How to rank primary school application - deadline looming!

[Geriatricmillenial]

Despite thinking about it for, oh, only the last four years or so, it's 10 days to the primary school application deadline and I'm still umming and ahhing.

My dilemma is: our closest school (10 min walk) is one of the least desirable (i.e. undersubscribed) in the smallish town we live in. However, it is also the only one that made me smile the whole way round the tour. It has more of a 'mixed' catchment than the other schools which probably leads to its reputation as being a bit rough. It is an infants school and the linked junior school has an even worse reputation, though a new and very motivated head. It was still given 'requires improvement' in Ofsted inspection one year ago however. The most recent (2019) test results were all below or well below average, but I know this doesn't really mean much today.

Due to the popularity of and our distance from other schools, I have been resigned to being allocated to this local school, though since looking around I feel a lot more positive about this. However - should I still take a punt on getting into a different school with better reputation/results? I wasn't able to attend the tour of the most locally-revered one, but pupils our distance from the school have been admitted 2/5 of previous years. Same for another couple of schools in the area. They would be a 20-30 min walk or 5 min drive.

If I were to rank these 'better' schools higher than the local one and actually got one, would I have to take it up or could I change my mind and go for the 'worse' school? Does academic performance even matter that much at primary? I suspect not, but don't want to regret not taking the chance of giving my son a potentially better education than he might get at the local school.

Would appreciate any thoughts, and thank you for reading if you made it this far!

I would be wary of choosing any school I hadn't visited, regardless of their results/reputation. I visited a number of schools when we were doing DD1's application. 3 were outstanding, but of those 1 would have been a terrible match for DD1 (too art & humanities focused, and no school field, only a square or tarmac surrounded by high walls), and I suspected another would have seen energy-ball DD2 quickly branded as 'naughty' with it's rigid overly-high behaviour standards (this would have suited DD1 though). The 3rd was lovely, but it was clear on the visit it was much more religion-orientated than your average church school. I wouldn't have been able to tell any of this without the visits.
We plumped for an all-rounder with a warm nurturing feel and a 'Good' rating in the end.

In terms of the order, I would choose my genuine order of preference for 1 & 2 (although don't waste a space on a school you have absolutely no hope of getting), then 3rd place allocated to a school I knew was a sure thing and I was happy enough with as insurance. That school being 3rd doesn't put you further down the list to be allocated a space if you cannot be offered a place at 1 or 2.

Good education matters- not ‘academic performance.’ Good teaching, well planned curriculum, good SEND support. I’d look for these things. Look at the ofsted reports in detail for all schools you’re considering.

I wouldn’t opt for the nearest school first choice if you know another to be better and one that you stand some chance of getting into. Put the nearest school as one of the lower down options.

Read about the appeals processes to see what your options are in your area, post allocation of places.

@SkankingWombat great points.

I’d look back at the academic results on the Gov website, even though these are massively out of date. If the school had a couple of kids a year reaching exceeding, it shows that the school can teach to a high level and lower paper results might just be down to catchment and less pushy parents.

If the local school made you smile I think you know your answer deep down - feeling is important and if you thought that was a good fit then it probably will be (and being closer is a bonus too!).

I do get your slight hesitation about not taking a shot at the “better” schools. If these only sometimes take pupils from your distance, would it be likely that if you got in here there’d be even less than usual in the local school (if parents prefer the “better” school) which might make it easier to switch to local from the further away school at a later date?

If I were to rank these 'better' schools higher than the local one and actually got one, would I have to take it up or could I change my mind and go for the 'worse' school?

Yes, you would have to take it up. You could then apply for an in-year transfer and are likely to get it if the 'worse' school is undersubscribed but your child's first school place is the one they are allocated.

Does academic performance even matter that much at primary? I suspect not

Yes, absolutely! Your children will make the vast majority of their academic progress at primary school rather than at secondary school. The jump between the expected standard at Y6 and the expected standard at GCSE is nowhere near as large as the jump between Reception and Y6. That's why most of Y7 and some of Y8 ends up being just a repeated Y5/Y6 curriculum in many secondary schools just to catch children up who didn't make all the progress they needed to.

I think I would be put off by the requires improvement to be honest, my son is at a requires improvement school and there are lots of issues where I don't think he is getting a great education. With the deprivation it would depend on depth of it, my son is at a highly deprived school and it is difficult, previous schools were ' 'deprivation much higher than national average' and were lovely but at current school most of the children don't get many opportunities there is lots of thefts and aggression at the school, its a bit miserable. Current school seemed nice looking around too!

If I were to rank these 'better' schools higher than the local one and actually got one, would I have to take it up or could I change my mind and go for the 'worse' school?

Disagree slightly with Iamnotthe1. You don't have to accept the school offered but, if you don't, the council is not under any obligation to offer another place and there is no guarantee you would get a place at the worse school. If the worse school was undersubscribed you would have no problem switching. However, if it was full you would have to go on the waiting list with no guarantee of getting a place.

Does academic performance even matter that much at primary?

On this I agree completely with Iamnotthe1.

If I were to rank these 'better' schools higher than the local one and actually got one, would I have to take it up or could I change my mind and go for the 'worse' school?

The thing to do would be to accept the place at the offered school on Offer Day (as PRH47bridge says, you need to have a place secured), and then if you change your mind, ask to go on the waiting list for your local school.

If it is undersubscribed again, there will be no wait, and you will be offered a place straight away. But as an undersubscribed school it might have been offered to people who didn’t get their listed preferences, and have accepted it while they go on waiting lists. In which case you might have to wait. Or it might have had a surge in popularity, and at that stage you find it hard to get a place.

You don’t have to accept the offer you get. There is a lot of changes that go on after offer day, people declining offers, moving, appealing putting names on wait lists.

If you got the better school offer, all it would take is a phone call to the worse/closer school to see if they are fully subscribed before you decline.

I got my oldest dd into her school on the wait list, I put her on the list on offer day and a week later a place was offered as others had declined places. We were planning on moving which is why we needed to change our choices of school, but we couldn’t change our application because the date had passed, we had to wait for offer day and go though waiting lists and appeals process, thankfully we got a quick off in the waiting list.

One year the school only had an intake of 9, it’s normally 15 per class, between April and September that number changed multiple times from 9 to 13, down to 11 then 9 again. Finally the intake was 12. I was on the board of governors so was privy to this information, most parents wouldn’t know how much goes on behind the scenes though.

As for schools, see if you can arrange a quick visit to the other school next week. Definitely go with your gut feeling, even if a school isn’t rated “outstanding” it dosnt mean it’s not the right fit for your DS. As a teacher said to me last week when we were talking about the local high school going into special measures and having a new head, he said the good thing about it is the schools being watched and the are obviously focused on improving it so it can only get better.