How to get your top choice primary?

[Southlonmum]

So we live on borders of 1 sought after primary and 2 decent primaries. Then the other possible choices are far away and not very good.

Disregarding siblings and special cases, you canchoose 6 schools which are allocated on distance. How do you make sure to give yourself the best chance of getting into the most sought after one without doing down your chances of getting into one of the other two " decent" ones if not successful in top choice? So confused...eg is it better to put a decent one top of list if it is physically nearer IE to avoid missing out on a place in the top 3??

Yes. Put the decent one which is closest to you...then the next closest and then the best. You've little chance of securing the best one because they're probably not under-subscribed.

Always put the school you are most likely to get on your list even as #6. Look at your borough, school or county's admission criteria and understand which school you'd have got last year.
Put your preferences in order and remember an awful school on your doorstep is better than an awful school two buses away.
Apart from special categories, faith or siblings, there's no way to get a better chance.

List the schools in the genuine order you prefer them. You will be offered a place at the highest school on the list where you meet the published selection criteria and there is space. Make sure you include somewhere on your list the local school where you are most likely to get a place -this school is your fallback in case you aren't offered any of your higher preferences, better the iffy local school than the iffy school on the other side of town.

Schools are allocated on equal preference, the schools do not know what order you put them on the list.
You will be allocated the school highest on your list that you fit the requirements for.

Say you put school A as no 1 school B no 2 school C no 3
You live furthest away from school A
In the middle is school B
Your closest school is school C
In the year you apply your are too far away from School A
But you are close enough to get in to school B
You will be given school B as it is 2nd on your list even though you live closest to school C
Do your homework, check the distance given in previous years, if the live outside the distance given in previous years you are unlikely to be given this school regardless of where you place it on the list.
If you have several schools that you are within distance for, put them on the list in the order you prefer them, you will always be given the highest on the list, that you are eligible for.
Always use all of your preferences.
Don’t forget that distances change every year. You can usually find out the distances for previous years on your council admissions website.

Put the schools in your genuine order of preference.

Schools do not know where you have ranked them on the form. Applicants are simply ranked by the admissions authority in order of how well,they fit the entrance criteria. The LEA then does something rather like a giant game of Candy Crush to turn those lists into a single offer per applicant - and if you qualify for more than one of your preference, you'll get the one you listed highest.

So put the school you really want too (even if you think it's a long shot) and a banker in the lowest slot (one that near as dammit you'd get an offer from even if the only thing it's got going for it is proximity). Then use all the slots in the middle for other schools you like, again according to you're geniune preference.

That's not necessarily true about schools not knowing how they've been ranked.

In the school where I work, the Local Authority send us a list of all the children who have been offered a place, including whether our school was their 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice.

It's really helpful for us to know, as, for us, 3rd choices rarely take up the place and it gives us an indication of how many places are going to be filled.

Genuine order of preference, with a shoe-in at least somewhere on the list.

If I have read Henny correctly then he/she is incorrect. If you live in the grounds of a school and place it last on your list, you'll qualify for it over and above someone who lives 20 miles away who puts it first. (All other things being equal of course). The only way you wouldn't get it is if you were given one of your higher choices.

As others have said: put your favourite first, your 2nd favourite second, etc... until you get to your 6th which is an absolute dead cert because you live on the doorstep/realistically expect it to be undersubscribed. This ensures that if you don’t get any of your preferences 1-5 you are at least allocated a nearby school that you thought of, rather than a surprise place picked for you by the LA on the other side of the borough.

Your list is saying “I really want number 1, but if I don’t get that I want 2, and if I don’t get 1 or 2 I want 3...” etc.

I phoned the council before we applied for our place for this September and was told that I should put the school we really wanted as number 1 even if we weren't sure we'd get in. She said to just make sure that you include a school you're sure you will get on your list because otherwise you will be randomly allocated a school and it may be one you haven't heard of or visited and may be quite far away.

It doesn't matter if you put a school as your 3rd choice and someone else puts it as their 1st as if you don't get your first 2 choices and meet more of the criteria for your 3rd choice school than the person who put it 1st then you'd get in over them. Each school is considered as though it was your only choice and then you are allocated the school which was highest up your list for which you met the admissions criteria.

If only every council explained it as clearly as Squidgling's, there wouldn't be half the confusion there is.

All 6 schools will receive your application and decide if they can offer you a place. They will inform the LA whether they can offer you a place and the LA will then offer whichever acceptance is top of your preference list.

That’s why there is no other way than to list genuine preference, but also ensure your closest school is one of the 6 so you don’t end up left with no school

Sorry x posted with Meditrina

All 6 schools will receive your application and decide if they can offer you a place. They will inform the LA whether they can offer you a place and the LA will then offer whichever acceptance is top of your preference list.

That isn't true. For LA maintained schools they don't receive the applications as they are managed on their behalf. They don't decide who to offer places to- the LA ranks based on the admission criteria.

For LA maintained schools they don't receive the applications as they are managed on their behalf. They don't decide who to offer places to- the LA ranks based on the admission criteria.

Some own admissions authority schools still get the LA to provide the 'whole package' as well, but the principle is still the same, that applicants are ranked according to the admissions criteria of the school concerned.

In the school where I work, the Local Authority send us a list of all the children who have been offered a place, including whether our school was their 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice. The pertinent point here is who have been offered a place. So the ranking against your admissions criteria has already been done? If you really mean that you are an own admissions authority school and your maintaining LA tells you where children have placed you in the list they send to the school to be ranked, this is a massive breach if the Admissions Code. Where someone puts a school in their order of preference cannot be taken into account when applicants are ranked.