What truths in these unnerving application-related comments?

[EugenesAxe]

"There is no point putting it down as a second choice" (about a very oversubscribed school)

"I only put down one school as I was told if you gave other choices then they wouldn't worry so much about not allocating you your first choice if the school was oversubscribed."

The first one I was dubious about as essentially that would make a person's preference part of the selection criteria. The person implied they would rank all people that had listed this school as first preference and allocate places amongst them; as there were always loads people putting it second wouldn't get a look in. My understanding was that the council gave the school names/addresses of anyone that had put it on their form in whichever rank, then these were ranked according to the selection criteria. The council would go down the list allocating places to anyone that had listed it first preference, or who had put it lower but failed to get a place at the preferred school. A waiting list would build up for any people listing as first priority but not getting a place.

The second I just find hard to believe. The ranking isn't provided so the council has breathing space is it? I thought if you only put one down choice there's a risk of you not getting it, and being allocated a place in whichever school still has places after everything's been sorted.

I would be grateful to hear opinions!

it's also the case in some places that catchment takes priority over distance. So you might be really close to one school, but not in its catchment, because its catchment needs to extend a long way in another direction because there are no further schools that way.

We have catchments in Oxfordshire. In the case of the primary in my village, there are a few outlying houses that are in catchment that ate further away than some houses in other catchments. Priority is

LAC/SEN
in catchment siblings
other catchment
Out of catchment siblings
All others

Tie breaker on shortest walking distance.

*are

not ate

We have them in Devon. They're called 'designated areas' but it's the same thing. Priority is the same as gintastic's except tie breaker is straight line distance.

The schools aren't always in the middle of the catchment area either.At least one school here is on the border of it's catchment area so children living a couple of streets away are lower priority than those about 3/4 of a mile away.

There's also an added complication that some catchment schools are CofE and also have faith criteria. Almost all of the children in my road attend a neighbouring catchment school because 'children living in the designated area' is 6th on the oversubscription criteria for the school.

In Surrey we have the infamous "closest school to you" rule, which can make things confusing.

I wonder whether the 'nearest alternative' might be brought in here in the future. They've gone for a permanent increase in PAN for 4 schools to deal with increased demand for primary places but the schools in the centre of town are landlocked so can't expand. This means any children without siblings in my area whose parents are not religious are 7th out of 8 criteria for the catchment school and 5th out of 5 for the neighbouring school. Fine whilst the neighbouring school is under-subscribed, potentially a problem in the future. Admittedly, it's not as much of a problem as family have in London though.

Sometimes with siblings it can not matter if you just put one school - e.g. dd2 was one of 15 siblings in a year with a PAN of 60 (small school so virtually all siblings known to everyone else). As dd1 was offered one of 5 places to non-siblings/ no SEN when the PAN was 30 we knew we were so close that if we weren't offered a place then there would be a mistake (applied before adopted children were given priority).

With ds I will put two options as the infuriating LEA can't make up it's mind on PAN - might be 30 or 60, they only decided PAN for this year group in July. There are about 30 siblings in his year group whom I already know of and with larger school harder to know which preschooler in which year, so it's not worth the risk.

I know that I could have put another option for dd2 without affecting the outcome but couldn't trust myself that I wouldn't accidentally put them the wrong way and not notice on the 20 times that I checked and double checked the form!

"The closest school to you" rule is a bit like the catchment system; for us (in surrey) it means that we (3 miles away from DS' school on the edge of town) get priority over people who live maybe a mile away from the school, because they have another school in the town which is nearer to them.

Luckily the schools are fairly similar, otherwise it would be knives and daggers all round.

I'm talking secondaries BTW, but I daresay in more rural areas, the "nearest school to you" would be relevant for primary too.

I think that can be that case for other criteria as well, 3birthdaybunnies, depending on the area and school. It's about knowing the situation of the schools in your area.

The RC schools in my area don't have defined catchment areas. If I applied for a place I'm can be almost certain of getting one because I know that usually Catholic children only make up about 45-50% of the cohort. The remainder of the places are then given to siblings and children from other Christian denominations. I could put just that school down and get away with it. If I tried that in London it would probably be a complete disaster.

I only put 1 school on my application for DS's first primary.

We were guaranteed a place (every child in the village known, total well under PAN) and it was impossible that we would obtain a place in any other school (all 3+ miles away, all with admissions distances of much less than the distance to my village, all over subscribed).

So I only put the one school down, not because I thought I was more likely to get a place if I did so, but simply because it would have been a total waste of ink to fill in the other boxes.

I think some parents misunderstand the criteria.

I know our dc's school told parents to put them first if that was the school you wanted, because if you got allocated all 3 of your choices then you would be give the school that was number 1 in your list. They meant put the schools in order of preference.

However somehow that translated into

"if you dont put us first you wont get a place" which was not said at all.

I have had to explain it to parents at other schools as well. They just don't get it.
DCs also take 10% on aptitude to technology which slightly confuses the issue, because passing the test in the top 10% does not mean you will be offered a place if you put another school above it in order of preference and you are accepted at that school too.
I do know a child who lost an aptitude place at another school because their parent put the school second in their order of preference. The child was offered the first school, and it was only because the parent rang up and asked how her child had done in the test that she found out that he had passed.

I think some schools can be unintentionally misleading as well. Our catchment school states on its website under 'catchment' that over half of the children come from out of catchment so even if you live out of catchment its always worth applying. It's done with good intentions but because it's a faith school there are 3 out of catchment categories that come above children of no faith in catchment. These are mentioned in a separate document but not on the web page itself. I can easily see how someone might read it and assume that because they are in catchment it they will be certain of a place.
In reality, I don't think they ever offer down to other children in catchment. You certainly can't get in here and I'm about 0.2 miles from the school.

Catchments here too - in fact the way the catchments are drawn there are people who are 2 minutes walk from a non-catchment school but 2 miles from their actual catchment school (and it's virtually impossible to get into many schools if out of catchment).

We also have feeder schools - secondaries give priority to children who have attended certain junior/primary schools - another thing that doesn't seem to exist in many areas.

Key thing is to read your own authority's admissions criteria and NOT rely on word of mouth (especially from people who live in different areas).

If it's all done by computer then why do our local education office ask you to write a piece citing the medical or SEN reasons for requesting a particular school?

Katy- to work out which admission category you fit into. many schools give priority for medical and SEN needs for a particular school. That setting of your category isnt done by computer.

We have two local schools and we live in the catchment area for both schools and DS is at a feeder school for both schools. However, one has a specific policy for dealing with a medical condition that he has so that's our favoured one. Presumably they will take into account those medical reasons when allocating the school then?

Not necessarily just because you write them in the box, no. You need to read the admissions booklet in full, or if you are at all confused call someone at the council and ask. For example, in our area there is quite important information on obtaining supporting medical evidence and what that evidence needs to cover. In our area, just writing "I want to go to X school because my child has epilepsy and this school has Y policy for supporting that" would have zero effect.

"However, one has a specific policy for dealing with a medical condition"

Does that "specific policy" extend to being a category in its admission criteria? If not, you'll almost certainly need to obtain a statement naming the school.

The intent of the admissions policy is to remove subjectivity and discretion, which has historically been a smokescreen for covert selection. That's why things like parental interview and child interview are not allowed, because no matter how they're dressed up, they are essentially back-door selection and it's very, very difficult to determine afterwards whether the process was being applied fairly.

Some schools have managed to get away with subjective "what the head thinks" policies, but in conjunction with some other mechanism that demonstrates fairness. For example, a school which requires access to Y5 reports and (essentially) a "why should my child come here" statement from the parents would normally not be acceptable, but using that within a 9-band fair-banding process is considered OK (although it's a successful school with a long history of using this mechanism: whether such a policy would be acceptable de novo is another question).

In general, however, the "additional information" box is pretty much a placebo, or a legacy of past processes. Very few schools have admission criteria which would permit paying attention to it, beyond its objective use to put a child into an approved admission category, and a school which made other use of it would be almost hanging up a sign saying "we enjoy losing appeals". Supplementary Information Forms have had a pretty bad history see page 26 and are now rather frowned on, and the additional information is just a special case of that. Writing "this school has good sciences and my son enjoys physics" or "my son wants to walk to school with his friends" is just a waste of ink.

So us it all done by computer or by someone at each school?

Each school sorts the applications (irrespective of preference) into order by category and then by tie break. It does this however it likes, although it needs to be able to defend it at appeal if it comes to it. Some of it will be inevitably manual, because of subtle issues about faith and sibling categories, but the code says the decisions should be as objective as possible. The main task of sorting by distance is done by computer.

The final allocation is done by computer, because it's an automated process.

There's some extra complexity for people who are applying into multiple authorities, which is less of an issue in my city, more of an issue in London. I can't help thinking that within a few years, the system will be made national rather than LEA.

That's another fairly common myth I've seen on other parenting sites, tiggy. Usually brought up by people who have written something irrelevant in that box and have got a place at that school. There's no telling them that this had nothing to do with them getting a place and their advice to other posters is incorrect.