Primary School Admission dilemma

[NewParentNov18]

I am in an awkward situation currently. I stay in an area of London that is seeing several new builds come up. We purchased in a large new development which had a primary school planned within it. When we purchased in the development (5 years ago) we expected that when we have a child, she/he will be able to attend the school within the development.

Until last year, we were in the catchment of that school. However, this year the demand has gone through the roof (almost 100% oversubscribed) and from what we hear, we are now suddenly out of catchment.

I am spending sleepless nights now not knowing what to do. There are 3-4 buildings between our building and the school (depending on how you count). I am worried that we might have to sell this place and buy a new one 2 buildings away just to get in.

DS will go to reception next September and any advice will be highly appreciated !

To add, DS goes to the private nursery next to the school and almost all his classmates will end up at the school.

We are at the edge of the LA, so any other school in the LA would be much farther away.

You need to find the actual admissions criteria for the school and check those rather than ‘from what we hear’. The criteria will state if there is a catchment (uncommon in London, I believe) or what other criteria are used. If the criteria is based on distance from school, it should also be clear how distance is worked out.

You can apply to schools in another LA - are they nearer you? London has a single admissions form.

Just because a school is further away doesn't mean you won't get in one of them - depends how in demand it is. You can get that info from the local council.

Also you never know - this year may have been a high sibling year and next year won't have so many so you will be in area again.

Oh, and you can apply for schools outside of your LA so it is worth looking at the ones across the border.

We are at the river's edge. So there is no other LA.

We might get another school further out but we really are hoping to have DS go to the nearby school. He took a long time to adjust with the kids at nursery and now that he has made friends, I am loathe to have him go to a school further out. We won't have any of the kids in that school living close-by, so socialising too will become more tricky.

Our best case scenario is to get into the school within the development but I am unsure how we could achieve that.

The issue with the catchment is that there are more buildings that have come up in the last year which are slightly closer to the school than ours is. As such, I am not hopeful that the catchment will expand in the coming year.

Look at your borough's admission booklet. That will tell you what the actual criteria is, and how far away they admitted. Facts are better than local gossip!

Check the distance of the last child in for the past couple of years to see where you stand. The info is easy to find. If you are likely to miss out and you really are committed you might need to change your strategy sooner rather than later. For example, can you afford to convert your place to a buy to let and either rent or buy closer to the school? Or just sell up and move? You only have until January so you are right to start panicking now (sorry!).

If there are suddenly loads more children, the school might put on a bulge class.

How far are you from the school, and how big is it?

School takes in 60.

We are 0.2 miles from the school (door-to-door) walking and less as the crow flies and the catchment is just short of us based on information we have gathered so far (0.19 - 0.199 miles) because one child didn't get in at a similar distance.

We are 0.2 miles from the school (door-to-door) walking and less as the crow flies and the catchment is just short of us based on information we have gathered so far (0.19 - 0.199 miles) because one child didn't get in at a similar distance.

FFS just look it up on your borough website. They almost certainly use crow flies to measure distance.

The information will be there, on the school or LA website. Stop the ‘we heard’ or ‘one child didn’t…’ and look at the actual admissions criteria. You need facts, not hearsay, to make this decision.

Hi @titchy @OutDamnedSpot I have looked at the available data. The data states that we are in the catchment for entry for 2021-22 but that data for 2022-23 isn't yet available. So far, the only data that is available is the number of applications with the school as first choice and the number of acceptances (with first choice applications being 110 vs 60 acceptances). The anecdotal data available about at least one child at our distance not getting admission was reinforced by the nursery, because that child was in the senior class of the nursery.

On the other question, the approached used by the LA to determine catchment is walking distance.

Please read the last line in the above post as

"On the other question, the approach used by the LA to determine catchment is walking distance."

Catchment areas are defined on a map. When you talk about walking distances that isn't catchment - that's over-subscription criteria. It's unusual for schools to have a fixed catchment these days. Most have admissions criteria (usually looked after, then siblings, then anyone else) and then over-subscription within each of those criteria is by distance - again it's unusual for distance to be walking distance but it is possible.

Which borough is it - maybe someone can have a look for you?

Relax apply, wait for the outcome, then if necessary join the waiting list and see if you have any grounds to appeal. But you’ve got nearly a year of this, please don’t get yourself so stressed about it,