school catchment WB

[Sara300]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone here can help me with that. My husband and I are moving to Nottingham and plan to buy a house in WB. We are looking in some of the good schools catchment area (JG, WB junior,...). However, we were told that even if you are in the catchment you might not get a space in the school. Can anyone tell me how many applicants apply for (lets say JG) and how many will be admitted within the catchment area? Is there any place that I can find more information about the previous year waiting list, and where they were living?
I appreciate if anyone can help, as moving is stressful as it is.

You could ask the school, or look on the local council website for admission day statistics (not all councils may have them available).

I'm not from the area but just contact the local authority admissions.

Here - the documents on this page will help. The last page on each of the area documents tells you how far offers went out last year.

www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/1528474/ashfield-primary-schools-2019-2020-v2.pdf

Ah sorry that's a pdf - you want
www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/education/school-admissions/schools-information

Thank you Patricia. Looking at the PDF for 2018, there is two numbers.
1- Published admission number
2- Expected number on roll

and for all the school the published admission number is a lot lower than expected number on roll. What does it means?
For example for "West Bridgford Infant School" Published admission number is 81 where Expected number on roll is 247.
Thank you everyone for the help. :) :)

I think that's just about year groups. 80 per year group, 3 year groups in an infant school = roughly 240, plus the odd extra child with SEN and a one to one.

Our LEA publishes data about how many children got in from each category - looked after, in-catchment sibs etc - and the distance the last child got in from. It does vary from year to year though.

Admissions number is how many children they admit at the normal admissions point (reception for primary or infants, year 3 for juniors) and number on roll is the total number of children in the school.

Thank you so much. I will try to contact LEA then. :)

Hi Sara, I work with schools local to West Bridgford. Primary spaces are at a premium in the area due to recent building developments, but there has been a drop in the birth rate for Reception 2019.

Which year groups do you require spaces for? I can give you reliable information on whether you'd have difficulty gaining a place in your preferred schools.

DD is going to school from next year. We are looking at a houses in Jesse Gray catchment area at the moment. it is about 0.7 miles from school.

Hi Sara,
A new school is due to open in Sept 2020 which will alleviate the pressure in WB, and the birthrate has dropped slightly this year, which has helped because a bulge has been working it's way through. Historically, people have had difficulty getting into JG if they are at very north end of the catchment area. However, across the whole of WB there should be places available for all children, with all schools at least rated Good.

I hope this is helpful.

Hi @Charmatt - do you happen to know if any schools will have places in Year 1 and Year 3 in September?

hi @Charmatt on the Nottinghamshire admission data there is a data which says "not required" what does that mean？

Hi @Winniehere

Please can you post a link to the page you are looking at and I will investigate and get back to you.

Thanks

oh thanks for getting back to me！ here is the link to the page I just searched for Jess Gray as an example.

www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/search-for-a-school#/details/2565

If you scroll down 2022-2023 dropdown menu there are a set of figures like admission number and etc. on the sixth row there is a figure of 236 next to "not required" and I'm just wondering what does that mean？ Thanks

@Winniehere The little (i) next to the number tells you - these are applicants who applied for the school but were allocated a higher choice. So that school had a total of 292 applications, but 236 applicants got a place at a school higher on their CAF than Jesse Gray. It would appear that this school is a back-up school for people who have other preferences - they didn't fill their PAN in 2022.

Hi thank you sooo much😀 I tried to click the "i" button but it didn't show up anything, maybe I should my laptop instead of mobile！for the case of Jess Gray as mentioned above, it seems that competition for entrance is not as bad, if 236 out of 292 were allocated places at a school higher than jess gray ( i.e., they put Jess Gray as 2/3/4 preference but were offered a place at 1st preference). For the rest 56 students, they must have put JG as first choice and all got a place. Can I interpret it this way？

For the rest 56 students, they must have put JG as first choice and all got a place. Can I interpret it this way

Not necessarily first choice - it may have been their 3/4 choice too but they didn't get a place at a higher preference school. It's possible that no-one put it as first choice!

But no, it seems it's not a particularly in demand school.

Hi @Winniehere @PatriciaHolm ,

WB is an area of very high density housing (albeit middleclass) and there are 8 schools in the area. Parents are listing 4 preferences but are likely to be including their own catchment school as a higher preference. Jesse Gray, along with Heymann, Greythorn and West Bridgford Juniors (and Infants) all feed into The West Bridgford School and their highest criteria after Looked After Children is that applicants need to live in the catchment and be attending a feeder school, so it is likely that most of the applications are for the West Bridgford School catchment but lower preferences because they are living in the catchment area for one of the other feeder schools.

Given that the PAN of the schools is as follows:
Jesse Gray - 60
WB Juniors - 60
Heymann - 90
Greythorn - 45

It's not surprising that the majority of applications are going to higher preferences.

If you want my personal opinion, I would rate Heymann, Jesse Gray and West Bridgford Juniors/Infants equally, providing high quality education and outcomes, with Greythorn providing a good education just marginally behind them.

Just to add, housing in West Bridgford is expensive and typically, WB schools are not always full in Reception, but families Typically move in when their children are starting school. At KS2 they are all massively oversubscribed and in-year applicants for KS2 are finding themselves without places in the immediate vicinity. Typically, they are currently being placed 5 or 6 miles away in Beeston, Keyworth and Netherfield.

thank.you @Charmatt for all the detailed info. I have recently heard of kids not getting a place at wb primary schools and so have to home schooling, but they are for in year applications though. Due to high demands, what do you think would be a safe home - school distance in order to get a place？would 0.3 miles be relatively safe？

Also, do you possibly know anything about edwalton primary？I understand they feed into Rushcliffe, but would love to hear your opinion😊

There are no KS2 places available at all in West Bridgford, and Yr2 has filled up this week. I think there is only one school left with any Yr1 places. However, no parent HAS to home school. The council are providing offers of school places further out and if it's over 3 miles and more than one bus ride they are providing taxis if parents apply. I do know of some parents who have refuse alternative offers and have registered for home schooling in attempt to force an appeals panel to uphold their appeal, but panels won't be swayed by that.

It's impossible to tell if 0.3 miles is a suitable distance to gain a Reception place for September 2023. However, Jesse Gray had a banner up advising they welcomed applications from out of catchment this year, so maybe they don't have 60 first preferences. The birth rate is lower on that side of West Bridgford than the other and the birth rate as a whole is lower.

Edwalton Primary School feeds into Rushcliffe School. If you are not in the catchment for Rushcliffe School, it would be a very risky move to apply for a place there. This year, no one received the offer of a place who wasn't in catchment and in a feeder school.

My personal opinion of the school is that, while it would provide a good standard of education, Abbey Road Primary School is a much better school with fantastic leadership, teaching and pastoral support, and I would apply there over Edwalton Primary School.

thank you so much for your valuable information@Charmatt as Abby Road is such a good one I guess it must be extra difficult to get in？Nottinghamshire data suggest the furtherst offer was fiven 0.5 miles away😱

www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/search-for-a-school#/details/2571

If a kid lives in Abby road school catchment but a bit further (say 0.7 mile) is it likely that she/he ended up not having a place even if she/he has 2/3/4 choice in nearby schools, and be sent to somewhere 5 miles away？

Heya, I know this is replying to an old post, but hope you might be able to help. We're planning on moving from London to West bridgford in the next year, hoping to secure our son a place to start secondary school in September 2024. He'll be 4, so starting in reception.

We're conscious we're very unlikely to have a west bridgford address at the point of school applications (Dec 2023).

We'd love to know how likely (or unlikely) it might be for us to secure a place in any of the local WB primary schools.

Any info you (or anyone else) might be able to offer would be amazing.

Thanks

Hi Did you move to WB and find a place for your boy?