How to work out distances to schools from home?

[leelou79]

Hello, We are hoping to move to Petts Wood in the next couple of months. We really want Crofton Infant school (have to apply to start Sept 14). I have looked on the councils website and seen that the 2011/12 the approx distance was 0.9, but how do I actually work the distance myself? Is there a special website that does it for you? Is it from the front door or general postcode? Please help...driving myself mad trying to find out. Also does anybody know the distance it reached this year?....thanks

Be careful with how you measure it - some LEAs measure "as the crow flies" and some measure actual walking distance. Google maps would help with the latter. You can set it for walking routes.

Check the school's admission policy or LEA site to see which type of route they use.

Bromley council measure in a straight line, from your front door to the main entrance of the school. They have some special software which works out the distances - supposedly accurate to several decimal places.

There's a tool here that lets you draw a radius around a point on a map, so you can see whereabouts you need to be looking.

No idea what the distance was this year, I'm afraid, but if you ring them they'll probably tell you.

Bromley measure by straight line distance, to the front door. This is actually very hard for you to measure accurately as they don't say exactly where in school they measure from, but you can calculate it roughly. Given croft is very oversubscribed and distances have been coming down for the last 3 years, I would be looking to move as close as possible! The LEA website has a booklet for 2013 admissions with some details.

If it's as the crow flies, there's a website that draws a radius on a map, once you've worked out what the rules are.

My DD is starting there this year and I think the catchment is slightly bigger this year but next year is another large year so likely to be small again (only from what I've heard, I'm no expert).

In fact just used the tool linked by JustOneMoreBite and roughly guessing where the entrance to the school is, we wouldn't have got in last year so we're very lucky to have got in ? I sweated over it for months!

I've not heard what the distance was this year and I think the new booklet only comes out in September but they may be able to tell you if you ring the admissions people.

thanks everyone for your advice! Much appreciated :)