primary school catchment area: massive shrinkage

[writtenguarantee]

Hello,

We just applied for primary schools for our DD and only got our fourth choice. I have read horror stories here from other people and I really feel for them (people getting poor schools, or school far away). We are in an ok position as our fourth choice is a good school (as rated by OFSTED) and I also got a really good feel visiting the school. Also, the school is not that far away.

The issue is that I REALLY liked our first choice. The problem is that everyone else in our neighbourhood does as well (it is rated outstanding by OFSTED). Anyway, we would have gotten in last year by a comfortable margin (the radius last year was .360 miles and we live .328), but this year the area has shrunk to .275 (or .278) miles. That may not sound like a big change, but that is less than 60% of the area from last year. So, while we would have gotten in first round last year, we are now 26 on the waiting list. I don't have high hopes.

I have thought and read that there is a minor boom in applications this year (we live in Islington in London), but can that really explain such a shift? Are there likely many cheats? If so, would they be caught? Thinking about the possibility of cheats of course angers me at this point. I don't have any evidence there are any, and the school has been well regarded for years, making the case that there wouldn't all of the sudden be more cheats now than last year.

Not sure I can do anything about this except wait and hope.

Pity the poor people who have to oversee the administrative nightmare of allocating places.

prh47bridge Hi! I have confirmation from the LA that they do not and cannot do anything about people renting temporarily. They do check to make sure that people have actually moved in to the address. Once that is confirmed a place is allocated and it is not withdrawn - even if the family has moved again by September. The school will do home visits in September, but so long as the family has informed the LA of the new address the home visit will be at their real home, rather than the temporary rented one used to secure the place. Again, the place is not withdrawn. The LA said the only time they withdraw offers is if the person is not actually at the address used at the time of application.

According to the LA, there is nothing they can do about short-term rents. Obviously when they conduct the check during admissions they ask: "why are you renting?" and I'm sure if someone says point blank: "to get a school place", they may do something. But of course everyone is clever enough to give reason for renting that has nothing to do with the school. The LA said that there is nothing they can do.

If you are certain that the LA is wrong - please let me know what I can use to challenge them on this.

(I may just start a separate thread on this as I think many local people are curious what the precedents actually are.)

They can and should be doing something about temporary rentals. The Schools Adjudicator's 2009 report into fraudulent applications indicated that more than 10 of the LAs that provided information reported that they had taken action in cases involving short-term rentals covering 33 individual cases. If those LAs can take action (and the Schools Adjudicator appears to agree that they should) there is no reason why your LA should not also address the problem.

If you want a specific example you could point them at Merton who specifically say in their admissions policy, "It is not acceptable for a family to use a temporary address, rented or otherwise, to secure a place of their preference".

Brilliant! Thanks for this.