Primary schools Kingston - Alexandra school, can any explain these admission stats?

[RiddleyW]

Hi, bit of a long shot but can anyone help me unpick the admissions for this school? We're moving (hopefully) and this will be our nearest school but the last distance admitted seems to vary wildly year by year! It's so confusing.

2015 (90 spaces) last distance 0.330 km
2016 (60 spaces) last distance 0.300 km
2017 (60 spaces) last distance 0.734 km

No data that I can find for 2018. The house we like is about 0.320 km from the school. Do you think 2017 was a weird freak year? I can't work it out because you'd expect to see siblings from the 2015 bigger admission?

Our traditionally very oversubscribed school has been admitting far lower down the admission categories in the last 2 years. I think the 2009/10/11 birth cohorts were quite big, but then numbers overall went down a bit, easing the pressure on primary schools.

First of all, are you sure that the 'furthest distance offered' you are quoting are in the same admissions category? It could be that the 300m ones where 'out of catchment siblings' whereas in 2017 it never even when that far down the admissions criteria and the 700m applies to 'in catchment non-siblings' who (depending on admission criteria) might come before out of catchment siblings.

Also, have the admissions criteria changed at all?

If all siblings get priority over non-siblings, it could just mean that someone who lived 200m from school when their DC1 started in 2015 has moved to 700m from school now, and no non-siblings got a place at all...

What can make a huge difference locally:

• Recent OFSTED much worse than previously
• Recent SATS results much worse than previously
• Other nearby school had a recent great OFSTED/recent great SATS
• Other school running bulge class/increasing PAN, taking pressure off the whole area
• New Head Teacher perhaps 3-4 years ago, school's reputation locally may have changed massively but this takes a little time to trickle down to new applicants

Can you check on parentview (OFSTED website) if parents are particularly unhappy with the school currently? (Just be aware that only unhappy parents tend to do the parentview thing outside of inspections, but if there are lots of negative reviews there is an indication that something might be going wrong)

you can get the 2018 info from the council already, it is not published yet (will be early Sep), but they know what the last distance offered was for this year. There is no guarantee of course. 0.320 sounds very good, keep in mind the distances you quote are the first offer distances, usually they move by another 100 metres or more over the months after, as the waiting lists move. You can ask the council what the final offer distance was (last child to be offered a place via waiting list for that year).

Is it something to do with the changes to making it a through primary, not an infant school? Was the first entry to the primary school in 2017 and if St Paul's (then a juniors) also took infants for the first time then, might have made a difference somehow as the two schools are very close together? (Don't know though - it might have been the year before... I'd phone the school and ask them.)

OK I think Thunder has it!

So St Paul's, I think, started taking infants so that's another 60 places created in the area. So hopefully that should be a permanent change and it's reasonably likely to remain a little larger for a while.

The furthest distance could have been an appeal too, I think.

It might be just one solitary pupil from 700m away that got in on appeal?

I don't think sibling distances are included within those figures. They don't take that into account.(unless they only offer spaces to siblings in catchment).

I suspect though, that Thunder is correct. I'd have thought you'd be fine at 0.3 either way.

My daughter is in Reception there. From memory, I think they had a bulge year in 2014 and took 120, then took 90 in 2015. So when they became a full primary school and started admitting only 60 in Reception there were lots of siblings to fit into only two classes. I think that's worked its way through now, so hopefully you'll be ok!