Can someone explain to me how the LEA primary school allocations actually work? What does the LEA do??? Does any actually know?

[MummyTheGregor]

I should probably not worry because Ds is in our second choice school and we're happy about it but am I ever going to understand?? I think I just want to work out why we didnt get our first choice..... it seems that this year in our area there's a particularly high intake for the September starters......

Am on several fb groups for local mums and there seems to have been lots disappointed parents and much talk of appeals etc....... most confusing thing is that lots (about 10 that I heard of) of parents from my area have not got any of their choices but have been allocated a school that approx 4 miles away which they've been told is the only one that has places - whether these people only put one choice down I don't know but really doesnt seem to make sense why they would be given a place so far away.

Also we got our second choice school which is out of catchment but .49 miles away, (our first choice was 1.29 miles away).... someone I know had our 2nd choice school down as their first (and only) choice live 1.4 miles away but been allocated the school 4 miles away, how come we get in even tho its our second choice...?

Someone else I've heard didn't get in to our first choice school listed as their first choice too, I think they're about 1.5 miles away but offered their 5th choice school which is 2 miles away........yet someone who has our first choice but listed it as their 3rd got offered our first choice school (they live approx 0.5 miles away)...... how is that possible does distance from school trump preferences completely? Do the preferences go out of the window in a high intake year??

An another thing confusing me is that we've been told that sibings in a school is matter-less in our LEA but that cant be the case as my neighbours child did get in our first choice and they have siblngs in situ already so sibbling must (and rightly imo) have a bearing......... but theres another instance that I've heard of at a school we didnt apply to where one family got a place with a sibling in situ, another didnt but the family that didnt lives closer than the family that did get a place............

all of these instances seem to contradict each other....

any experts able to shed any light on the process (or understand any of my ramblings???)... tia

tiggy - depends on criteria though? Here catchment trumps siblings out of catchment.

OP, did your friends all list their nearest one or two schools that they had the best chance of getting in to?

If they didn't, unfortunately the places at that or those schools will have been filled with people, who did list them, and then people who have listed no schools which can offer them a place under their admissions criteria get whatever places are left in I filled schools. Some people mistakenly assume that if they don't get one of their listed schools they will, by default, get their nearest neighbourhood school.

There are also 'black holes' where you are too far away from your closest schools to get a place.

The extra thing to bear in mind is the role of waiting lists; the people who have been allocated a school 4 miles away in the first round of offers may be able to get into a closer school, even possibly one of their preferences by going on the waiting list of all the closer schols they can.

There is a significant amount of movement on waiting lists.

The other option can be to find a satisfactory (or requires improvement these days) that you are happy with. Our catchment school has been satisfactory for years but it has excellent pastoral care, the staff are warm, welcoming and friendly, it gets reasonable results and I've never heard a parent with a child there say a bad word about it.

I'd be more than happy to send my child there but many won't look at it because it is only graded as satisfactory. They are too busy tring to get into the outstanding school round the corner. It makes it easier to get into. Although Ofsted have just been and given it good with some outstanding features so that might all change.

There's a significant amount of movement on waiting lists in London. That's not always the case elsewhere. I don't think they move too much round here.

wonder if putting it last would then count as 'not getting into your catchment school based on over-subscription', if in fact you would have got in if you put it earlier, because you are in catchment.

but as previously mentioned many times it doesn't matter where you put your catchment school, if you would qualify for a place you would be offered it if you do not meet the criteria for your higher preferences.

tiggy - depends on criteria though? Here catchment trumps siblings out of catchment.

I think in many (most?) places this is the case but you could still have a situation where for example there is an intake of 30, 18 places are taken by siblings in catchment, 1 by a looked after child, 1 by a child with a statement and only 10 places left for any other children in catchment.

but as previously mentioned many times it doesn't matter where you put your catchment school, if you would qualify for a place you would be offered it if you do not meet the criteria for your higher preferences.*

In my examples, though, people actively want to be rejected by the catchment school in order to get slight priority elsewhere. That in itself seems somewhat unfair in a backwards way - people lucky enough to live far enough away or choose not to apply with religious affliation or deny that they have a silbing so that they can manage to put the catchment school down with reasonable assurance that they won't get it, are at an advantage to people who don't put the catchment school down at all. And this determines chances of admission to another school, not the catchment.

It also seems a logistical conundrum - they can't determine for sure whether someone meets the criteria for the higher preferences because the category that you would be in for those higher preferences depends on whether you get the catchment or not, and if that is happening to a number of children at the same time, it makes it difficult to treat each school independently in determining who would qualify. It just seems a bit circular!

But as I said, it's just an intellectual puzzle that occurred to me when helped a friend make her choices another year; it didn't in the end affect her, or probably anyone else. I'm just surprised that the allow criteria like that to stand. I can imagine an admissions appeal where someone says that "so-and-so denied they had a sibling, so that they didn't get into their catchment school, which then gave them higher priority (category 5) for this school being appealed for, even though we live closer. If they'd applied properly to their catchment school they would have had to go to it and then we would have got the place" Or something like that. Rather backwards to the normal appeals, where people want to get into the highest category they can for a school!

Mepmep- Ignoring faith schools for a minute, when we moved I looked as follows:

Firstly, does the area have actual or effective catchments? If actual it is particularly important to check out the liklihood of getting into the catchment school ( and that you like it! ) as you will be a low admission category for other nearby schools.

If it is effective catchment you can either go for living 100m from a brilliant school (preferably at least pan 60 to minimise sibling/statemented /looked after statistical blips) or near lots of schools you would be happy with and would historically get into. Watch out for the impact of new housing developments, recent ofsteds at this or other local schools, previous bulge classes, etc.

It is a minefield.

Plus what can be an "outstanding" school when you move to the area can be "unsatisfactory" when you need to apply!

Def check if the area has priority admission areas/catchment areas and what the admission criteria for a school is.

We live in the middle of 3 schools in a big estate. 2 schools are 0.3 miles in opposite directions and the 3rd is 0.5 miles in another direction. We are in the catchment of the furthest school but one street in either direction is one of the other school's catchments. We were very lucky to get one of the other schools as we are out of their catchment though obviously we must have been one of the closest 'out of catchment' applications.

Our local Catholic schools have a category of "baptised catholics living out of parish whose parish has no linked Catholic school, or for whom it is already known there is no place at their pariah school".

I thought that was more to do with waiting list/ out of usual timescale applications.

So if I moved into a new parish and made an in year application, then if the parish school had no spaces my DC wold move up the list at other nearby Catholic schools.

Thanks all - This also helps clarify things for me too.

Penguin, you are right - a minefield!