofsted reports/league tables
2. Find out how likely it is you stand a chance of a place by looking at the last few years admissions (eg what category & distance)
3. Put the schools in your genuine order or preference (schools are not allowed to operate a "first preference first" system, despite what people tell you)
4. Use all your preferences - but be realistic about your chances of getting a place - don't waste a preference on a hell-will-freeze-over-first option.
5. Always include one "safe" option (even if it is as last preference) which you are okay with & are pretty much guaranteed to get into (ie "catchment" school) . (Or you run the risk of getting a random "worse" school miles away if you don't get any of your preferences)
6. You will not be able to bully the LA/school/appeals panel into giving you the school you want by only putting that school on the application form & refusing places at other schools.
7. Read the admission code - you need to know the "rules" as if the rules are broken it gives you a valid reason to appeal.
8. Submit any exceptional social/medical circumstances evidence with your initial application, whether or not you are fairly confident you will get a place anyway - much easier than trying to win an appeal based on this later (which will typically fail if it is an infant class size* appeal)

• "infant class size" =YR/Y1/Y2 classes can have a maximum of 30 pupils per teacher

Do admissions criteria apply equally to teachers applying to have their DC admitted to the school in which they teach? Our village school has a PAN of 9, there are 9 children in the village all wanting to go to the school plus it is expected that some additional out of catchment area children will apply including the DC of one of the staff. So would the child of the staff member be treated as a priority for entry, as if they didn't get in it would make getting to school very difficult for the staff member?

No, unless this is stated explicitly in the admissions criteria-which I very much doubt! When I moved my son was only admitted to the school I taught at because there was an existing vacancy which no-one else wanted. If the school had been full I would have had to make alternative arrangements-which can make life difficult for teachers just as for anyone else with childcare issues!

AS Snowball3 says unless the school has a specific admission criteria that allows staff to be given priority, which is highly unlikely, then the staff members child will simply be classed as another applicant. Based on typical admission criteria the 9 in-catchment children will get priority along with siblings before distance becomes a criteria.
What does the admission criteria for the school say?
Whilst they may not get in with an admission number of 9, they will still be able to appeal for a place and the appeal will probably not be an infant class size appeal. As a staff member they are clearly going to know the school very well and will be in a position presumably to mount as effective as possible appeal. Always an awkward decision for any panel to make in such circumstances.

No, there's no mention of it in the admissions criteria. I think people would have every sympathy with the staff member as they might have to look for another job closer to the school their DC was placed in. OTOH if their child got in at the expense of one of the village children that would make life difficult for the child that didn't get in as they would be the only one in the village not at the school.

Just wanted to jump in here to say a massive thank you for this thread. I've learned loads and have amended my preferences accordingly. This is what makes Mumsnet great!

I'm a bit confused. First choice school (Community 4-11) is slightly oversubscribed, and I believe we are slightly out of catchment (contentious point as the local council have failed to include our four year old road on their catchment database). They have just this week been Ofsted reviewed, and if their grading improves and we are out of catchment then the odds are not good for getting dd into reception. Second choice is a Voluntary Aided C of E 4-11 school that is relocating from the other side of town to just around the corner. They are under an Ofsted Notice to Improve, but the school felt good and the new head is making a difference. Again, the catchment database has not been updated to reflect their new location, so we are out of catchment. They are currently undersubscribed. Third choice is what the council told me was my catchment school - Ofsted outstanding 4-7 Infant school. This one has a PAN of 90 for reception, compared to 30 at each of the others. It's a great school, but the most distant of the 3. I would prefer something closer and that is 4-11. I have asked the council to update the catchment database with my road, and to confirm the area school for me as it makes little sense to have two schools closer than my catchment school.

Here's the question, if anyone can help I'd be very grateful. I believe that VA schools have additional controls over their admissions, and also that they may require the religious box to be checked. If I check the religious box will it count against me for my first choice, which is non-denominational? If the C of E school is undersubscribed, could they reject an application on the basis of not being the first named choice? It's actually not possible to list three local non-faith schools here as the majority of schools are C of E or RC. Thank you.

afterglow
The Gov Body of a VA school is the admissions authority for the school, but the application is co-ordinated through the local authority. The VA school will have an admissions policy that will set out the oversubscription criteria and whether there is a Christian commitment category and what you will have to include on the Supplementary Information Form to detail that commitment and who should sign (parish priest/rector etc). Try to find the admissions policy - on school website or LA Admissions web page for the school.

It makes no difference where you place the schools in the preference order, the schools will not know. The VA school will/should rank all applications naming the VA school in accordance with their oversubscription criteria.

If your road is not in any school catchment area then you may want to refer this to the adjudicator - but you seem to suggest that the LA has included it in the Infant school catchement area? It is not always the case that the school physically closest to your home is your catchment school.

Ticking the religious box will not count against you for your first choice school. As JWIM says, no school can reject you because you are not the first named choice. You have exactly the same chance of getting a place at the school regardless of whether you make it your first choice or your last choice.

Thank you!

JWIM, I had a look at their admissions policy, and have spoken to the head. There is currently no active preference for regular church going or indeed C of E at all, although it does come into play as an oversubscription criterion. I would be very surprised if this school were to be oversubscribed, it has not had more applications than PAN in the last few years. The catchment area thing is quite strange - my road is quite simply omitted from the database that is used by the schools and the council. I emailed them in the summer for it to be fixed, and they told me that my catchment school was the Infant one but have not updated the database. I have since escalated this, after establishing that the catchment for the CofE school has not moved with the school. I live in a town that is actively trying to reduce rush-hour congestion, and having school run traffic go past one or two schools in both directions to reach catchment schools on the other side of town seemed illogical.

Prh47bridge - thank you. I was wondering if the application criteria for the C of E school might say "we expect all applicants to have checked the religious box" but there's nothing there about that. It's good to know that checking it should have no impact on a non-faith first choice.

MrPeckknows - thank you. By "early" do you mean on-time? There is no advantage here to applying well ahead of the closing date, as I understand it.

If you would like to PM me the school and LA involved I will check to see if you need to tick the religious box. Many LAs don't have such a box. It is possible your box is simply saying that you want a faith school if you don't get one of your preferences, in which case you shouldn't tick it unless that is the case. If that is what the box is about you won't need to tick it to get in to the CofE school.

There is, as you say, no advantage to applying early. As long as you don't miss the deadline you will get exactly the same priority regardless of whether you apply now or leave it until the closing date.

In a bit of a quandry. Got 3 schools to pick from.

School A, CofE, closest. Good school, but seem very tight for physical space - head admitted they need to expand the buildings but can't.
School B, second school, was not oversubscribed last year. Seem to have room for expansion, they have a spare classroom, for example. Second closest.
School C, our admission zone school - furthest away we're in a new build (built over 5 years ago, ffs!!) so they have assigned us to presumably the school with the best capacity, however few issues with this school that I won't go into.

Very little difference in distance between school A&B, C nearly twice as far. I like the look of school B, they seem much more keen on parental involvement, at helping to integrate children into reception (they run a P&T session twice a week at the school which can be accessed once your child is 3, plus nursery is integrated with Reception some of the time.). They also have excellent special needs provision (not that my child needs it, we hope, but it is nice to see that SN children are well catered for).
So my preferences would be
B, A then C.

Quandry is, DS is in a private nursery for his 15 hours NEG place. He loves it there and has friends. School B have a place available now for him in their nursery. The quandry I have is it would be nice for him to go to that nursery if I was confident he would get a place in the school, but obviously being at the nursery does not guarantee he will get in - it is criteria 6 of 7 on our admissions criteria, however currently we would only get in under criteria 7.
School A is the one that is named as oversubscribed, other people have said it may be tricky to get into.
So questions -

a) should I move DS to the school nursery, even though he may have to change again if he is offered a place elsewhere?
b) How can I justify on the admissions form School B over A, when we only come under Criteria 7 (crow's flies distance, out of admission zone) when A is slightly closer than B?

Any help will be appreciated!

I can't really help you with the first question but the second question is easy. No-one will ask you to justify why you are putting school B ahead of school A. I expect your admissions form has a space for you to put the reason you are choosing a particular school but that part of the form plays no part whatsoever in the admissions process. You can leave it blank and it won't make any difference to your chances of getting a place.

How do I find out if a local school is usually oversubscribed? (Leicestershire LEA). I assume it is, but want to double check and not assume am safe just for living in the catchment area. Thanks!

Ahh thanks for that PRH!

CatherineWheel - I checked on the council website to see how admissions broke down and whether the PAN numbers were reached, and also asked the schools directly.

Thank you prh, I have messaged you.

CatherineWheel - I've had a look and can't find the information on their website or in any of their booklets. That is not good - they are supposed to tell you this stuff. I think you are going to have to ring the admissions team to get the answers you want.

Hiya, I am looking for primary school place for my DD, and the schools around here are abysmal (Grade 4/special measures in their last Ofsteds) :(

There is only one school that I would really like to get DD into, but there catchment is by distance, and we seem to be just outside the catchment for 2011 (although we were well in for 2010 ). They have fluctuated in the past 3 years from 1395metres (2008), 3109metres (2009) and 1907metres (2010).

We live 2200 metres away from the school, and really don't know whether DD will get into the school.

Does anyone else have experience of fluctuating catchment areas? Really don't know what to do if she does not get in :(

Vanimal - It is often the case that where schools don't have a fixed catchment area but use distance to school as the basis for awarding places, that distance fluctuates from year to year, because in a year with a lot of siblings there may be very few other places to fill and so the distance at which other places are awarded shrinks. The distance for 2009, though, seems way out of line for the years either side - was there a bulge class that year? That might explain why the distance increased so much and then shrank so much the following year.

If 1395 and 1907 metres are more typical, you'd obviously be very rash to bank on getting a place at the school. You need to find some other schools where you would be willing to accept a place (or be prepared to move or home educate). Don't rule out the schools in special measures - just because a school is performing badly, it does not mean that your child won't learn there. Being in special measures often brings additional resources, a new leadership team and more support from the LEA. The school near here which parents now clamber to get their children into was in special measures few years ago - now it's the area's most sought-after school.

Thanks PanelMember, the school didn't really have any explanations as to why the distance for 2009 was so skewed.

But they did go from being a single-form entry to a double-form entry around that stage, and also achieved really good Ofsted results around that time. So I think when they doubled their intake, the went up to 3109m, and then achieved a great Ofsted report the following year, and lots of parents applied, and so the catchment are went down again.

I think I am going to apply for that as a first choice, as the school suggested I put it down and see. Who knows, something else may have changed for them this year.

My second choice is an okay school - the best of a bad bunch, but I have friends with happy children there. It is not great for results though :(

The special measures school - that is really interesting to hear. I wouldn't want to bank on it getting better, but it is my closest school, so if it does improve vastly, I would appeal to move her there at a later date I think.

Am really worried about letting DD down, as she is a bright child, I think she would thrive in a good school that challenged her.

Hi there

Im sure its a problem that many face - we are very close (but maybe not close enough) to a (good) primary. If DD gets in Ill be thrilled. However - what do we put on the rest of the form??! Next nearest school is 1 mile away - and all the schools here have around a 0.3 - 0.5 (if you are lucky) catchment area. I presume that if we dont get the nearest one we'll just be thrown into one of the under achieving ones noone wants to go to on the other side of town? Do you get put on waiting lists for the others? Even though on a waiting list i doubt we'd have a chance - we are just too far away.

Amy advice welcome. thanks.

Just updating this. It turns out that several streets are missing from the LA's catchment systems. Ours is one of them, so we are technically out of catchment for every school in the area, even the one that's almost on the doorstep. As in area children have a priority over out of area children for oversubscribed schools, I wrote again asking how the council ensures fair application of the admissions policy for those children resident on streets missing from the database as it didn't seem fair that dd was out of area for every single school. They are now hoping to get back to me in the next few days and are aware of the time pressure caused by the school application deadline.

Starting to get stressed, we went to look at another VA C of E school in an outlying village which we had discounted earlier as it is very popular, we had been told we were out of catchment, and would require travelling by car rather than bike in the winter (it's down faster unlit country lanes). It turned out that we are within the catchment, as we are within the Parish that they serve. I still don't know if we would get a place - we are near the boundary of their catchment, it's a popular school, there's a new housing estate gone in nearby, and I'm not 100% sure about the fact that dd would never be able to walk herself to school. It is a lovely school however, whereas the school that will be on our doorstep is in Special Measures and will be finding its feet in a brand new site. So, on the bright side, it seems that we are definitely in catchment for at least one school. Although they did say that the council has a different view of their catchment. Sigh.

Anyway, no specific questions, just an update for those who were able to help me the last time I posted. I believe that the possibility for appeal may be there if we still don't have notification of catchment schools before the admissions deadline, or an explanation of how they ensure fairness in these circumstances. Thanks for reading.

Maggie - I'd put the schools that you like the best on the form. Do consider looking at the schools "on the other side of town", they might be better than you think. I'm not an expert, but that's what I'd do.

If the LA have missed streets off the catchment zone I would be tempted to take the bull by the horn and tell the LA in writing that you want your street to be in your preferred schools catchment zone and give them 7 days to get back to you.
If they do not get back with confirmation within 7 days then you should refer it to the schools adjudicator for urgent consideration pointing out that you are being disadvantaged by the maladministration of the LA. That should get somebody to take notice of the situation before the cut off date in January. To be honest the LA has at least a further two months to get it right before they actually have to start the computer program running to get the placements sorted out.

I'm getting a bit stressed about the advice to use all six spaces. I've put in the application already, and we only filled in three. We have a school two roads away which DD should have no problem getting into (last year's last place was 700m away, we are about 220m), and is first preference. According to last year's figures we wouldn't have got into any other school, although we're just outside the area for our second choice, which is the second closest and hasn't got a great reputation historically, so may not be popular this year.

I've put down those two and the next closest, which is very oversubscribed. There is another very oversubscribed one that we visited and I didn't like, but we'd have little hope of getting in there anyway as we're over twice the furthest distance away from it. Those are the closest, and everything else is 20 minutes+ walk away.

I can't think which others to put down, there just isn't a chance of our getting any others but the ones with 7km catchment areas. Do I really have to think of more schools to add to fill in the six places?