Can anyone bear to answer a question about primary school admissions for 2014?

[CaffeineDeficit]

DS's nursery has just handed out the booklet from our county council advising us of the January deadline for admissions applications and suggesting that parents should take the opportunity to visit the schools they're considering for their child this term.

We'd like DS to go to our local primary school, which is 3 form entry and within 0.1mi of our house. Looking at the admissions criteria and the data on how many children they admitted in each admissions category, I thought we'd have a very good chance of getting him a place. By far the largest admissions category is "children for whom this is the nearest school" and the furthest an admitted child lived away last year was 0.7mi.

I thought we could take the time to have a look at other schools, to work out where else we wanted to apply for on the off chance that nearest primary school doesn't admit him. I know the advice on here not to state only one choice on the admissions application form!

However, my mum's saying that we should apply as soon as possible and that the school places may already be full by December, in which case DS won't get a place. There's no mention of "time at which place was applied for" that I can see on the council website, nor in the school admissions criteria. However, my mum's a primary school governor, so I'm worried that she might be right and I'm missing something. Is there really an advantage to applying early?

She is mistaken

Doesn't matter whether you apply as soon as applications open, or just before the deadline. As long as you apply on time.

I would put the local school you like first, but put some other options just in case they are suddenly full for some bizarre reason, yes.

Your mother is wrong.

All applications received by the applications deadline will be considered equally. Just make sure you do send off the form - check carefully if on line that it's gone through properly and you she some sort of receipt. If hard copy, consider hand-delivering and having it signed for.

your mum is wrong. As long as you submit by 15 jan all applications will be dealt with equally regardless of when you submitted it.

As the others have said - that's not true. No allocating will take place until after the deadline.

Thanks all - that's what I thought. I'll stop worrying now

And do tell your mum in case she's giving others wrong info!

It might have changed since I last applied, but we were able to apply online but then we could change our preferences as much as we liked until the deadline. Helps to make sure you do apply even if you later change your mind. I would aim to apply by Christmas, just so that you know you are in. Do apply for more than one but if you're only 0.1 miles away and the last admitted last year was 0.7 you should stand a good chance.