Admissions criteria - am I missing something here?

[EduCated]

A school is being opened relatively locally to me, and the admissions criteria are:

1. Looked after children and children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to adoption, a child arrangements order, or special guardianship order.

1. Siblings of pupils attending the school at the time the application is received.

1. Children who live within 2 miles of the School.

1. All other children

The tie break is distance measured in a straight line from the school site - on that basis, what is the point on category 3? When I first saw mention of a ‘catchment area of a two mile radius’ on their website, I guessed they would prioritise in-catchment siblings or something, but they don’t.

Am I missing something? Why bother with category 3?

Clause 1.8 of the Admissions Code says "Oversubscription criteria must be reasonable, clear, objective, procedurally fair, and comply with all relevant legislation, including equalities
legislation. Admission authorities must ensure that their arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly, either directly or indirectly, a child from a particular social or racial group, or a child with a disability or special educational needs, and that other policies around school uniform or school trips do notdiscourage parents from applying for a place for their child. Admission arrangements must include an effective, clear and fair tie-breaker to decide between two applications that cannot otherwise be separated."

They probably thought that having a "2 mile radius" criteria met the requirement, and having the distance tie-breaker was really clear. They didn't stop to think about the fact that one runs on from the other.

I think it is probably a bit of cluelessness, as a couple of PP suggested when I originally posted. I think you’re probably right that they think they’ve covered it, which they have, it’s just they’ve come out with a pointless answer!