Do you think the school admissions criteria is discriminatory to those of us who live rurally?

[FioFio]

I am pondering this as I don't know anyone who lives rural (including us), though in catchment, who got any of their school choices this year inc the catchment school.

Is this always a problem? or is it just a localised one for us?

It depends on the admissions criteria. I know one local village where the kids got dispersed this year to a wide range of schools, as their closest was full before they could get a place, and so was the next nearest etc. this isn't a normal problem.
However in another village their kids get priority to a senior school over a lot of pupils who live closer.
Personally I think it is just an expansion of the problem in some towns, that there are increasing pupil numbers and the consequences haven't always been properly planned for.

I have one child in the catchment school and one in the grammar school. For me, the problem is one of government policies being nonsensical. The first is one of cost. I have to pay £1000 a year for the child who goes to the grammar to get to school. This amount reflects the cost of getting a child to a school a long distance away from a rural area. Clearly, a lot of parents will not even bother sending one child, or certainly two or three children to grammar school, because they can't afford to pay £1,000 per child.

The second is one of actually getting to the schools. DS has to get a bus into town to catch the grammar school bus. DD will get a bus from our door to the catchment school. It would be very difficult to get to any of the other schools in our LEA by public transport, even if they are not that far away, because it would involve three buses whose times don't match up.

As such, it is really not helpful that all schools near of us have specialisms and all the children have to do the specialisms at GCSE. Our catchment school has a specialism that neither of my children are interested in. Another school nearby has a specialism that would suit DD perfectly, but she can't get there on public transport. She could get into it, as it is undersubscribed, but she can't get there.

So I don't really get parental choice. It only seems to work if you can afford to send your child, there are sufficient places, and you live in an urban area where the transport links give you a choice of schools you can actually reach.

I do know people who live further out than me, whose children have been turned down from the nearest school because other children live nearer and have filled up the places. One child lives in a house that the school bus passes, but she has no place at the school. So her parents will have to drive her, or the LEA would have to pay for taxis. That seems crazy to me.

At primary level, it is really ridiculous if you have to go traipsing around the countryside in all weathers because your village school is full of siblings who don't live in the village. It is also bad socially for the children in an isolated location if they can't attend school with the other children who live nearby.

sorry, I didn't realise how long my post was until I posted it!

the admissions criteria here was looked after children, siblings in catchment, children in catchment but due to infant class size limits we couldn't get into any of the schools and was offered one miles away and like you say the LEA now have to pay for transport weven though i could have quite easily have walked to our closest school via the public bridleway.

I notice as well that if you take the school out of catchment offered (of which we have) andy future siblings do not get a place as they are out of catchment surelythis causes all sorts of issues that are not of your own making?

It means I will have three children at three different schools now!

seahouses, you don't have to apologise, it was interesting :)

I agree re. socially too. It is actually my main bug bear tbh. You are in a lot of ways a social pariah if you live rurally anyway and going to your local school is a way of you integrating into your local community, but apaprently that isn't important

I feel really sorry for you. It causes so many problems.

The other issue is the government changing benefits rules so people have to work longer hours with primary school aged children. It is all very well saying put them in out of school club, but if your child's school is miles from where you live, and you don't drive, how do you sort out the journey with no car?

You have to get from work to school, then school to home, in a rural areas with limited transport. The LEA only pays transport costs if the child is arriving and leaving at the normal school opening and closing times. Where I live, that would mean going from home to a school further away to work 9-5 hours would mean a 6.30 am journey start and an 8 pm arrival at home for the children, plus all the bus fares for the children.

you can appeal, but it's not likely to be successful.

I would say that on the one hand, you're very lucky that you have so any children in your area - lots of villages are losing schools because there are no school-age children.
i know that doesn't help you, but...

oh yes, i completely agree with that too seahorses. It must also really limit the amount of parent participation in the school too as transport is so limited. Luckily I do drive, but if I didn't there is one bus a day up the lane, one at the beginning, one at the end of the day, no footpath, so you would be completely isolated all day and would be unable to visit your childs school unless you paid a taxi fare which if you are poor is something you cannot really do :(

do any of your children do to that school?

thought process - if one does, and they can reconsider your youngest on sibling-rule, then you could move your other to the school, if there are places in their year (unless they are older than primary, of course)

my middle one has just left the local school it's a three tier system here

I appealed but I doubt we will get anywhere as it's on infant class size. Our family circumstances are complex too as was detailed on the form, but it made no difference.

We are lucky that the school we have been offered is FINE though, I have no issue with that. I just wondered if it was a problem elsewhere as it seems here unless you live on top of the catchments school you cannot attend there but in rural communities there is always going to be children living rurally!

they also do not take terrain into consideration either when you live in a rural area, we did not get any of the closest schools including our catchment, the school we were give because the LEA said its the closest via their straight line policy at 2.8 miles means if we took it literally we would have to:

swim or sail across an 80ft river
risk getting shot at for trespassing on private farm land
clamber over several drainage ditches
and finally arrive at our allocated school hopefully all in one piece

we choose to drive :) due to the fact that i actually cant swim or can afford a bullet proof vest meant that we have to travel an extra 4 miles out of our way to cross the river to travel 4 miles back the other way on the other side of the river to do the so called closest route of 2.8 miles???...... when all the other schools were on our side of the river the closest being 2.9 miles....you would think a little common sense would be used in these sort of unique circumstances even an appeal did not help us

I guess it depends how rural you are.

I live in a village (next village about 4-5miles away), with a village school, and more or less everyone in the village gets a place, with the exception of a few people who live in nearby 'hamlets' who may struggle if the classes are particularly big now and again. I only know of one family who didn't get a place, and luckily for them a place became available at the eleventh hour.

I think it helps with us that the village is just the right size IYSWIM. Too big (thanks to new housing estate!) for the school to be closed down, but not big enought to fill the school! ALthough worth noting that in the past few years the school has had to utilise corridors, library/computer space, staffroom etc to deal with the growth in demand (school is 150yo and teeny!).

We live in a hamlet i suppose but we are still classed as being in the village!

yes, the measurements annoy me too for all the same reasons jbl47

I live in a rural area & most people get into their catchment school no problem.
Sounds like a problem with where the catchment lines have been drawn in OP's case?
Secondaries is different. Locally just one of about 5 equidistant schools (9-14 miles away) is THE popular school & you have to be strictly in their catchment to get in (it's said, I haven't asked to confirm that). The others never seem to fill up.

We live in a parish that borders onto the town. My children could have walked to the nearest primary school, but it is in the town so we are not in the catchment. Our catchment school is way over the other side of a very large rural parish down 3 miles of single track country lanes. Luckily we were able to get into primary school in the next county which was only a 2 mile bike-ride away!

I'm not sure how you would make the criteria any MORE FAIR than it already is?

I do live in a rural area, DS is at school with a geographically large catchment . It has same criteria as yours, its unheard of for a child in the village NOT To get to that school UNLESS parents did not apply or they move in and the year group is full already. Out of catchment siblings however have been turned away in droves this year as there are 20ish in catchment children.

I guess if its your eldest going to the out of area school you need to keep them on the waiting list for the area school, apply for area school for younger sibs and eventually move eldest to area school.

We're in Surrey in a hamlet, we had the situation where we didn't get a place at our parish school which was 2 minutes drive away, because people living in the town were nearer 'as the crow flies'. They though, had to drive typically 10-15 minutes due to the main A road between them and the school. For some it was their 7th or 8th nearest school, yet they still had priority over us.

that's why it's so daft!
it should be closest by the most direct route - that has to include roads or public footpaths.

From what I've read on here there seem to be many more problems with school admissions in towns and cities than in villages and rural areas so maybe you've just been unlucky.

My kids go to a village school with a large, rural catchment (some people living in town would probably be closer but the catchment is drawn up to stretch away from town to include as many villages as possible). They take 15 children a year and there are usually places left over for out of catchment children (some years they don't take the whole 15 because of not enough applications). The challenge for us is keeping the school full enough to make the books balance . . .

tiggy - that's insane.

but they've not done that in Pokers case - they've sent her as the crow flies, even though the road route takes 8 miles.

I do agree with the "safest possible route" , but i do still think that it should be roads and public footpaths (especially in rural areas, where the public footpath is the most direct route).
routes like the allotment shortcut shouldn't be taken into account.