Moving to the Catchment Area

[bigdigger]

We want to move to near a good school with a tiny catchment area. Is it wrong to move into rented accommodation guaranteed to be in the catchment and then look for a house to buy which may be just outside the catchment area?

Only because there is no point being in the area at all if we cant get in.

We were advised only put down the school/s of your choice

I agree with Meditrina that this is extremely poor advice if that is what was said. You should put down schools in your genuine order of choice but you should use all choices and include at least one school where you are almost certain to get a place.

Tiggytape has described how it works. If you only name one school you don't get any additional priority for that school. If you then don't get a place at that school you are at the back of the queue for all the other schools. You will therefore end up being offered a place at an unpopular school which could be miles from home.

In our situation the school we want is the closest school to our house. I dont want to choose schools I will not choose. Actually even online applications parents in our area only have to put in two choices minimum not 3,4,5,6. Most parents from our schools don't put in more than two or three school choices in their forms unless their dc s passed the 11+. Apart from gss and a couple of OK comps the rest of the schools no one wants to put in their choice forms. That s the option we have!

My understanding is that in our county siblings outside catchment area only get the left overs after all local catchman kids have been allocated places

No, that is incorrect. People who apply for a place at a particular school always go ahead of those who don't. So siblings outside catchment who have applied will get places ahead of local children who have not.

Apart from gss and a couple of OK comps the rest of the schools no one wants to put in their choice forms

I can understand that but the point remains. Even within those unpopular (and, in your eyes, unacceptable) schools some will be more acceptable than others, if for no other reason than that they are closer to home. Naming one of these schools as a choice makes no difference to your chances of getting a place at your preferred school. And if you name the awful school that is, say, 2 miles away as a choice and you don't get offered your preferred school there is a good chance you would be offered that school. If you don't name any alternatives to your preferred school you may end up being offered the really awful school 10 miles away.

alittletreat - what would you have done if you had not got a place at the one school you listed?

The council would have allocated you the nearest school with spaces after all applications had been dealt with. Most likely is that it would be the worst school in the county and 6 miles away. If you rejected that, then the council would have no obligation to find you another school place. You would be stuck on waiting lists, or opting for private or HE.

Given that you always have the waiting list option, it's much better to put down something you don't like that you will definitely get than risk something worse that is a pita to get to.

I dealt with it I'm my way in my situation and it has worked for me. Call it a day! Time for .

It might be wrong morally, but wrong in any other sense - if you were living there at the time of application, no rules have been broken. Just make sure you are intimately acquainted with the admissions rules, which, if, for instance, a religious school, may require evidence of piety as well as residence.