How do we know if a school is over-subscribed?

[SJain]

Hi all!
I am new to England so I am just understanding how the admission process works. I didn't have much information about subscription rate/catchment areas of the schools in Stevenage/Hitchin.
Any pointers for related info are welcome.
Thanks a tonne in advance

In Bromley, the council publish the furthest distance from the school within which a child was offered a place ('catchment' area), for the previous three years. So, for example, it could be 0.2, 0.3, 0.2 miles for the three previous years. If there is no maximum distance, then all children were offered a place who applied. Those are the only schools that are not oversubscribed. Don't know if it is the same everywhere, but I'd imagine it is.

When we applied for school, the application form contained a long booklet which explained the process and gave details of all the schools in the county (in a table). Among those details were the admissions data for the previous year - how many children on roll in total, how many applications altogether (split by first choice, second choice, third choice) and how many offers were made (again split by first choice, second, third) and what criteria split the last successful applicant from the first unsuccessful applicant.

So it might read...

PAN (ie maximum possible places) 30; applications 25, 5, 3; offers 25, 3, 2; criteria - distance, 1.45km. So that means there were 33 applications in total, and the last person got in on distance at 1.45km so the three rejected children must have been further down the list than that.

That's only a snapshot - we googled the numbers for a few previous years too.

But if every year there are (say) 50 first choice applications for 30 spaces and the last awarded place goes to a sibling in catchment, it would be fair to say the school is oversubscribed.

The posts above cover it - contact your LEA for details etc and ask for previous years. They should be helpful

If your child is already of school age (i.e. they were 4 or over last September) you don't need to worry about oversubscription and catchments. What matters is which schools have places available. You get that information from the LA.