Primary school choices!

[Rooroo1979]

Hello,

I am sure this kind of question gets asked about a million times but my son is due to start school next September (2020) and the four schools on our shortlist all have completely different pros and cons.

The schools are:

1. Literally opposite our house. Last OFSTED (2018) was 'inadequate'. Doesn't give me good vibes. Not a particularly good reputation. Catchment area, frankly, includes less than lovely areas with recent problems with out of control kids.

2. and 3) Both about 0.7 miles away. Both were rated 'Inadequate' in their last OFSTED reports (2017) but both have become academies and have become part of a trust run by the same team that runs an 'Outstanding' school on the other side of my city. Neither have OFSTED reports since they became academies. One of the schools in particular, though, has a lovely look and feel to it. I used to attend Saturday baby and toddler groups there.

3. About 1.2 miles away. Consistently rated as 'good' by OFSTED. Is a catholic school. My wife (I am the dad) is catholic and originally from Latin America - this school has a high number of children from Latin American families and our son is (kind of) bi-lingual. This school teaches Spanish and would be nice, culturally, for that aspect of my son's background. As an agnostic, though, the religious aspect bothers me a bit.

Of course we will visit all four. My slight preference now is for school 2 (recently an academy run by an outstanding trust but the last OFSTED, albeit when it was a completely different school, was inadequate).

Any thoughts welcome!

Visit with an open mind and get a good feel of the ethos of the school.
Do not listen to local gossip unless from parents who currently have a child at the school.

With the inadequate schools ask what steps the school is taking to address this.

Check admissions criteria (especially wrt the Catholic school) to check your likelihood of getting into. It's quite unusual to have 4 schools that you are genuinely likely to get into unless you live in a very undersubscribed area.

When you do apply make sure you put at least one school (that might be the one that's very close to you) that you have a genuine chance of getting into on your form, even if it's in last preference.

CHeck the religious criteria for the catholic school as you may be way down the priority list if your sun is not baptised and him and his mother regularly attend mass.

I would visit the Outstanding school that is run by the team that have taken over 2 and 3.

But I would go for 4. Your son may have to be baptised, though.

Make sure school number 1 goes on the list somewhere - a bad school opposite your house is better than a back school on the far side of town.

Otherwise visit the school, and put them in your genuine order of preference. Use all the spaces on the form.

I don't agree - no point in wasting a space on a school you have no intention of him attending. But make sure you do put down a school that you would definitely get into - doesn't have to be your closest.

Thanks everyone. Good points there.

My son was baptised when he was 6 months old - the catholic school's priority list is 1) Baptised children in care and who live in the church's parish and 2) baptised children not in care who live in the church's parish, so we qualify under point 2 (there are 5 more priority categories in descending order).

Based on this, I think we would be likely to be offered the good catholic school and the inadequate very close one, neither of which is my top choice.

The two academies that are run by an outstanding trust, we are about .2 miles within the boundary but I feel that there are many families closer. These would be my preferred but its very hard to gauge the likelihood of being offered a place. We are visiting both next week.

Although one poster recommended including the inadequate school opposite me, I am not inclined to do so although I have just checked and I made an error, it is rated as 'requires improvement' not 'inadequate'. When we moved into our house, it was rated as 'good' and had been for all previous OFSTED inspections.

If my three preferences were not given to me, would they offer me the closest available school?

I promised myself I wouldn't become obsessed with picking a school but I realise now its too late!

check the furthest distance offered over the last few years, that should tell you how likely you are to getting in.

yes, they'd offered you the nearest school that hadn't had all its places filled. Which may or may not be school 1.

Usually if all your choices are out of catchment, (and from the distance if sounds like they are) and you don't get a place at one, they will probably offer your catchment school yes, unless your catchment school is always over subscribed. Then you would get offered the nearest school to your house with places available. You should be able to check on the same website you apply for a school place, if everyone who applied for a place for one or not, and if not, what condition the last place taken up was (child in care, sibling, or if it went on distance, it will state the distance of the furthest offered place). If it is close, it might be worth finding out if the birth rate in your area was high or low in 2015/16.

From your list though, the Catholic one sounds like a good choice for your family. Don't rule out the one across the road though. Go and visit it.

The reason for including the school near you, is that if you don't get any of your preferences, you will just be allocated some other random school that still has places. And having a school close by that you don't want would probably be preferable to having a school miles away that you didn't want.

I would suggest putting the schools in genuine order of preference, making sure that you have at least one school you have a good chance of getting into (so you might prefer the Catholic school over your local school as your "banker" option if you think you should get a place there - check last year's admissions as a guide).

Requires improvement used to be "satisfactory" so that is a higher Ofsted rating than your 2 and 3 schools. Also, the school may not have actually changed since its "good" rating - Ofsted are constantly moving the goalposts.

Sorry I meant to say you should be able to check the details of furthest away offered places from last year's applications. I'm not sure how to check even older applications though it would be useful.