School Admission Process

[victoriagirl]

We have two schools near us that are both good. One is very close and if that was our only choice would be great really. The other is hugely oversubscribed but absolutely super and both DH and I have fallen in love with it. We are on the outside edge of being able to get into that school- some years they have taken kids as far away as our road, other years it hasn?t got that far. We have DT?s so obviously need 2 places. Our dilemma is- do we put the super school as a first choice, but then risk not getting into the good, close second choice school if we are unsuccessful with our first choice, as all the places of our second choice could have been taken by children whose parents put it as first choice even if they live further away than us? Or do we just play safe and put the virtually guaranteed local school as first choice. But then we?ll never know if we could have got into the other school. I seem to be getting mixed messages about how the system actually works- does it vary from county to county? Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I expect someone more expert will come along soon, but in my area - and I think in most areas - the order of preference you put them in only matters if you are eligible to be offered places at more than one.

Eg if you are close enough to be offered places at two schools, you will only be offered the one you have put first. If you are not close enough to your top one to be offered a place, you will be offered a place at the next highest preference one you are eligible for a place at.

So you should put them in your actual priority order, ie top choice first, safe local one second. The only thing you shouldn't do is only put down the one you really want and leave the rest blank, as that means you come way down the list and just get offered places no one else wants.

But do double check the explanation on your local authority website, and call them to check if necessary - lots of people get confused about this.

Oh, I'd also double-check with the authority what you need to do to make it clear that you have twins - there are stories in our local paper every year about twins getting places at different schools because their parents haven't filled the forms in properly.

Yes talk to LEA. They changed here some years ago to a system where you put down your choices and you are offered the one highest on your list which has spaces. Nevertheless even some people working in schools around here go on about the need to put school x top otherwise they won't consider you(old system). LEAs do differ so best to just ring and ask and also their policy on twins.

thanks both- yes we have spoken to the LEA who gave us one piece of information (if best school is first choice but has no places we could miss out on 2nd choice as it could be full of people who put it as their 1st) but then the Head and school administrator of our favourite school just gave us totally conflicting advice- insisting that their understanding was the right one (that if it is put first and there are no places, you are automatically considered for 2nd choice and can bump people out of that one if they live further away even if they have put it 1st and we haven't). Its so hard as we just don't feel we can get a grip on how the system actualy works and its somewhat out of our area of knowledge! Regarding twins- the policy is supposed to be changing this year so that they will allow an extra place if one twin is the last one for consideration. Not convinced, but kind of figure the twin battle is a bit further down the line after we actually get offered a school!

It sounds as if the LEA gave you incorrect information or they are breaking the admissions code. The second school cannot discriminate on where you put them on your application form.
My LEA has the following text in its admissions information "Schools
will not know where you have named them on your application form and as such, you will not
disadvantage an application for a lower preference school by naming another more preferred school
higher." This is standard government practice.

Depressingly, it sounds as if the Head and school administrator know the system better than the LEA that administers it!

AS you have been told here, each school to which you will apply will consider your application against its admissions criteria (or the LEA will do this for the schools for which it is admissions authority). That will then give you a list of three (or four or five or whatever number of preferences your LEA allows) of yeses and noes. The offer that will be passed on is the highest of the yeses. So if you put your slightly-too-far school first and don't get a place there, you could still be offered a place at your nearby school. Because you live so close you are likely to be near the top of the admissions criteria for that school and where you place it on your preference list won't affect that.

This is why it's so important to be clear about what your preferences are - if you try to apply "tactically" but get your tactics wrong, you could miss out on a place that you want because you put the school lower on your preferences than one you don't actually want.

The LEA should have information in its school admissions booklet about the number of applications each school has received in recent years and the distance at which the last place was awarded.

I think the LEA are wrong and the school is right. Call the LEA and get it confirmed or have a look at the published admissions criteria yourself.

Look too at the information on the DfE website - for now, you want the current admissions code, not the one that was consulted on with a view to introducing it for 2013 admissions.

Thanks again. Really helpful. My DH just rang the LEA and was told something entirely different to me- i.e. that putting the further away school 1st would not jeopardise our chances of getting into the nearer 2nd choice school if the 1st was full. He feels much more reassurred but I am still slightly cautious. When I spoke to the school's admissions officer we went over it several times and she was very clear. She said in our area it is done manually and they have lots of piles of paper and put all the 1st choices in piles, then take out all the schools whose 1st choices fit the number of places available and are then full by 1st choice requests. So then if our 2nd choice school was full by the 1st choice people we would lose out. She was very clear that this is what they do and clear that we could jeopardise it and end up in neither if we didn't put the nearer one first.
It is sooo hard to know who to believe now, as I am worried that the person I spoke to may have inadvertently told me what they do in practice rather than what the code says they should do. So our plan of attack is for me to ring again in a week and see what answer they give then, then email them so that we get a response in writing and then if we put 1st choice as 1st and 2nd as 2nd and don't get into either, we should have some grounds for appeal? (although how successful that would be I wonder as they can hardly take away 2 children they have already offered places to in one of the schools if it was found that we were given wrong advice.)
Hope I am making sense?! what a minefield...

When I spoke to the school's admissions officer we went over it several times and she was very clear. She said in our area it is done manually and they have lots of piles of paper and put all the 1st choices in piles, then take out all the schools whose 1st choices fit the number of places available and are then full by 1st choice requests. So then if our 2nd choice school was full by the 1st choice people we would lose out. She was very clear that this is what they do and clear that we could jeopardise it and end up in neither if we didn't put the nearer one first.

That is very alarming. Either you have been speaking to someone whose knowledge is years out of date (and so shouldn't be trusted to answer parents' queries) or the LEA is driving a coach and horses through the admissions code by giving first pick to first preferences irrespective of the admissions criteria.

What I suggest you do is

1. Write/e-mail to the LEA and ask for a full explanation of how applications are processed and whether and how they deal with the first preference applications before they deal with all the rest.

1. If this confirms that the first allocation goes to people who have put the school as first preference and then the 2nd/3rd/4th/5th preferences get what's left over - which is in contravention of the admissions code - then refer the matter to the Schools Adjudicator, who should come down on the LEA like the proverbial ton of bricks.

On the appeal point: If you appeal on the basis that the LEA's admission arrangements do not comply with the admissions code, and the appeal panel agrees with you, they can direct the school to admit your children, even if that means that they are the 31st and 32nd children in the class. In fact, if the LEA makes an error which deprives your children of places, they ought to admit them with you having to go to appeal, but many LEAs nevertheless make parents jump through the hoop first.

Thank you Panel Member- that is so helpful. Will let you know how we get on

Regarding twins- the policy is supposed to be changing this year so that they will allow an extra place if one twin is the last one for consideration. Not convinced, but kind of figure the twin battle is a bit further down the line after we actually get offered a school!

I'm sure one of the experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the proposed new rules for twins will be for admissions from Sept 2013, not for the current round for admissions for Sept 2012.

As it sounds like you are borderline for the preferred school you need to think about what you would do if one twin is offered preferred school (as 30th/60th or whatever pupil) and the other offered the local school. If both schools have intakes which results in classes that are multiples of 30 in YR/KS1, any appeal would be infant class size, so it would be unlikely you would win as you would have to show a mistake had been made. (You would have a much better chance of winning if not an ICS appeal) You would then be waiting for a place to come up via the waiting list of either school to get them into the same school - depends on how much movement there typically is where you live as to how long you might have to wait for a place.

When you say the school's admission officer is this someone working at the school or at the LA?
I would agree with Panelmember this is really quite worrying, this is really old information and it is potentially disadvantaging pupils and has to be stopped.
If it is the school then I think you need to talk to the head teacher and explain that this person is giving out information which is simply not correct and that it needs to stop. If it is someone at the LA, then it has to be the Schools Adjudicator who needs to be contacted as this would as Panelmember says be a serious flaw by the LA.

BetsyBoop is right about the new admissions code. It comes into effect for 2013 admissions and will (unless it's been changed since I last looked) give LEAs some leeway to admit the second twin/third triplet as an additional pupil in situations where not all multiples can be offered a place together. However, we know from previous threads on MN that some LEAs are already doing this and admitting twins and triplets together even where this takes them over the infant class size limit (which is itself not lawful) and OP's first post seems to suggest that her LEA is one of those.

I thought from OP's second post that the good advice was coming from the school and the bad advice was coming from the LEA. Again, I thought the schools admissions officer mentioned in the third post was someone in the LEA admissions department. However, as Admission says, if the dud advice is coming from the school then this is something that should be dealt with comparatively easily without going to the Schools Adjudicator.

Sadly, far too many schools still tell parents that they will go to the back of the queue unless they name the school as first choice. It really needs to stop. For an LA to do so, if that is what is happening here, is appalling.

Thanks for your comments. Oh dear I hadn't given enough thought to the twin thing- I had thought it was this year the new policy was coming in, but was obviously just getting a bit carried away. I will give that issue a bit more thought.
Regarding the duff advice issue- it was the Council Admissions Officer- not the school. I didn't get a name and I gather there is quite a large team. I am going to get something in writing but otherwise I don't think there is much more I can do at this stage as I am sure they would just say I was confused or they didn't say it.