School catchment areas

[queenfromars]

Does anyone know who determines these, and how they decide on them?
I cant seem to find any information in relation to them, and wanted to ask some questions at our appeal this week in regards to ours.

Many thanks.

Try searching for Priority Admission Area on your council's website. That's what they are known as around here.

Do you mean you think you should have been treated as inside the priority catchment area and weren't?

If you mean that you just don't like the way it is drawn, I imagine that would be massively difficult to query at appeal.

If it's a priority admissions area, then there should be a map available alongside other admissions information (ask LEA or school if not readily availble on websites). These are part of the admissions criteria and will be published each year. Like other criteria, they can be changed, but there should be a public consultation in the year before any changes come in.

Many areas do nt have priority admissions areas, but people still talk about "catchments" meaning the actual footprint of where pupils with first round offers live. Again, these may be on websites, but should also be readily available on enquiry to school or LEA.

Thanks everyone. I am actually curious as to who decides them (the LEA?) and how they work out where they should be.

As has been said, many parents talk about a school having a catchment when there is no formal catchment zone. The catchment in those cases is determined by this distance applicants live from the school.

For those schools that have formal catchment areas it depends on the type of school. If it is a community of voluntary controlled school the catchment area is determined by the LA. If it is a voluntary aided school, academy or free school it determines its own catchment area. It is entirely up to them how they work out where it should be provided they meet the requirements of the Admissions Code - essentially this means they can't rig admissions by, for example, excluding the rough estates on the school's doorstep and including a nice area miles away.

Thankyou prh47bridge.

We live well within catchment but just missed out on a place (literally to a child a few doors away) on distance.
We have an infant class size appeal this week so am just putting together some questions I wanted to ask not that it will make any difference

But is it a defined priority admission area, which is fixed from year to year? Or one that changes each year depending on the addresses of those that get places?
If the former do you have any reason to think the area contravenes the admissions code?

If you live inside the catchment, it will determine which admissions category you are in. Did they consider you under the correct one?

Living in catchment does not, unless in Scotland, guarantee you a place. If there are more children in the 'catchment children' category than the school can accommodate, then the tie-breaker - distance - comes into play, and unless you think they have measured your distance wrongly, it is likely no mistake has been made.

How would i find out if it changes yearly?

As far as i can tell, we were just unlucky, it is oversubscribed and we are top of the waiting list. I know we have no chance of winning, I just need to know I did everything possible for my son.