Primary school allocation countdown- Thursday 16th April...

[MTWTFSS]

Is anyone else dying to find out which school they have been allocated?

This is for my PFB which makes it extra difficult for me :(

I can't talk about it in real life as it starts off as a nice casual conversation ending with some delusions of grandeur PFB nonsense

how have been people doing their distances? I have been using an 'as the crows fly' map, but have only been able to calculate based on postcodes - which sets us nearer then we actually are, its not far off, but when you are edge of catchment...

Twine 88 thanks thought thur morning neither my 5 .8 year old getting a place or my 4 year old they 20 month gap one academic year apart.my eldest can't walk by herself busy dangerous roads .

No family nearby. No one at school who could help and wouldn't dream of asking they my responsibility.

Eldest got in on mid year admission.

People keep leaving upper years and going prep no one has left reception I keep my ears to the ground.its had 100 percent sats so top if county so no doubt more applications this year.

Council think I made silly choices I think school sibling gods to and 2nd nearest school 509 metres away from my house was totally logical and reasonable.

?2 moved up to no 1 nearest infants think 1 child left but another per on got in as they had sibling who got into another year which bumped them.

Put infants as sons 3rd choice but don't think be right for him.

Just be my luck eldest be school 1 offered from infant for 5 year old then offer school 2 or none of my schools for son as council think 3 places one time a doddle.

No one believes me.they say she don't have space like I make it up.i explain council fulfilled duty offering me rubbish school can't do.i could write a book of daft things people say and believe about admissions that my mp saviour.go on sky news.speak to vicar.make freinds with governer. Appeals easy to win.stop paying my council tax.protet outside school .bug d missions daily asking speak to head if council.

Giles can't find site I saw.dfe department education has postcode tool which guess more reliable council can't argue with their boss surly.

something called free map tools

it uses post codes to so now I've gone from just scraping distance with others to now further away so have feeling they will get in over me now.

But it also reduced my milage

3as

just

consider yourself added to my sending hopeful thoughts list.

Yes, free map tools is the one I used as well.

Thanks did I mention my of is year 5 in September so need to start looking round senior schools sept onwards as deadlines October year 6 thinking I'm due some luck and already seen about 15 primary schools I should work for ofsted seen so many.

All these people who say school's all same they not very different ethos good head can make or break school.

Eldest old school job share reception one always on sick on fact so many staff off sick half clubs they said existed dident.

It's horrible feeling powerless.

I mean if had money would go private or buy expensive house in road next to school.

The lengths we stress and go to on England for primary.

Watched c5 Britain's biggest primary school was real eye opener.

Have freinds work in schools stories they tell.

Round here schools live on long pat reputations so if they used be good people assume so or if sink and improving god no cant go there lots snobbery some well placed .but not just want a local school which seems too much to ask.

I've had a few people say the same to me, all schools are the same and if the child wants to work then they will, but this is rubbish. I mean of course if a child is a hard worker then great but if they get sent to a terrible school, especially a secondary then their education could seriously be impacted. Most of the people I know send their children to our nearest primary/secondary schools but they are terrible, and I mean in every possible way, and they question me repeatedly why I've chosen different for my own kids....

Back from the party. I am so embarrassed. I was comfort eating so I ate way too much food

I'm sure you will be forgiven.

and trust me the fewer sausage rolls they have to bin or eat all week the better

Our distance is measured by shortest walking route.

I looked at us on that free map tools, and it doesn't show a footpath that cuts a corner off the road route to our first choice school. How accurate is free map tools?

Getting more worried now.

Admissions experts have a question.

I put 2nd nearest to my house as 3rd preferences always over subscribe.

Let's call it school b with school a being closest which I hate and school c slightly further away ok and school d still local and 15mins walk max.

Question is if I don't get any of my preferences what school would they allocate.

Normally school a school c and school d are over do they only offer to me if they have spaces or do bi trump anyone who's put it down as 1 2nd or 3rd choice as I love nearer did not put it down.

Two plus can I ask why they are so terrible? In our LA there is a lot of snobbery around schools and myths based on history, but they are generally all fine. I have met mums who got given schools they really didn't want but all say it works out fine in the end. Schools are very different - I agree there

Do councils use the post code to decide?

my address is not always on a sat nav.

and there are similar named streets that are often confused with ours.

thing Giles street, Giles close, Giles way.

how do I k ow if they used the right one

Giles there software is totally accurate. They will find your road

Yeah course you can. The local primary down the road is in special measures for failing practically everything at ofsted. It has a severe problem with bullying ( two of my relatives had to remove their children it was that bad ) and it consistently comes out bottom in the league tables for our area. The secondary school is more or less the same (probably because the same kids transfer there from the primary) they have had problems with bullying, a teacher was attacked last year by a year 7 pupil, there has been a new head teacher almost every year/every other year and the majority of kids who go there are disrespectful and rather nasty which I've witnessed a few times when walking past.

Hi, I am waiting for dc2's allocation on Thurs, not too worried as we will get in based on church and sibling unless there is an error.

However I feel your pain as I was very worried last year for dc1's school. And we got our 3rd choice (not even a true choice, just the one we had to put down to avoid a school we also don't like other side of town). Even my cunning 2nd choice (admitted all applicants previous 2 years) didn't work out.

I was completely gutted, but never let on to dc1. We went to the settling in sessions with open minds.

However on the afternoon of day 1 of school we got a phone call from our first choice school with a place for dc1!

Other friends who didn't get their first choice school are now perfectly happy with the school they have.

So don't panic on Thurs, but good luck to you all!

By the way my email came lunchtime last year.

Ouch

That's a long wait

Giles- no, they don't use postcode. A postcode would catch a whole group of houses, some of which will be further away than others. They might plug postcode in as a field on something as some point, but they use very accurate mapping using specially designed software. It won't just be a question of popping the postcode in, getting an error message and plumping for 16 Similar Name Close instead.

Well that's a relief. We often get post or the other ones and they get ours and it never occurred to me before but I was mapping something today and location settings kept correcting it back to the other one and not our Rd. so it suddenly started to worry me

If I put my postcode in on Google maps, say, it doesn't centre on my house. It centres on a house in my estate a bit away.

So if they just go by postcode, they'd be potentially running into problems if more than 1 child from the same postcode applies, because they're not all going to live at the centre of the postcode. So they must have a more accurate system, or there'd be appeals all the time along the lines of "my kid didn't get in, but next door neighbours did even though we live closer".

We see these maps on the Surrey CC website and they are exactly like that. Pinpoint straight in the middle of your house, not just on postcode. I know of 5 children in our exact postcode alone applying for the same 1st choice school so they are very accurate.