More likely to get 1st choice if I write why?

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Just wondering if I should write my reasons for my first choice in my state school application? This is optional on the application, but I'm wondering if this will give us a better chance.

I have my heart set on the local outstanding school and a neighbour's son 3 doors down got a place last year, so hoping distance will give us a better chance.

Also, can I try and be a bit strategic by putting down good schools that are further away? That way they can't not give us our 1st choice

There’s no point filling in the box about reasons for first choice unless there’s exceptional circumstances that would support one of the selection criteria (like medical needs for example).

Like if your DC was in a wheelchair and the preferred school was the only wheelchair friendly school locally.

And I know it’s been said, but the council don’t have to give you any of the schools on your list - if there’s too many children ahead of your DC based on the selection criteria, then worst case, your DC won’t get any of your preferred schools and will end up allocated a place in the nearest school that has places left over.

When we were going through all this with DS1, one of the parents at his nursery had tried to game the system by only putting one school on her list, with the idea that the council would have to give them that school if they hadn’t named any others (because that was the one they wanted most, for similar reasons to the ones you give).
Their DS didn’t get in. They got allocated a place at the nearest school with places available. They appealed for the a place at the desired school, but they didn’t get anywhere with that, because the council had followed all the admissions procedures correctly.

I've also had parents preference only one school on their application, thinking that this prevents the LA offering them any other school. That also backfires spectacularly as they can't be matched to any other school if there isn't a place at the preferred option.

In such a case they are given the catchment/nearest school if there are still places available once all places have been offered to those that 'preference' the school and if no places are left at the catchment/nearest school offered a place at the next nearest school with places left, again once all preferences have been offered.

Hi @viques I'm ok i was just stating different schools have different criteria, not just distance. I know the criteria of all three schools and have adapted the forms accordingly. And have signed mass attendance cards. We can only apply for three schools here.

They will only consider evidence that fits with the admissions criterion.

They don't care why you want the school, how good a child is at something, child care arrangements, work, travel, who collects the child, and friendships etc.

I love the idea that someone at the council is reading the form and going 'oh, this parent wants a good school for their child - put it in the priority pile, Mary!'

We read through faith applications which are then graded for some of our faith schools.
They are requested to send evidence of their faith, whatever that faith may be. These often includes an empty page signed by the parent or a list of reasons that have no bearing on anything.

Some put the wrong school name, the wrong school address or even no name for the child.

If you think about it logically, if those things made any difference then everyone would do it and render doing it useless.

You also can't necessarily assume that people on your road got in therefore you will. That may have been a year when fewer applied, or it was less popular-our local infants went from around 10 undersubscribed to nearly 90 oversubscribed in one year (2 form entry) and has stayed around 30 oversubscribed for the past 10 years.
They may also have a reason that you don't know. For example I think if a child has been "looked after" in the past, they still count as "looked after" even if they're not now. Or there could be a medical issue that you are unaware of that put them to the top of the list etc.

As others have said, yes, put your first choice first. Then look for a banker. one you will get into that you're happy with. Every year we see the sad faces in the paper of people who put 3 schools with admissions measured in yards, but live next door to the not-quite as popular, but absolutely lovely school that's around 3 miles away. They then don't get into that one either and feel very hard done by.

I rank admissions applications and while parents reasons may be very interesting (sometimes spanning several pages) they are rarely relevant to the ranking criteria.
The only time they are relevant is to draw attention to a sibling link, that the child is a (P)LAC etc.

If a box is ticked for catchment, LAC, etc, we have to check this and verify it.

If you have nothing relating to the admission criteria to declare then you don't need to add anything to this box.

....and yes, everyone wants the best school they can get for their child. However, the best school isn't always the same as the school with the outstanding grading.

Putting down one preference doesn't mean the LA are forced to give it to you. It is a preference, not a choice.

Well, what are your reasons?

Is it your catchment school OP? What does the admissions policy say for that school?

Your neighbour’s child might have got in as there were sufficient spaces for them to fulfil one of the later criteria. But if oversubscribed for your year you may not get in even if you satisfy the same criteria as your neighbour’s child.

We applied for an out of catchment school for DS. We must have got the last space as we were the family who lived the greatest distance away who didn’t already have a child at the school.

A few years later a friend of ours didn’t get their second child in the school even though their eldest was there. They lived nearer to the school than we did but were still out of catchment. That year there were a higher number of in catchment children so they got priority following the admissions policy.

Yes, admission zones - in terms of how far away you can live and still get a space at the school - can and do change year on year.

When we applied for DS1, we’d looked at the admissions information for the last few years, and for our first choice school, we’d have got in for about 50% of the years we looked at.

Our neighbour across the road - slightly further away from the school than us - got their DC1 into that school a couple of years before we applied. Their DC2 was in the same school year as DS1. Their DC2 got in on sibling links, but DS1 didn’t.
Too many other applicants living closer than us that year.
(Ironically for us, this particular school was undersubscribed for DS2’s year. Not that that was much use to us!)

Every year on every parenting forum in the country there are threads on this topic where people think they can force the LEAs hand by doing stuff like only putting one school down or that if they indicate a preference for all highly sought after over subscribed schools then they must get one of them. It doesn't work that way.
The oft used word "choice" is misleading. You are merely expressing preferences and the LEA is under no obligation to give you a space in any of your preferred schools. If you meet the published admissions criteria you will be offered a place. If you don't, you won't. It really is that simple and there are no (legal) ways around that.
The only "strategic" thing to do is to make sure that at least one of your preferences is a school that is acceptable to you that you have a high chance of gaining a place at. Things do change from year to year of course, but the last few years' admissions data should give you a good idea of where yiur best chances lie.
Remember that if you do not meet the admissions criteria for any of the schools you name, the LEAs only obligation to you is to offer you a place in the nearest school with places remaining after places have been allocated - not at the school nearest to you, or your catchment school if you have one, just whatever is left over. Obviously, schools that have places left tend to be less popular for a reason, so you run the risk of getting an offer of a poor school a long way from home. If you decline that place, they do not have to offer you an alternative. You can ask where else has places available, and you can go on as many waiting lists as you like but the LEA is not obliged to actively find you somewhere you feel is better. Plus of course you can appeal, but the grounds for appeal are very limited and successes are quite rare, due to the cap on infant class size.
Do your homework, but be honest and sensible in your application or you may well get your fingers burned.

You don’t seem to understand the way the admissions system, and not helped by people like @Janus who gives misleading advice too.

The ‘reasons’ box will make no difference at all to your application, unless it acts as a way to alert the LA to the correct category under which to admit your child (e.g Looked After, sibling, SEN).

List the schools in the exact order in which you prefer them.

List one school that you should definitely get a place in under the published admissions criteria.

For Each school you apply to your application will be ranked according to how well you meet the criteria.

At the end of this process you might be eligible for places at your first and third choices, in which case they will allocate you your first choice.

Or it might be that schools two and three can offer you a place, in which case they allocate you your second choice.

If none of the schools you list can give you a place, they will look at what spots are left at the end of the process and give you one of those places.

For my first choice, I am following the criteria. Last year over half of children who were offered a place did so on grounds of distance, and the other half through siblings.

Rarely any SEN and looked after children from what I've seen in the last 2 years. Obviously the numbers could change for this year.

Our first choice is the closest so I'm not going to worry too much about not meeting their criteria and put down some other schools where I'd be happy for DD to go in my top 3.

Unless you know every single family intimately you cannot possibly know how many children have SEN and/or are looked after. They don't wear badges

Blouse, what misinformation did I give? In my area I have 2 catchment schools, I didn’t want one of them so I left it off my list. I got offered the one I didn’t choose but was my nearest catchment school. I absolutely knew this was a possible scenario but hoped I wouldn’t be given that school. Which is why I said ‘be careful’ because even if you think by leaving the school you don’t want off the list it is a high probability you will get it anyway. So basically, unless you have special circumstances such as special needs you will be given a place at your nearest catchment school that has a place, there’s really not much you can do about it and no real ‘choice’ at all as far as I can see.

They don't wear badges

This information is published on my LA's site outlining allocations for the last 2 years for every primary school.

can I try and be a bit strategic by putting down good schools that are further away? That way they can't not give us our 1st choice

This is how to get a place at the school no one wants, possibly miles away, because it's the only one with spaces.

At primary age there will be lots of children with undiagnosed SEN.

Janus
the criteria will be nearest catchment school to you so if you don’t get the one you like they will automatically put you in the next one closest. You could leave one out if there are 2 very close by (and in catchment) and they may give you that one but I did that and still got the one I didn’t want which wasn’t even on my list

You missed out the crucial information that they will only give you the ‘left out’ local school if it still has places after everyone who applied to it has been offered a place. So, someone who lives miles away could put it in their list and potentially get a place and then when they come to finding you a slot, because you didn’t put it on your list, there is no place for you at it.

You might have got your second ‘close by’ school had you put it in your list

OP:
-People who list a school, wherever they live, will get offered that place ahead of someone who did not list it.
-The LA is not obliged to offer you a school from your list, and will not do so if none can fit you in according to their criteria.

• The position you list the school in will not affect your chances of that school offering you a place
• the position on the list matters because if more than one school in your list could give you a place the LA will allocate you to the school that is highest in your preference list.
• You cannot game the system by only listing one school, by listing one school multiple times or by only listing over subscribed schools that can’t admit you on criteria.

But I had forgotten that information was published. It's really neither here nor there though - what happened one year with LAC, siblings etc is no guarantee of what is likely to happen in subsequent ones.

I've just done DD2's application for admission to junior school. I've put in the reasons box that she currently goes to the linked infant school, has a sibling link at the junior school currently - two factors that WILL get looked at. I've also put down that she has SEN and would really benefit from staying within the cohort she's established in and going to the school that has very solid transition arrangements... that part I don't really expect to get looked at.

Incidentally I'm pushing for the less good school that bombed the league tables this year (really tough cohort from what I gather and should bounce right back up with the current year 6 kids), and giving the outstanding amazing results one a huge swerve. They get the outstanding from basically deterring any parents of kids with SEN from applying and the year 6 kids do pretty much nothing but SATs slogging for year 5 and 6 - I don't want my kids going to that kind of toxic environment. I'll go for good but actually keeping some of the joy in education thank you very much instead!

The thing is it's so purely process and rule driven - if you meet the criteria next and there's still space you get your number 1 - no amount of "Tarquin would really benefit from the podcasting studio facilities to enable his future career plans of being a social media influencer" pleas are going to get round that (I use the podcasting studio as it's actually something my kids' school has - amazing for getting reluctant writers to generate content and ideas and write scripts for without actually realising they're writing at all!)

Our local school is a very good school but not in a great area. A friend of mine really didn't want her child to go to that school. She chose her fave and then only put that on the form. It backfired as our school is generally oversubscribed so she didn't get that one and was given a REALLY rough failing school that is miles away

Blouse - ah yes I see. I did mean I got the nearest catchment because lots of people don’t want it and it’s always undersubscribed but that’s personal to just me! So yes OP you may not even get your ‘average’ local catchment school even if you leave it out altogether and be shoved absolutely miles away.

A couple I know has only put the school they want- they did not submit any other schools. I’m hoping it goes there way - they too think that by doing this it will force the local authorities hand...total lunacy in my opinion.