admission advice/distance measurement

[kla73]

I would be very grateful if anyone has any advice. I am trying to clarify my straight line distance for the school my son is on the waiting list for.

The school is in a neighboring LA to the one I live in. Both LA's use straight line distances. My LA has a system for measuring straight line distances on it's website which clearly plots my home address and the point at which it measures from is my house which is quite far back from the road. I have asked the schools LA what they have measured my distance to be and after an inital mistake - they were over 150m different from my LA's distance using their online system they have come back with a distance which is about 20m more than my LA. They say they have measured from the boundry of my property. As I have quite a long drive I suspect that this is why there is a difference. Having checked the admissions booklet it state's that distance will be measured from the "childs home address". Is there anything I can do? It may make no difference to the waiting list position but I suspect that 20m probably will do.

They are not giving waiting list positions until 16th May so I'm not sure what happens to places that become free between allocation day (a couple of weeks ago) and then.

Thank you

The fundamental question is whether the neighbouring LA has measured consitently. The fact that they may measure from a different point on your property to your home LA is irrelevant. If they have measured from the boundary of your property for everyone they have got it right. If they have measured from the address point (a point defined by the Ordnance Survey) for everyone they are ok. What they cannot do is measure from the front door for some people, the boundary for others and the address point for others. So that is what you need to query, especially if this is not clear in their admissions booklet.

Thank you both for your advice. I will contact the LA and query those points with them.
I think I will also check if any places have been allocated since the initial allocation day and check again when the waiting list is published.