School Admissions Surrey- nearest school and priority

[Obeythedancecommander]

I thought I understood the admissions policy with nearest school but someone today told me my son may not get into our closest school in Sept 24 because of lots of new builds that have been built in our area.

I am inbetween 2 infants schools, our closest school, school A, is 0.38 of a mile away. This school has no juniors but is a feeder school for an unrelated junior school 5 miles away that is outstanding. The second infants, school B, is 0.42 miles away and has an attached juniors but it is not a good school and has required improvement for years. There is no catchment area to either school.

Lots of new builds have been built on the other side of school A. The closest house on this new estate is 0.47 miles away from school A and is 1.1 miles from school B.

In this case scenario is it down to which ever persons 1st choice school is closer to them who would take priority? Or is there something to say that because the new estate is much closer to school A than it is for school B they would get the priority for the place as it would be their closest school too and my 2nd closest school is still really close by?

I thought it was purely down to whoever is closest out of 1st choices as the crow flies but now I am doubting this and wondering if we still stand a chance with my preferred school.

That's the norm I think. I don't think I've ever seen this criteria before!

And I expect they would lose if parents took it to appeal, because the Admissions criteria for ICS allows explicitly for children of multiple births to be admitted as excepted children if a sibling is admitted as an non-excepted child. Which is why most criteria allow for their admittance as routine.

I guess the issue would be that the LA would argue that the Code only allows that multiple births may be admitted and not be subject to the ICS rules, not that they must be. However, as the Code allows for it, then the appeal would be a simple prejudice appeal, not an ICS appeal. In which case, the parents would likely be able to argue successfully for admission.

@lougle True - they don't have to, you're right. I agree an appeal would be very likely to succeed though! It must be a rare occurrence ...

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, looking at policies. One has a bizarre policy that if they are twins, both are admitted. If there is a higher order multiple, they'll only admit all of the majority of the multiples would have got a place without being excepted pupils.

I like my LA's policy - multiple births or siblings born in the same year but not a multiple birth, get admitted together.

Must be difficult to have the feeder juniors 5 miles away. Or do they do a bus?