How do Primary School Admissions work? (London)

[Mumof1fun]

I'm looking to buy a house that is on the border of two different London boroughs. I understand the process for state primary schools is to complete a form with the local authority ranking local schools in order of preference and that unless you already have a sibling at the school you would usually be allocated the closest school to your house.

1. Is that right?

1. what if the closest school to you is under performing? are you likely to get into another school (if you prioritise it on the form) that is still quite close but not the closest?

1. do you have to stick to schools in your borough or can you apply for one in the neighbouring borough if local?

You put the schools in order of preference. Admissions look at it and see if your first choice can offer you a place. If they can, because you have a sibling there, your child has SEN or a medical reason why they need to go to that school, or they have fewer applicants than places, they will offer you your first choice. If not they will look at second choice and so on. They will only look at distance if the school is oversubscribed.

You need to put the schools in order and don't put any on that you don't want to go to because you could end up at any of them. If you only put one or two and neither can offer you a place then you can end up in any school in the borough, so this is not advisable.

You can put any schools down in any area and the admissions criteria will be applied. If the better school is your first choice and they can offer you a place, you won't be turned away just because you live nearer to another school.

Thanks for clarifying.

Just to add to the previous answer, you can include schools in the neighbouring borough in your list of preferences if you want.

We live on a borough boundary too. Our first choice school was in our neighbouring borough, we put it down first and happily DS got a place. The distance criteria ignores the borough boundary.

It means we have to apply to the neighbouring borough for music lessons and don't get free meals in KS2 (which our borough does). So a few minor things to be aware of.

You need to look at the admissions criteria for each school you are interested in. This will tell you how they allocate places - e.g. if it is a religious school, are children of that faith prioritised?

Distance is usually the tie breaker for oversubscription, but not always. In a small number of cases you may find the school operates a lottery system (as far as I’m aware that’s less common at primary age).

You should be able to find data from previous years which tells you how many children were admitted from which categories. By working out which category you come under it will help give you an idea of the likelihood of getting a place. It may be that your nearest school is not the one you are most likely to get into, e.g. if it is a faith school or has a defined catchment area.

Your LA should publish a list of the furthest distance places were offered in previous years and have a tool to measure your distance from schools. This will give you a guide as to where you are likely to get a place, although it can vary and criteria is different, particularly at faith schools.

Put schools in genuine order but make sure you put at least one that you are almost guaranteed a space at. If your closest school isn't great, you should still put it down, even if it is in sixth place. Then you will hopefully get into a preferred school further away but if not you will have a place close by. This is better than potentially being offered a rubbish school far away.

Just to be clear, you can apply for a school in any borough but you have to apply for all schools to the borough where you are resident. That Local Authority will then pass on all the applications for schools outside their borough. The Local Authorities do all the graft in sorting out admission priority order for all your preferences and will offer you a single place at the highest preferred school that they can.

The whole of London plus Surrey (not sure if it's all areas or just those that border London though) uses the pan-London admissions service, most applications are done online via the eadmissions website (www.eadmissions.org.uk/).

It lets you list up to 6 schools on your application, which can be in any borough.

I'm in a part of London where children attend school in at least 4 different boroughs, and some in Surrey, depending on their home address and preferences.

So just to clarify OP

You apply through the borough where you live, both for schools in that borough and for schools in neighbouring boroughs.

You need to check individual schools admission criteria carefully, especially religious schools who often have their own very specific criteria which is nonnegotiable!

You do not need to already have a child at the school, though often in catchment siblings are given preference over other groups, including non catchment siblings. In smaller schools this can make it harder, though not Impossible for children without older siblings to get a place

Distance from a school is often a deciding factor , consider this when choosing your schools.

Use up all your preferences, only selecting one school is not a safe option.

List your preferences in the order you like them, but always include a local school which is your banker even if it is not among your favourites. If you don’t then if you are not offered any of your preferences you do not want to end up being offered a school you don’t want on the other side of your borough.

If your child is or has been a looked after child you will get priority, make sure you indicate this on the application.

If your child has special needs you need to make sure any supporting documentation is provided as required.

You are not making a choice, you are expressing a preference, many factors can alter the intake of a school from year to year, so unless you live next door to a school where you already have older children you can’t be sure of an allocation until allocation day.