Primary admission - What the heck is the difference...

[Whattheflippinheck]

between rule 5 and rule 6??

From the school guru site:
"Rule 5: It's your nearest community or voluntary-controlled school. You will only qualify under Rule 5 for one school – find out which one by calling Hertfordshire County Council on 0300 123 4043.

Tiebreaker: Priority will be given for students living nearest to the school (closest applicants take priority).

Rule 6: Children who live nearest to the school.

Note: If you don't qualify under Rules 1-5, you'll qualify under Rule 6.

Tiebreaker: distance to the school (closest applicants take priority)."

Can anyone please explain what this means?

I live 100m from A and 200m from B and 300m from C.

I apply to B and C but not A.

I have not applied to my nearest school, which was A, so rule 5 doesn't apply to me.

When it comes to rule 6, I will beat someone else on rule 6 for school B who lives, say, 250m from B but for whom B wasn't their nearest school (maybe as they live 200m from C but don't put it down).

Make sense?

I think (but not sure) that rule 5 is there for children whose houses fall in one of those gaps between schools

So if your nearest school is 2 miles away, and you apply to it, you fit under rule 5.

Another child applying, who lives in another direction may have other schools closer to them, so they fit under rule 6, and are considered after children who fit under rule 5

Does that make sense?

Hypothetical situation.... child A lives 900m from school A and his or her next nearest school is 1200m away. Child B lives only 800m away from school A but also has another 'local' school to him/her -600m away. Child A would be awarded a place before child B, as child A falls into a higher priority group (5) than child B (who would fall into group 6).

Does that make any sense? It is really confusing I agree.

Thanks doctrine.

So if we apply for the school nearest to us (first choice) then it's rule5?

Yes that's correct. You will need to check what the school/LA defines as 'nearest school' though. This could, for example include schools in another borough if you're near a border. i

Can I rely on school guru calculations for which is our nearest school at least for tonight so that I can get some decent sleep?

What's school guru?? sorry to be ignorant.

I think if it is a close call you'd be better calling the LA for advice to be sure. Sorry :/

The village my ds went to school in had a long road out of it (5 miles) leading to a dead end (a river). Children who lived down the end of that road had more right to attend ds's school than the children who lived in the neighbouring villages because, whilst they only lived a mile, or 2 or 3 away, they had other nearer schools, whereas child who lives at the end of the road doesn't (unlike they can swim across the river to the village the other side of it ).

They would come under rule5, children in neighbouring villages would come under rule 6, though they are nearer to the school.

Ok I looked. It's a commercial service with sone dubious marketing tactics: "will you get in? find out!". No computer can tell you this based on last year's admissions data.....

Ragusa, I'm the ignorant one here . School guru is the herts school admissions website charging desperate parents a tenner to ascertain which oversubscribed schools they have a chance of getting into.

I'll call the council tomorrow to find out if we can apply under rule 5.

Oh, crap . I resisted till today to pay those ten pounds to access that information. Now I feel conned. Grrrr. Making money from desperate gullible parents like me.

SG is not an LA service, for sure. La shoud be able to give you the info you need. get any points about criteria/distance etc cleared up in writing prior to stating your preference. And sleep tight :) :)

You find out from Hertfordshire which they class as your nearest school. For that school only you will qualify under rule 5 (regardless of whether you make it your first choice or your last choice). For any other school you will be under rule 6 unless you qualify for rules 1-4.

School guru was set up a few years ago by disgruntled parents iirc. There were lots of errors which have hopefully been corrected now if they are charging that sort of money! Good luck with the minefield that is the Herts admission system

Oh lord..... Ok, I think I understand rule 5&6 now and will check with the council which is my nearest school.

I am definitely annoyed with myself for having coughed up 10 pounds for the SG .

I guess in the end of the day, if you live in an oversubscribed area, you have no choice over which school your child will get into, and it looks like being able to list your preferred school is meaningless in this process.

Yes, you can list preferences but not choices. Lots of people will only qualify for one school.

But if your preference is also the nearest, that's good.

There is quite a good tool on the Herts admissions web site. You Key in your postcode and it brings up your 3 nearest schools in distance order. Mine are right when i type my postcode in.

This is the tool mentioned above -

Find my nearest school

It's slightly different to School Guru (which seems a bit more Google Maps) and I imagine it's more accurate.

Good luck, we're in Herts too and I've been thrown by the rule 5/6 thing too...

Yep, Herts council will go off the tool linked to above, their numbers are final and what they'll use for their judgements I can only presume as I guess it's the same system.

Interestingly, we're looking to hopefully buy a house soon. The Herts council tool had one secondary school ONE METRE (I kid you not) closer than another. But a metre is a metre, and it falls the wrong side for us to consider that house. However, Hertfordshire Schools Guru had the OTHER school (the one we want) 100m closer. If I'd only used them, we might have bought that house. On that basis alone I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, even though they have disclaimers!