CoE Primary school preference quandary

[gardenfoundry]

My DD4 is due to go to primary school in September. We have two schools to choose from in our town: Primary school 1 (PS1) and Primary School 2 (PS2). Both are great school according to Ofsted. Both are within a 10 minute walk from our house. We are in the priority catchment area for PS2. However, our preferred school is PS1.

PS1 is a CoE school. DH and I are both Christians, and we like the religious overtone of the school and - most importantly - we like the curriculum content a lot more than PS2's, which frankly looks to be questionable. We strongly feel like PS1 would be a much better fit for our DD.

The priority catchment area is the biggest issue for my DH, who is not from this country. He thinks we should put PS2 as our preferred choice, because we are in the catchment area and it's very likely our DD will get a place. He is worried that if we put PS1 as our #1 preference and DD isn't offered a place we will have less of a chance of getting a place at PS2 as it will be our second preference against countless other first preferences.

This is the order of preference in case of over-subsciption:

1. Looked After Children and previously looked after children
2. children with exceptional medical or social needs;
3. children living in the priority admissions area with a sibling at the School;
4. other children living in the priority admissions area without a sibling at the school;
5. children living outside the priority admissions area with a sibling at the School;
6. children living outside the priority admissions area who meet the faith criterion;
7. all other children.

We half hit the criterion 6, which if you delve into it a little more, is:

A child living outside the priority admissions area is eligible for this category where the child or the parent or carers meets the following criteria, in order of priority.
a) Regular attendance at public worship in any Church of England church, for not less than eight times in a twelve-month period prior to the date of submission of the application for admission to the school.
b) Regular attendance at public worship in any other Christian church for not less than eight times in a twelve-month period prior to the date of submission to the school. For the purposes of these admission arrangements ‘other Christian church’ means a church which is Designated under the Ecumenical Relations Measure 2018, nationally by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, or locally by the diocesan bishop; or which is a member of Churches Together in England; or affiliated to the Evangelical Alliance; or a Partner Church of Affinity.
c) Regular attendance at public worship in any faith group which is a member of the local Council of Faiths for not less than eight times in a twelvemonth period prior to the date of submission of the application for admission to the school.

We have been to a CoE church services 4 times in the last year, and a different denomination's service once. We also got married in a CoE church, and both me and DH are baptised & grew up going to church.

I don't know what to do about the order of preference for the schools. If anybody has any thoughts or experience then I'd greatly appreciate it. Help me convince my DH to put the CoE school as our number one preference!

How many school places does PS1 have? If it's more than one form entry you might be fine but I'd be more cautious if it was one form entry.

You don't seem to meet criteria number 6 so your child would be in the very last criteria, you should be able to see if that criteria was used for previous applications if you look for prior admissions information which should give you a clearer idea of whether you'd get a place.

You don't meet category 6 as none of you have attended often enough in the timeframe. Usually the priest/vicar will need to confirm and you submit and extra form. There is no harm placing ps1 above ps2 though.

And preference is only taken into account in the allocation process, so if you were ranked high enough as category 7 to get a place at ps1 that would be allocated, even if you also were also ranked high enough for ps2. If not and you were high enough for a place at ps2 that would be allocated. However it would be sensible to list further options, just in case you meet neither.

@Doppelgangers It's one form entry for PS1. Which also has me a bit nervous, but although it had 100 applications for 30 places last year, they were across all preferences. PS2 has two form entry.

@LIZS Thank you for the info in your second post. That was the bit I was most unsure of. I'll relay that to my DH and let him know. I know we don't fully hit criterion 6 but I feel like it's slightly more in our favour than criterion 7, ha. Desperation, perhaps.

We also have further preferences, but they are less than preferable due to distance from home (the next nearest school is a 14 minute drive and DH hasn't learnt yet 🫠).

How many under category 7 got places last year?

I'm not sure, but at least one child was. The County Council admissions booklet only has this information available:

Published admission number 2024/2025: 30
Number on roll: 238
Applications received (all preferences) Sept 2023: 100
In 2023 the last child was admitted under criterion: 7

I might phone the school up and ask.

It's one form entry for PS1. Which also has me a bit nervous, but although it had 100 applications for 30 places last year, they were across all preferences. PS2 has two form entry.

The applications might have been across all criteria but with 100 applications which criteria was the last application made to? With you being in the 7th criteria given what you've said about how many applications they had I'd say your chances are pretty much zero to be honest.

I would go and speak to the vicar and see if they'll do the form stating you are practising. 4 times isn't many but they will have loads of parishioners to keep track of and will probably give you the benefit of the doubt! Then you can be cat 6

I can't see the problem. Put them in the order of preference. PS1 then PS2. I'm sure that PS2 doesn't have a category of 'those who put us down as first preference get precedence', they won't know.

You won't get into category 6 because the vicar will need to sign the form and they know who comes and who doesn't. All of us are approached at school admissions time with requests from families we barely see. If the form says eight times a year or once a month we really do know and we aren't going to lie. In the church for one massively oversubscribed school near my last parish the vicar gets families to sign in when they attend a service.

I just phoned the County Council school admissions office and asked if it would harm our chances of getting an offer to PS2 if we didn't get a place at PS1, as PS2 was our second choice. They said it wouldn't harm us.

Any you're right, the vicar couldn't sign the form as we have only been four times to that church this year and he knows us by name. I'd never ask him to as it would be a downright lie. We've also been to a service at a mega-church with thousands of people in my DH's home country.

Thank you all for your help, it's been really great to talk about it with someone other than DH!

I know you have your answer OP but for anyone else reading this, it's illegal for schools to not consider your preference if you put it 2nd place instead of 1st. It's entirely allocated on the published allocation policy, the 1st, 2nd place indicated is only used if your child meets the criteria for multiple schools to determine which you would prefer.
Explained here far more eloquently than I can

www.theschoolrun.com/what-equal-preference-system

@scrunchmum Ah, that's a wonderful resource, thank you!

You're welcome! Good luck, we are applying too

Put your preferred school first.