In year admissions

[BananaFrenchToast]

We are moving to a new area with 2 primary aged kids. One will be in year 6 and due to apply for secondary in the autumn (for 2018). We will most likely get offered and accepted the catchment secondary. Other will be in year 3.

The catchment primary plus the other primaries in the same catchment as the secondary are all full at the moment in the required year groups. There is another nearby primary in a different secondary catchment. I expect that more or less none of the children there will get into our catchment secondary.

Assuming we can apply for 3 schools, do we need to apply for the full schools in order to get on waiting lists? If we exclude the school with places will we still be offered a place there if the others remain full? Or will we be left with nothing? I'm concerned about my year 6 moving into a new school and then moving again next year with no-one she knows.

Apply for the schools you wish your child to go to. You don't know if they have vacancies coming up. If you don't get into any of these school you will be offered an alternative.

OK that's what I thought. Sorry for my slightly garbled OP.

Yes, you need to apply for the full schools in order to get on waiting lists.

If none of the schools you name as preferences have places available you could be offered any school. So you could be offered the school with places even if you exclude it from your preferences. You won't be left with nothing.

Isn't catchment based on your home address, rather than the primary school you attend? It is in my LA. So the primary would not matter where I live, but home addess would be crucial in determining whether you were in catchment for a secondary school or not.

Isn't catchment based on your home address, rather than the primary school you attend?

It is. That isn't the OP's worry. She expects her Y6 daughter to get a place in the catchment secondary regardless of which school she attends. However, the children from the school with places generally end up in a different secondary school. So the OP is worried that her daughter won't have any of her classmates from primary school with her when she starts secondary.

Yep that's it. Not something I would normally stress over so much but there will be a lot of change for us all this year and after such a short time in a new primary it would be nice if a reasonable number of her new friends were also at the same secondary. I spoke to admissions and yes I'm going to apply for the primaries we want most and then will be offered places elsewhere and spots on the waiting lists as appropriate.

You can also appeal for a Primary you prefer - you may then get a place even though the school is "full". You have more chance if the school is "just" full rather than massively over full, eg. has 30 in a class not 33.

Yes the admissions office did mention that, but I'm not sure I'd have much ground for appeal. We don't have any special requirement for a particular school beyond a social one. Though I should spend some more time investigating which school best fits our kids and why.

You don't necessarily need much grounds. You only need to show that the disadvantage to your child from not attending the school outweighs the problems the school will face from having an additional child. Sometimes the school's case for refusing admission is so weak that almost any case will succeed. There is certainly nothing to lose from trying.

Ah right. OK, I'll bear that in mind, thank you.
Fingers crossed.