24 siblings in 2015 new reception class

[BrieAndChilli]

Ds2 will be starting school next September. Small village school with 1 class of 30 per year.
There are 24 sibling who will obviously be applying and our county gives siblings priority over catchment area.
Do ds2 will get a place but what I am worried about is that as there are going to be soooo many children in catchment who won't get a place is there precedent for them all appealing and getting places over siblings??
School rooms are only really big enough for 25 kids do the current classes of 30 are already more than ideal so can't see any more children bein squeezed in and there aren't any spare rooms for a bulge class.
We are out of catchment (out back fence is catchment line)

Loads of iPhone typos but you get the gist!

But there is no such thing as a definite catchment is there? There is only a distance, that alters every year depending on how many children there are, whereby pupils will be admitted.

There will be no overruling of the sibling rule. And an infants class cannot go over 30. You are worrying unnecessarily.

Well no they won't win in true appeals because no error has been made. There are strict rules on infant class sizes and living close isn't one of them unless there really is no where else and the la can elect a school to go over or make a bulge class but not necessarily your school.

Some schools do have defined catchment areas.

We do have catchment areas here in wales, the council have a map showing them and everything. The schools catchemnt is a bit wierd as we are actually closer to the school than some of the villages included in catchment and a hamlet half a mile down the road from me is in catchment but we are actually closer! So they can get a school bus but we can't! It's not a circle catchment but rather a very irregular shape with school at much closerto one side of the shape than the other!
I know individually appeals would lose but I know of about 15-20 children in the catchment area who are first born children and was a hit worried that there would be such an uproar something may be done in such an exceptional case.
As we are rural it's not like there are several schools within a mile of each other.
Was just curious as to whether anyone had come across such a high amount of siblings in a class before

Infant classes an go over thirty now the rules were relaxed a few years back. Ours has thirty one.

Siblings take priority over first born nearer school for most schools but check admission procedure for your school.

I think you may be worrying unnecessarily.

If what happened at DDs school this year is anything to go by then siblings will take priority. This year's reception is an all sibling intake (the result of several bulge years dropping back to 30 this year), people who can see the school gates from their front doors didn't get their children in. The only issue will be if there are more than 30 siblings applying then it goes to distance from school for the siblings, 10 siblings failed to get places at DDs school this year because of their locations, and not a single one of them got in on appeal.

I'm not overly worried (apart from being being lynched by the parents at Playschool who don't get a place!)

Just that most years it's in a few people who don't get in and they are out of catchment so were just trying their luck as it's such a good school whereas this year it's going to be a lot of in catchment children who don't get in.

Not sure about Wales, but in England, Infant Class Size Regulations limiting infant classes to thirty are still in place and have not been relaxed at all.

When an infant class goes over thirty, this means that it contains children who are 'excepted children' (LAC applying outside the normal admissions round, one of twins etc.), statemented children, or children who have got a place on appeal. The criteria for winning an Infant Class Size appeal are very strict, and children usually only get a place when the admission authority has made a mistake.

Sorry, we don't have catchments here just the closest applicants that apply get a place.

Honestly, I don't think you need to worry.

We have a school of 90 per year and had 49 sibs last year. Another local school only had 3 (!) places after sibs were taken into account.

I think a problem would arise if there were more sibs than places - I assume then it would be looked at on a closest to school policy but I don't know

Seems a high number of siblings is more common than I thought!
Head teacher said it is a very unusual year this year with so many siblings
Not even sure if local authority is going to have enough places in the county as seems to be a big baby boom year.

If there are a lot of in-catchment children who don't get a place in village school, then possibly pressure will be brought for a one off bulge class.

(I also think that in catchment should come before out of catchment siblings, but that's another matter).

Schools in our area have Looked after etc children first, then in area siblings, then in area other children, then out of area siblings followed by out of area other children.

Similar happened when dd3 went to our local primary (she is now year 6) it is a 15 intake school and there was 14 siblings. All siblings got a space and there was 14 appeals 3 were upheld (C of E school and all 3 regular church goers) At the time the school also operated a unusual pattern over year R 1 and 2 so split year 1 so the keystage 1 was never actually over numbers.

The result has been over the next 6 years the school has changed a few things.

Y1 is no longer split, so it goes 15 in Reception 30 in Year 1& 2 classes. Last year the school send out admission change and as of this september their admission is now LAC children, Children who lives within 4 named parish and regular church goers, Children who lives within 4 named parish not regular church goers, THEN siblings.

There was a uproar over this as the school is popular from a local town (2/3 miles away) however it is really a very fair way of doing it. This way the local children gets in to their local school before children further away gets in.

However it is easy for me to say with 4 children all bar 1 passed through the school. During the consulting stage the school actually said they had only had 1 year where they had more applications from local children than they could take due to siblings (obviously the year dd3 started as they only needed 2 to apply before they were out there)

This year they had 5 appeals and not a single appeal was successful. This has been due to the school changes over the years with the busy sibling year.

DD3 however is most put out that due to people moving schools there will now not be 15 leavers in 2015. ONLY 14.. (they are down to 14 after the initial 18)

Locally to me this year a village school did fill all 15 spaces in Reception with siblings and no local first born or only children got in. Because there were 4 in the village who missed out over siblings who lived out of catchment, the HT juggled classes around and took the extra 4 in Reception. But in this case there wasn't 30 in the Reception class and there was space to squeeze 4 more in.

If the admission policy puts siblings above distance then it can't just be changed without consultation.

Our nearest school was 30 per year, took a bulge class both 2 and 3 years before my eldest started school. Her school year had 29 siblings apply, so only 1 new family (the very nearest). We (and all our local friends) ended up travelling miles to other schools, because we unable to be close enough to our nearest school, and were beaten on distance to the next 4 nearest schools. We were "fortunate" to get a place at our 6th nearest, my neighbour ended up at the 7th nearest. It was a joke, as many of the "bulge families" were also travelling from miles away to the end of our road and had not chosen the school - it just happened to have space in the playground for portacabins. An absolute mess for everyone.

That's the classic issues with bulge classes and the worst example I have heard

Most schools in our area have a policy of LAC, siblings in catchment, catchment children, out of catchment siblings, other applicants.
This does stop catchment children being pushed out by the siblings of bulge classes, but means that those in a bulge out of area class are unlikely to get younger children into the same school.

We have 31 because the 30th and 31st are twins.

They can't change the criteria after the fact.

If they have to admit excepted children, or additional children after appeal because of a cock-up, they won't kick out admitted children to make space (unless maybe their applications were fraudulent which yours isn't).

Really nothing to worry about.