SE12 Brindishe Lee. Anyone know how bulge class impact on following two years sibling admission numbers?

[LilyLily111]

My friend's DS is going to reception next year. The school he is near is Brindishe Lee. At the moment his house is just marginally less than 170m away from the school. The school only takes 30 in each year, last year's catchment was 310m. However, in 2017 the school took one additional bulge class of 30. The question from him is that is this going to dramatically impact on the catchment area for 2019 admission? Are siblings with 2 years gap very popular? Unfortunately, he has no other good schools near his house. Anyone has experience is welcome. Thanks.

No experience in that area but we didn’t get a place at our closest school (310m away) as a result of the three years ahead of us being bulge years. In fact, the child who lived next door - literally next door - did not get a place. Nor did four siblings. Yet a child who lived 15 miles away did (a sibling). Over 10 kids out of 30 lived more than 3 miles away.

Felt pretty bitter about it to be honest.

Four years later when we applied for DD2 there were only 4 siblings so she got in easily. I would start looking for a strong second place school to be honest.

Having looked at the admission criteria for the school, priority is given to pupils who have a sibling at the school. So yes there is the possibility that with there having been a bulge class of 30 in year 2 that there may be more siblings already in the school and therefore be admitted as a priority.
Having said that the school has 180 pupils in the school other than reception year, so adding another 30 does not increase the potential number of siblings that much. The furthest distance to admit the 30 pupils into reception does vary, so the 310 metres for last year may have been a large distance compared with other year groups or it may have been a small distance. Each year will be different and it is impossible to know what a reasonable distance might be for the next year.