How do admissions work? (Second and third choices)

[ThirtyFourty]

I was hoping to understand a bit more about how second and third choices work when it comes to applying for state primary schools.

We love two schools - one is our catchment and one is a smaller school out of catchment.

If I were to take a chance and put the smaller school first - if we weren't successful would we still have a good chance of getting into the second school because it's in catchment or would it mean we would risk not getting it at all?

I can't find any information about how second and third choices work. I didn't know if people out of catchment with the school as their first choice would take priority, if that makes sense?

Schools don't t know which order you list them. So they order all applicants according to admission criteria and you are offered the one you place highest by LA. So if you miss out on no.1 you have equal chance as first place applicants for no. 2.

They work out the list on a 'preference blind' basis.
Put your real first choice first. It won't impact whether you get a place at your third choice (except when you gets your 1st or 2nd instead)

Imagine it like this.
Every school has a list of who has applied to it.
These applications are placed in order of the admissions criteria.
Draw a line at 30, or 60 or however many spaces.

Only if a name appears above the line for more than one school do they look at your preference, in which case you are removed from the list of the school lower down your list and everyone below you bumps up a place with a new person getting above the line.

Repeat until no one is above the line in more than 1 school.

Any child not yet placed then gets filled into schools who still have spaces.

Your preference makes no difference to whether you are entitled to a place at a particular school or not. All the applicants to a particular school are ranked in order of priority according to the published admissions criteria, regardless of whether they are the applicants, first, second or third preference. Putting a school first does not increase your chance of getting a place and putting it second or third doesn't decrease your chances (assuming you don't get offered a higher preference of course.) It's a computerised system. It looks at which schools every applicant has reached the threshold for and offers them their highest preference if they are eligible for more than one. Then if that means a place is freed up at another school, the next person down moves up, and so on, until everyone who is entitled to one of their preferences has a place. Then at the end, anyone who hasn't got a place at one of their preferences will be offered the nearest school with a space.
It sounds complicated but it isn't really. Just list the schools in your genuine order of preference and be sure to include at least one you have a decent chance of getting in at - probably your catchment school, though do look at past admission data. Every year you see people on here trying to game the system by doing things like only putting one school down, or those who use all their preferences on massively oversubscribed schools miles away and then are upset that they don't get what they want, but none of that works. Just do a bit of background research and then be honest.

Yep, very well explained by the posters so far. Don't think of it as 'taking a chance' to put your preferred school first- there is no risk involved whatsoever as long as you also include your catchment school somewhere on the form. You are simply stating that if places are available at both schools, you would prefer the non-catchment one. Always list schools in your genuine order of preference

Basically you're saying to admissions...

'If my child happens to be eligible for more than one school, I'd like to be offered X over Y.

There isnt a trick to it. Think about your order of preference and list the schools in that order. The only thing to remember is if you dont put down any you have a decent chance of getting into then they could literally give you anywhere so put at least 1 down that you meet the criteria for. Where you put it in the list depends on where it falls in your preferences.

Amazing! This has really helped and I completely get it now, thank you very much.