School admission criteria - finding out furthest distance offered

[EmmaCate]

Haven't got to worry about this for a while as DS only 21 months, but does anyone know if there is a way you can find out what was the furthest distance away that a pupil offered a place lived, for any particular school?

I would at least like to know if I have a shot at getting a place at any of the schools I'm looking at. We have only just moved to the town and I just wanted to scope out nursery/infant/primary possibilities to know if we'll have to start saving for private.

Our LEA publishes this information in September/October. The record goes back for the last three or four years and is available on-line.

Many LEAs put this in their schools admission booklet, which is usually available online.

If this information isn't in the admission booklet or online you should ask the LA.

You can make a FOI request to your LA to do this. They may not be able to provide you with this information for the schools that manage their own admissions, but you can make a FOI request to the schools for it.

The reason I mention FOI, is because you'll get a response if you go to the LA with a FOI request, rather than being fobbed off.

An FoI request should not be necessary. I would only consider going this route if they are obstructive. Even then, I would probably refer them to the Schools Adjudicator first as a failure to provide this information would appear to be a breach of the Admissions Code.

I had to ask the LA for it, as they don't usually make it available. No wonder was all my local schools had catchment areas of under 200m...

Thanks everyone - that's very helpful. I'm hoping schools outside London wont be as extreme on the distance front - when we were in Greenwich the under 200m story was a common one...