Nursery/pre-school attached to a school asking if I’ve applied to reception?

[FreshCop]

Just that.

Was picking up my daughter from preschool today which is attached to a primary school and her teacher had a list asking have I applied for schools yet for reception, where did I apply for, and did I put this school first?

I asked why and she goes so she can go back and tell the office… but I thought schools don’t even get the applications nor can they see them it goes to the LA and they make the decision?

So why are they asking.

I just said yes I did put ours down (obviously they can’t see what order I put down?) and where else I placed in my preferences but she even asked what I thought of other schools I visited?

Thought it was a bit odd considering they say preschool attendance has no influence if you will get into reception or not. Seems like a bit of a heads up...

Are they able to somehow swing things so they get the pupils they prefer?

Maybe they’re just checking you haven’t forgotten to apply?

Sometimes parents do forget.
When the Reception places came out for DC3’s year, one of the other parents at nursery was frantic because she’d only just realised she’d forgotten to apply for a school place for her child. She had an older child already at the school too, so she’d already been through the application process once.

No they aren't.
Because of covid and a drop in birth rate lots of school are struggling to fill their places. She probably just wanted to let the school know roughly how many pre school families would be applying. As you say, no priority, it all goes through the LA.
Bit nosey though!

They're probably just checking everybody has applied as they won't have had the list from the LA yet.

They just want to know and presumably start planning.

I had this with my DD. It was a bit awkward as the school wasn't my first choice (no wrap around).

There hasn't been time for this to affect next year's reception classes yet. My DS is going to be one of the youngest in the year and he was 7 months old when covid hit.

FWIW OP I got asked this by a private school before they would send over their prospectus or let me book an open day. I said it was first choice for DD but not for DS. Then they never sent the prospectus! So weird.

There hasn't been time for this to affect next year's reception classes yet. My DS is going to be one of the youngest in the year and he was 7 months old when covid hit.*

Sorry, I meant two separate things.
A drop in birth rate, and also, as a result of covid, lots of people have moved out of cities and towns to live more rurally, which has left more urban schools struggling to fill places.

Pre-school attendance cannot guarantee a school place, you're correct.

However, schools have had falling numbers for the last 2-3 years and are doing all that they can marketing-wise to attract as many pupils as possible. I guess they are just trying to gather an idea of how many parents have applied to stay at the school. Parents can alter their applications until January, so by asking now, if they discover a parent hasn't applied, they could work with them to figure out why not, and potentially put that right to entice them to apply for a place.

They do get told how many applicants selected the school as first or second choice, but not who those applicants are.

I was just about to clarify that you were referring to two separate issues. Around 8-10 years ago, there was quite a spike in birth rate and this meant that many schools had to increase their pupil admission numbers to accommodate extra cohorts, and this increased staffing as a result. MrsSchute rightly points out that there's now been a drop, which has impacted schools for the last 3 years.

In addition to that, COVID impacted school numbers in that parents were choosing not to enrol their children before the term where education becomes mandatory. Schools only get funded by bums on seats in the October census so were then getting additional children join in January and April, and they'd get no funding for those pupils but still needed to meet their needs. Also, as many had not been in any form of education, they were significantly behind their peers and needed additional support, which again, schools had to fund, with no funding for the actual pupils.

They will just be reminding everyone to apply (and then ticking a list so they know who they have reminded). You will be amazed how many people miss the deadline then blame it on pre-school for not informing/reminding them they were supposed to apply.

There hasn't been time for this to affect next year's reception classes yet. My DS is going to be one of the youngest in the year and he was 7 months old when covid hit.

The drop in birth rate might already be hitting.
The Reception class in my DC’s primary school is only about half full this year.
Most of the other local primary schools are also substantially undersubscribed for this year’s Reception intake.

My guess it is to remind parents that they have to apply even if they are in the preschool:

The rest I imagine is to see how many they are 'converting' from preschool to applications.

They cant swing admissions.
They sound like they are worried admissions are falling and trying to get a feel for applications to help with forward planning.
Even possibly a bit of basic marketing trying to see if another school is more popular (eg they know a school down the road has a better ofsted, or a pretty playground so working out if they need to counter that in tours by focusing on how well their less good playground is utilised)

Same in my area all reception classes are 24-27 in size already this year rather than 30. It impacts the funding the school receives, the number of staff they employ, operational costs. I get the sense many Heads are quite nervous about it and the decisions they'll need to make.

I’ve just had a look at the data my council published about last year’s school admissions.

Based on that, out of my nearest 5 primary schools, the one that’s the most full has filled 75% of its places. So 45 kids offered Reception places when the school’s got a PAN of 60. There’s one that’s only filled 38% of the available places. The rest of them are around 50% full.

I suppose some of the schools may have gained a few pupils since the start of September, but I’d guess that those sorts of admissions figures are probably worrying to a lot of head teachers.

It's to check you've remembered and to organise transition into the next class/ school. Some kids will be going elsewhere and nursery will need to pass information onto the next destination. It's also good information for the school to have, are parents opting to stay for school? If not, why not? Etc.

Our primary has recently changed so if the child has attended the school nursery they will automatically get a place in reception. It wasn't like this with my older 4 but when my youngest who's 3, starts nursery in January she will automatically have a place in reception unless I'm in the catchment for another school and choose that one as my first choice.
I'm not sure if it's an academy thing or something but our primary is a leading school in the academy. None of the other local primary schools have this rule yet.

Schools are funded per pupil. They are trying to figure out their funding for next year. Making staff redundant takes time but this is reality facing many schools.

They can’t swing things towards families they like, but they do like to know who’s most likely to be joining them from nursery if they have one attached. They don’t find out the confirmed list of new starters until the LA tells them, but they can make a pretty good guess if they know who has applied.

I also agree the conversion rate from nursery might be a factor. Nursery funding isnt that great and lots of schools close their nursery, but it might be worth running it fills your eyfs classes.

How unfair. Pre-schools are often useless for working parents who need the hours private nurseries can offer. I say all this as a teacher myself.

Isn’t it just because if your child did stay on at the school they would go to settling in sessions before the new school year? They do this with all other years.

We have this conversation with our nursery parents and send a few reminders in the newsletter.

We still get parents every year who fail to apply for reception admission!

This ^

All the schools in our area are undersubscribed at the moment.

We could do with knowing how many have applied for Sept 23 reception so we can plan. Our current reception is just over half full so if next years admissions are similar then we will be looking at redundancies and combining reception and year 1. We can’t afford to run two half full classes…..

@TwitTw00 it is unfair but it's a change the school has made. It's one of 2 best primary schools in our area and every class is full besides the under 2s nursery and that probably because they only offer school hours so no before and after school hours.
Clubs are available but only between 3:15&4pm and are rarely filled and breakfast club is free and only for children on the pupil premium of which there are many so it's a first come first served basis and places are renewed termly.