Primary Admissions Choices for Sibling

[PastaLaFeasta]

My eldest child is in an outstanding and massively oversubscribed church school and we're now applying for my youngest, our church have signed the letter so I just need to do the online bit. I know other parents in previous years didn't bother to put a second choice etc (we get six choices in total), but is this a huge risk and should I be checking out the other schools again for a back up?

If I do select other choices I'm thinking I should put more weight onto the practicalities of doing two school pick ups so timing, location and after school clubs would be more important - I'm not working right now but am gearing up to starting in September. Or should I be picking the best schools regardless? There are five schools closer than the current school we can consider and a few more a little further.

Even if you have both religious and sibling priority for the school you want, you should still use your other choices. It would be just your luck to have a year where there are hundreds of four year old religious siblings running around looking for a school place! One of your choices should be a "banker", a school you are guaranteed getting into( if there is such a thing where you are-look at last year's admission data) and the rest should be schools you want!

You need to balance practicalities and academics. You'll need to compromise probably.

No point picking best school if you can't be there on time.

but don't prioritise a rubbish school just because it is easy.

You absolutely should assume that you will not get a place at the preferred school and plan accordingly.
This will have to be a mixture of practicality such as start and end times plus pre and after school clubs and what you think of the schools in terms of academic capability.

Also, how much of an issue it is kind of depends on how big the school is too.

If they take 90, a sibling bulge is unlikely to throw things much out of whack and a religious sibling is very unlikely to miss out.

If they take 15 or 30, previous bulge classes, two pairs of adopted twins or whatever can easily have a big effect.

But even in the former, use your choices.

You know the situation better than us! If the sibling number is usually much less than the total admissions and no bulge classes involved or any other reason there would be an unusual number of siblings (chances are you'd know, or the school would) then it's a tiny risk.

Unless 45 households living between us and DS's school have secretly adopted kids, our second and third choices won't be needed. It's a winning the lottery type risk. And if something that odd happened, they'd probably put on a bulge class anyway. We put something down anyway. It doesn't hurt to have something in the space on the sheet. I saw it as a vote of confidence in other schools we liked - they'll know how many applications they got.

Catkind - Ours are at a 90 intake school, so siblings are basically guaranteed. They normally manage to take everyone who wants the school (i.e. all the people who put it first and everyone who lists it but doesn't get another preference).

Like you, I still put other schools down too. Mostly because the thought of some kind of cock up in processing the form - I thought it would be less stressful to have a local school in the bag whilst sorting all of that out than the prospect of one 4 miles away.