Admissions - primary - choosing an all through school?

[Willow33]

There is an amazing secondary school which is getting increasingly difficult to get into but they have a new primary school attached to it. Entrance to this guarantees entrance into the secondary school. It is about 20-30 mins drive away in the morning. I am not sure if we will get into it as they have changed their criteria to be more local.
I am wondering whether to go for this school or go for a very local primary which is good and we are very likely to get into. However, there aren't many great secondary schools near us and I don't want to be in a position six years down the line wondering where to send dd.
If we choose the first school and don't get in, will that effect our chances of getting into our second choice more local school, i.e., will someone who ranks my second choice as their first choice be more likely to get in?

The order you rank the schools in makes no difference to your chances of getting into them. You'll be assessed for each based on their admissions criteria.

So always put your favourite at the top of the list. And always include a "safe" bet somewhere on the list as well!

The order you rank the schools in makes no difference to your chances of getting into them. You'll be assessed for each based on their admissions criteria

But we will be competing with other families won't we? If they fulfil the same oversubscribed criteria, then wouldn't they get preference by the local authority if they ranked the school first?

You don't damage your chances of getting into a school by putting it second.

The order of your preferences only matters if you meet the admissions criteria for more than one school - e.g. if you were in a position where you could be offered places at more than one of your preferred schools, say because you were close enough to school A and school B to be within the distance cut off for both schools, you'd be offered the one you preferred most out of those.

No. Essentially you are all assessed to see which schools you 'qualify' for based on the admissions criteria. If you qualify for more than one, then your preferences will kick in and you will be offered your highest preference.

So if oversubscription criteria is by distance and you live closer, you will be offered the place over someone further away regardless of whether you gave the school a higher preference than them or not (assuming you don't qualify for your own higher preference school).

If they fulfil the same oversubscribed criteria, then wouldn't they get preference by the local authority if they ranked the school first?

No, councils operate an equal preference system.
So imagine for your 2nd choice school, you lived 200m away, and the next furthest family who lived 210m away had it as their 1st choice. You live closer, so you're higher up the admissions list for the 2nd choice school.
If your child is eligible for your 1st choice, they get removed from the list for the 2nd choice, and the child who lives 10m further gets moved up a place.
If your child isn't eligible for 1st choice because they're oversubscribed, you stay on the list for the 2nd choice school, ahead of children who live further away, regardless of whether they wanted it more. So your child is offered a place before the child who lives 10m further away, even though it was their first choice and not yours.

The schools don't see what order your preference is, however the council do offer you only one school initially, which is the highest of your preferences. Personally I'd put this one first then put the local ones after if you are really keen on it.

Ok. Thank you for your replies. That has given us clarity on that issue.

... though I'd really advise you base your decision on the primary school,not the potential secondary school. 7 years is way too far away to use what's happening today as any sort of guide as to what might happen in the future.

DD is in Y6. Thinking back to the schools' landscape in our town when we applied for her Reception place ...The school that was massively in favour 7 years ago is apparently now rapidly going downhill. There is a new secondary school. Another school has expanded. A couple of schools that only used to take DC in catchment now take a large number from out of catchment.