In-Term school admissions

[smk21]

My Son is 7 years old and is in year two at the moment. We have recently moved into a different area and so have a different catchment school. There is no places in KS1 at the new school but I have applied for a place for September 2012 when he will be in KS2. I have been told that because there are no fixed numbers to a class in KS2 that we have a chance of getting him in as it is our catchment school.

At the moment we are having to walk 1 and half miles to school every morning. I have put all this down in my application do you think I have a chance of moving him?

The answer is that if the school is full to their Published Admission Number then you will not get a place simply because you are in catchment (or should not, because I know one LA that does do this!). There might not be any limit on class numbers but the PAN effectively keeps the class numbers down to manageable levels.
You will need to go to appeal. There is more opportunity for a panel to agree with admitting your child into Y3 because the infant class size regs will definitely not apply. However you will need to put up a good case for going to this school and having to walk one and a half miles is a start. What you also need to talk about is needing to form friendship groups locally which you can't at the current school and you also need to look to try and find somethings, like after school clubs etc that the new school does that the current school does not. You will markedly increase you chances of success by having a good set of reasons to admit.