Sibling chances in an out of catchment school

[Coi123]

Hi everyone,

I wrote a thread on here last year about my son being allocated a school quite far from our home. My house basically doesn’t have a school catchment as we are a bit out in the sticks but we pass two other primary schools to get to the school we were given and I couldn’t understand why we wasn’t give the nearest to us. I got some brilliant advice (which I followed) and didn’t bother with an appeal, accepted the place and I’m so glad I did as my son is really happy there. It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare getting him to breakfast club and myself to work (dh leaves the house at 6am) but it works. My daughter will be applying for her school place in January. I want her to go to the same school, but I’m worried about her chances as she will be out of catchment. Would anybody be able to give me their thoughts on this? The school is big, 3 form entry so 90 places and two sites, infants and juniors (about 5 mins walk between them). However, it is in a large village (with new houses currently being built next door to the school which worries me).

This is taken from their admissions policy…

The number of places available for admission to the Reception class will be a maximum of 90.
Where there are more applicants than available places, the distance tie break measures from home address to the nearest of the two school sites.
The governing body will not place any restrictions on admissions to the reception class unless the number of children for whom admission is sought exceeds their admission number. By law, no infant class may contain more than thirty children. The Governing Body operates a system of equal preferences under which they consider all preferences equally and the Local Authority notifies parents of the result. In the event that there are more applicants than places, after admitting all children with a statement of educational / Education Health and Care Plan need naming the school, the governing body will allocate places using the criteria below, which are listed in order of priority.

1. (a) Children in public care and previously looked after children. (b) Children with special medical or social circumstances affecting the child where these needs can only be met at this school. Professional supporting evidence from a professional, e.g. a doctor, psychologist, social worker, is essential if admission is to be made under the criterion for special medical or social circumstances, and such evidence must set out the particular reasons why the school is question is the most suitable school and the difficulties which would be caused if the child had to attend another school.

1. Children whose parents live within the ***** estate.

(a) Children who have a sibling attending the school on the date of application and on the date of admission. Siblings include step, half, foster, adopted brothers and sisters living at the same address. (b) Other children.

1. Children whose parents live outside the *** estate

(a) Children who have a sibling attending the school on the date of application and on the date of admission. Siblings include step, half, foster, adopted brothers and sisters living at the same address. (b) Other children.

Tie break
Where there are more applicants for the available places within a category, then the distance between the Ordnance Survey address points for the school and the home measured in a straight line will be used as the final determining factor, nearer addresses having priority over more distant ones. This address point is within the body of the property and usually located at its centre. Where the cut off point is for addresses within the same building, then the single measure between address points will apply and the Local Authority's system of a random draw will determine which address(es) receive the offer(s).

Admissions information:
In 2021 there were 142 applications for 90 places. In 2022 there were 145 applications for 90 places. In 2023 there were 157 applications for 90 places.

If you are still here, thank you so much for reading!

Siblings usually have higher priority than distance places even if you don't live near the school. Also, the number of applications includes all the families who put the school down anywhere in their preference list, so the school have not had that many applications when you consider that it won't have been every family's first choice.

Your odds don't looks good I'm afraid.

Literally any child who is living closer to the school whether they have a sibling or not will get priority over your child and their admission information shows they are getting more applications than they have spaces consistently.

You need to ask yourself how likely it is that of the 150 odd children applying more than 60 of them are further away from the school than you.

In your position I would honestly be preparing for the very real chance your daughter won't get a place at the same school as her brother.

So you are 3a?

number of applications is misleading as they could be second and third choice. Fourth and more in some authorities.

who was the last child admitted would tell you more.

Literally any child who is living closer to the school whether they have a sibling or not will get priority over your child and their admission information shows they are getting more applications than they have spaces consistently.

Well no that's not true. OP will have a higher priority than children living nearer (but not on the estate) because she has a sibling.

OP you need to find out how many have been admitted in each category - the local authority should have this information, many publish it online.

And don't forget that while there may have been 142 applications last year, many of those may have put other schools as their first choice.

So it looks like your daughter will be in category 3a (siblings not in catchment). I would say you have a pretty good chance but if you ring someone in LA they should be able to tell you if she would have got in in previous years

Thank you so much everybody. I hadn’t thought to ring admissions! So I will do that tomorrow.

And sorry yes, we are 3a.

Did you put this school as one of your options? Some areas have a policy that children who were diverts (applied for their catchment (although you don't have one), who didn't get a place at any of their choices and were diverted to the closest school with places, get treated as a catchment child for subsequent children), get treated as catchment children for subsequent applications - it was a few years ago when I was looking at this for someone in similar position.

I’d that was the case though @Takeachance18, it would need to be in the admission criteria, and it isn’t.

I wonder if you can hedge your bets here OP and call all local schools to see if they currently have places in your older child’s year group, then put the current school as first choice and any schools with places in the older class as subsequent choices, thus increasing your chances of being allocated a school both DC can go to? (I appreciate this is not ideal as you won’t want to move older child, places can change, and many schools are oversubscribed, etc)

Yes @Takeachance18 I put it as my third choice as is it the third nearest to my home (although quite a distance from schools 1 and 2). @Russooooo I will try that although the 1st and 2nd nearest schools might be difficult as school 1 is a 60 intake but over 200 applications and school 2 is 30 with 100 applications. School 4 is quite some distance and in the opposite direction for me getting to work but I can still ring and check places. Thank you both for your advice.

Remember your eldest got in from category 3B.

See if you can find out how many applications they get in each category. And remember everyone can apply for three schools, so you roughly expect applications to be 3x the number of places.

@PuttingDownRoots that’s a really good point that my son still got in on 3b! I will ask about applications in each category tomorrow when I ring admissions so thank you for that. Does anybody know whether the number of applications is just first choice or is it first, second and third combined?

@Coi123 You say you do not have a catchment school, but does your LA have a postcode checker? Put your postcode in and it says which school is your “catchment” school. Always put that school down as well as the school you want.

That’s not always the case @TizerorFizz. Only some areas have ‘catchment’ schools. Most people use the term ‘in catchment’ to mean that children from their location usually get into that school.

Some of the advice here is poor.

Your older child was admitted from 3B, which suggests you’ve got a good chance of your younger child being admitted from 3A, but there are many factors which might effect that - more houses built on the estate increasing the number of children in category 2, local baby boom boosting the number of siblings in category 2, and so on. Getting the most up to date admissions stats might shed some light in this. You need the numbers admitted in each category, not just the number of applications.

@TizerorFizz Yes I’ve checked the council website and there are some graphical priority area maps for school admissions but only for some areas. @PanelChair you helped me with my thread last year about my sons placement. Thank you, it was after your advice to have a look around and take the place, which I did and my son is so happy at his school. Will the council admissions be able up give me that information? I am going to ring tomorrow.

@Coi123 That does make your situation difficult. Presumably you could get no school as you don’t have priority anywhere for a first child. Sibling now gives a better position than first child. I know it doesn’t apply to you, but catchments are so much easier to understand and plan for. It’s also far more sensible for school transport in rural areas where there’s no safe walking route. Sounds like a bunfight.

I think so; the information pack for appeals I chaired recently included a breakdown of admissions by each oversubscription category, so I imagine your LEA will have the data to provide you with a similar breakdown. If there is a risk, it’s that numbers in category 2 will increase so much that they have few or no places to offer in category 3.

Yes that’s definitely my worry @PanelChair. Just out of interest, in your time on panels, has their ever been appeals won for siblings at different schools? I would try everything else first rather than appealing though!

It is a worry, but I don’t think it’s much of one. It would be surprising if a school went from having places in 3B to having no places in 3A in (I assume) two or three years but, as I said, much depends on local demographic trends.

As you’ll have gleaned from your previous reading of appeal threads, infant class size appeals (which this would be) are very hard to win. The threshold is set very high. I don’t recall any ICS appeal (either in real life or on MN) where the fact of siblings being in different schools has been enough on its own to win.

I did wonder if that would be the case! Thank you so much for your advice @PanelChair

Also, if you don't get offered a place straight away, check the waiting list arrangements. Some schools require you to re-confirm you want to remain on the list at the start of the summer holidays when term ends and lots of people don't realise this and fall off of waiting lists.

Did you manage to speak to someone @Coi123 ?

I have often thought that this is an anomaly in admissions policies. Children are placed ‘out of area’ due to insufficient places in their closest schools and then subsequent siblings don’t receive any kind of priority for the school the first child was placed in. I can understand separating in and out of catchment/specific area siblings helps to ensure families who move away aren’t taking up places for siblings ahead of those who live locally. And also those who get lucky on a first choice school in a low birth year don’t end up getting places for siblings in high birth years ahead of local families. But in situations such as this where the OP put down her closest schools first and was given this one and hasn’t moved house, it would seem unfair to me if the result is that her children are separated. I feel the siblings of these children should be in category 2a but I can appreciate that would be difficult to administer.

As someone said upthread, some LEAs do have an oversubscription criterion which says (in effect) that if a child is placed in an out of catchment school, future siblings will be treated as if in catchment. Even so, I doubt that would be much help here because (as I understand it) that provision usually kicks in only if the parent did not express a preference for the out of catchment school and it was allocated by the LEA because no places were available in any of the preferred schools. Here, the allocated school was, if I recall correctly, OP’s third preference.

Hello all, I did manage to get through to somebody today who told me that they didn’t have that information (how many from each section were given places) and that basically I just have to hope that there isn’t a lot of applications from 2. I double checked with him what my closest school was from my address and it was school 1. I said but I didn’t get in that one and he said well you aren’t within the 1.3 miles that the school use as their guidance (I’m 1.4). So I’m stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place. I can’t get into my closest two schools as I don’t meet their criteria, I get in the third school (possibly by just chance good luck if there wasn’t a lot of applicants in 1 and 2)
but now my second child might not meet their criteria. I’ve just got to hope and pray 🙏🏻 Thanks again to everyone on this thread, your advice was invaluable once again 💖