Can I argue that admissions criteria is unfair?

[Luckymummy22]

My child got none of our 3 choices of school. I did not put down her cathment school so she never got that either. My gamble I know. I didn't like her catchment school, wasn't keen on headmistress, not good Ofsted etc etc.

However my 1st choice is 0.25 miles from our home but we are just out of catchment. We actually live close than some of the catchment area. It's a 60 intake local authority school. Catchment area is very small. Only 2 out of catchment non sibling children got a place.

My argument is that 16 out of catchment siblings got a place. So 25 % of the intake. This is preventing local children going to local schools. The furthest sibling now lives over 2.7 miles away. It's a small city so it really is a completely different area of the city. So we'll probably pass them in the car to driving our children to school.

My argument is that the sibling preference is unfair when it involved a family a distance away.

I know it's difficult to get 2 children to the same school at different times, but if you move out of catchment then that's a gamble you need to take or you should be able to move your child to your local school.

Everything is stacked against a 1st child.

Also I now have real concerns that my 2nd child won't get into the school that my daughter has been allocated because we are so far out of catchment. So we will fall way down the list of out of catchment siblings.

I know there are at times mitigating circumstances for a move & in these instances councils should be able to use discretion but it's time that children should be able to walk to school again.

Choice is good, but some postcodes like mine don't really have a choice as we only have 1 local school which is not available to us (catchment school is not local).

I doubt I can do much apart from write to the council & complain to my MP but just wondering if anyone has appealed on this basis before & been successful ?

As I've already said my catchment school is not particularly local.
But yes I could have managed it solely because it was on the road to work.
But I want to be confident my child is getting a decent education.
My feeling & Ofsted agrees that this is not the case.
So if I like offered school on visit then I will be happy to pay £10 or so a week for breakfast club.
But I still want her to eventually get the school we can walk too.

When we moved to the area our catchment school was in Special Measures. I didn't see that as a bad thing & thought if we couldn't get her into her preferred school then it would be an ok school because it would be getting extra support. Whilst it's no longer in special measures it's not improved as much as it should have in the last few years.
I also have concerns about safety of children after an incident last year.
So I did not.feel I could put that down as a choice.

So whilst I do understand the difficulty of 2 children in different schools & agree it's is not a desired solution , if you move out of the area then you deal with it or move your child's school. Or should be able to move your child's school.

I'm not sure you do understand. It isn't always up to you whether you move out of an area or not and it would be far more disruptive to have to move your kids who already had a place.

I love that you think local schools should be for local children, except your own!

As others have said, it's not always the case that out-of-catchement families have moved away. Many of my friends were allocated a school 3 miles away that they didn't particularly want, but the local school was full. The allocated school then became outstanding, and hugely over-subscribed, and my friends were roundly criticised for being given places for their younger children under the sibling rule.
Hardly their fault.

I guess you are either in one camp or the other.
I do understand that people's circumstances are different.

But often (& in my area I suspect mostly the case) it's because the family move to a bigger fancier house.
It's just a sad situatuon where we live in a world that many children don't get to go to their local school & the trend seems to be to drive the kids to school.
We've moved into the area a few years ago & have integrated ourselves in the local community.
If I moved I would want the opportunity for my kids to do the same & for me that is sending them to the local school so that they can mix with their neighbours.
Living in an area where the kids go to 5 or 6 different schools & don't know their neighbours, get driven to play dates.
Well that's just a sad situation.

I don't think you have any chance of changing that criteria. The school already priorities catchment over non catchment siblings. That's better than most schools inc my school.

Our schooldid that originally but due to non catchment siblings losing out as it became more popular, they now prioritise - catchment siblings, then non catchment siblings and then catchment. Truth is no school will choose to turn down siblings.

What you want is for non catchment (but closer) to get in above non catchment siblings living further!!!. That will never happen and nor should it. The fact you live closer is irrelevant. You are classed as out if catchment so quite rightly should come after the other out of catchment siblings.

DDs go to an out of catchment school. We had no issues getting dd1 in but struggled like mad to get dd2 in 3 years later but that's the risk with applying out of catchment. We've never moved but school became massively more popular. Hence change to give all siblings priority regardless of address.

I'm pretty sure the admission code says schools should do their best at primary level to keep siblings together

You talk of local school for local kids and I get that you live close but this isn't your catchment school.

I know a fair few people who played this gamle.

They think the whole application process is some kind of mindgame where tou can outwit the LEA by NOT putting down your catchments school and so force them to give you one of your choices.

Only, it doesn't work like that.

It is not like an LEA person looks at your list and thinks: "damn! They did not write down their catchment school, now we HAVE to gove them a place a oversubscribed-out-of-catchment-School-X"

I know too many people who wrongly thought they could game the system like this, and then get into a flap if they can't get into their catchment school (as they did not list it )

And as to fighting the criteria, you may as well howl at the moon

Also the local school for local kids only works if the local school is a good one!!! Plenty of people don't choose their closest school. If such a rule existed then that would push up property prices near the best schools and create sink areas elsewher

I'm not pallaying any mind games with the council. Like us all we want what best for our children. Sadly for mine that's not the catchment school as it currently is. I selected the choices based on the schools the local kids go to.
I don't get any this year (probably 1st year that's ever happened where I live with the choices I made).
People keep saying it's my fault for not putting the catchment school down. I DID NOT WANT the catchment school. If I had gotten it the fair enough. I got another school - fair enough. We have accepted the place & she will go there.
I asked the question because of course if I could get her into my desired school then I would do it. i knew the answer already but I guess I'm grasping at straws.
I definitely do feel strongly that the current system is unfair & benefits siblings too greatly.
And I do actually think things will change in the future as more & more people realise that there are no sustainable solutions in place.
I didn't expect the council to give me an oversubscribed school that I didn't put down. That would definitely be unfair.
I got an undersubscribed school that is on the up but struggling to shake off its previous reputation because of a lot of snobbiness in the area.
So I'm actually positive about that. But I have to drive to the school & for me that's not so good. And the main reason I will move my child if a space comes up & we're offered it.

I don't get your argument: you are complaining that out of catchment siblings got a place at the school- which you applied to out of catchment. If you didn't want the catchment school because you felt it was less good, isn't it quite likely that the parents of the other children felt the same? Don't all parents want the best school for their children?

The reason siblings get priority is that it is physically very difficult for parents to be in two places at once. You might feel the same if this was your second child. If you find it difficult to drive your child to school now, how would you feel if you had to drive one child to this school at the same time as delivering another child to another school a couple of miles down the road?

The other thing to remember is that, where there are catchments, whilst you may be closest to school A there may be a large amount of housing in another area for whom school A is a fair distance away, but their closest school. Therefore, they cannot be assigned a much further school as their catchment, they need to be in catchment for school A.

Then, school A cannot have loads of people from the other side of the area as well as they just won't have room, so people the other side, who live quite close to A, but not THAT far from school B will be put in the catchment area for school B, rather than A. It may feel unfair to you, but if you were put in catchment for school A, then there would be no room for those living further away and they may be given a school 4 or 5 miles away as that is their next closest school.

That's a good point, Galena.

The changes you suggest will happen long term, will honestly never happen.

Most schools already prioritise in catchment over non catchment siblings.

The only people who will argue for distance over siblings within the category 'out of catchment' (like yourself) are those applying as not only out of catchment, but also those applying with only one child- of which there will be far less.

As much as there are those who may agree with you when applying for child one, the majority will have or be thinking of having a second child and will want sibling priority.

Most people agree with what you're saying in terms of local kids in catchment having priority over non catchment siblings but that's not what you want changing. You want out of catchment to go by distance with no sibling priority which is madness and hardly anyone will agree with you.

even in my small town there are four school of which kids go to - in my street of 17 kids, none go to the same school as my kids and I'm grateful for a different set of friends. Kids don't always get on with everyone and it's nice for a break if there are friendship issues. At least they'll be left at school gate. My kids still play with the kids in the street. Having seen the friendship issues that go on particularly between girls, I think all local kids going the same school is overrated!

Where I am in London, there are no catchment areas. The admissions criteria are based on distance from school (with priority for siblings, looked after kids, etc). It's much simpler. Giving priority to siblings is right in my opinion.

I know parents might move into an area to secure a place for their first child at a school and then move away safe in the knowledge that their younger children will still get into the school using sibling priority. But to be honest even that is a gamble in some areas because some schools are oversubscribed to such an extent that not all siblings get in, only those living closest. A massive increase in demand can change everything.

OP you said if you move house you should accept that you'll move school too, to your local school. It's a nice idea, but moving house is not always by choice, and some people don't have much choice on where they can move to. What if a family move to an area where all the local schools are full? Wouldn't seem fair to take their existing school place away, only to allocate them a new place that's equally distant from their new home.

Perhaps the answer is to have someone do a proper study on where to locate new school places in the next 5-10-20 years.

I know these type of threads always throw up the argument about children going to their local/nearest school.
Trouble with that is families might not live where the schools places are. It only takes one large housing development to swamp schools.
It's also a fallacy to suggest children always went to their nearest school. For one reason and another I went to 3 different infant schools and I know for the last school at any rate, my mother visited different schools and had a choice of where to send me. In addition, there were often 35+ pupils in a class and over 40 wasn't unusual. It was recognised that smaller class sizes produced better results which ultimately limits places.
It would be great if local authorities had the funds to provide extra classes but old school buildings don't always facilitate additional classes.

All families will have had an oldest child at some point, so will have had the same issue.

It does mean the acceptance distance for my nearest school varies quite a bit, as on average families have 2 children with a 2 year gap, so you get years with lots of "oldests" and two years later a year with lots of "youngests" and in the latter hardly any non-siblings get in. Even more so if the year of oldests had a bulge class!

Hampshire has changed the criteria to include a 'displaced sibling' clause. That is, that if a child is placed out of catchment by the LA because their preferred schools were full, and they will be on roll at the start of the year being applied for, and they remain living in the original catchment area, then their sibling is classed as a 'displaced sibling' and will be given 'in catchment sibling' status. This means that they will move from criteria 7 to criteria 3 and be virtually guaranteed a place (unless there are 30/45/60/90 other in catchment siblings who have applied).

The other thing to remember is that a person's discretion must not be used in the allocation process. You have to have very clear and unarguable steps set down. Otherwise you will get a raft of parents complaining that child A got in because the person felt they were a deserving case but child B didn't get in although his/her circumstances were practically the same. You cannot have a rule for some and a rule for others.