Help understanding this admissions table please!

[JuneySunshine]

Hello,

First time mum here and may be being a bit hopeless so help please!
Looking at the school with the green dot. Would you take that to mean that the 'lowest ranking' child admitted to the school lived 1.6 mile away as the crow flies and met no other criteria?

This is from a PDF online but there's no narrative or explaner with it.

We live 0.5 miles from the school (not as the crow flies!) and have no other helpful criteria (siblings etc.) and just trying to have a look at our chances.

Thank you in advance.

Yes I would. So you should have a very good chance of getting in

Yes - the final criteria applied was distance, and the last admitted child was 1.65 miles.

Do check online that the admissions criteria haven't changed, and also be aware that two cohorts can look very different - there are no guarantees that last year's admissions will mirror this year's.

A local school went to criteria 7 in 2023 and only criteria 3 this year.

Go on the admissions policy for the school, it'll be clear and numbered. Think of the admissions priority numbers as pots. For eg pot 1 will be previously looked after children. Pot 2 will be siblings etc etc whatever it says on the admissions policy. Your places are marbles. You have 90 marbles. You divvy up your marbles based on the applications that meet the requirements for each pot. For eg you have 5 applications from previously looked after children, that's priority 1 so pot one. You lose 5 marbles to pot 1. You have 15 applications from siblings, that's priority 2 so you lose 15 marbles to pot 2. You go down the list of priority like this. If you lose all 90 marbles before getting to pot 3, than no one will be offered places based on that criteria.
Normally distance is the last criteria. So if you have a lot of siblings that year, there may not be enough marbles left to get to that pot. The picture you've posted it looks like they had enough marbles to get to the distance criteria pot. They will offer a marble to each application based on distance. On this application cycle they managed to get to the child that lives 1.6miles away before running out of marbles. Unfortunately 11 children that applied must've lived too far away. There was no marbles left for them.
Hope this helps.

Does the school have a catchment or priority area? I only ask because it says ‘out of area’ and one of the others says ‘in area’. If it does are you in or out of the priority area because this may increase your chances further.

Do you know if you are "In area" or "out of area"?

@theatremachine Thank you for the help. That's a huge change year on year. My little one is only just 2 so will try to keep an eye without obsessing!

I would assume so because it’s a primary school but where I am it’s normal for the distance to be regarding feeder schools as the secondary schools are so oversubscribed that even living in catchment won’t get you a place.

I have friends with children at that school - it's a big school and has always taken children from a fair distance away. Obviously there are no guarantees because there is always a chance of a high sibling year etc but I'd say that if you are only 0.5 miles away your chances are very high of getting a place.

@fedupandstuck @RafaistheKingofClay Thank you, I think we might be 'out of area' or move in and out at least. The school is under a general admissions policy and I can't see anything published about the catchment.
The online ctachment calculator doesn't bring our home postcode up as being in catchment but I know people around here and further from the school that have got in, which was what prompted me to check.

I would just be sure to check in the year that you apply whether it's your catchment school or not as well as the category and distance for the last admitted child in the previous year(s) applications.

I'd also say that the birth rate generally is dropping so things may be different in a couple of years' time. Also, the distance is the furthest offered on the offer day - there will inevitably be some people who don't accept so they will then offer to people a bit further away (unless people have moved closer in the interim).

@GU24Mum I hadn't thought of either of those elements, what a minefield! But thank you, both possible positives 😊

There is no catchment, it's based on their admissions criteria. If there was a catchment, the roads within it would be in the admissions criteria. Those calculators use previous admissions statistics to calculate how far away you are. You do need to check how far you are as the crow flies. That's the distance the LA will use. It's a gamble but I highly doubt you'll have trouble getting in with how low the birth rates are!

@Foxesandsquirrels I appreciate the help.
I worked out how to measure on Googlemaps and it's 0.37 miles away.

So the schools website admissions bit takes you to County Council admissions policy page. That page says the Council determine the admissions policy for the school and takes you to a general Admissions Policy document which lists 'Catchment Area' as the 4th criteria. In the definition of Catchment Area it says it's not necessarily your closest school and has a link to the online calculator I've already used which doesn't being up this school as being in catchment for my postcode.
I'm going round in circles but on the evidence of the actually 2022 admissions table it seems likelyish we would get a place.

The admissions criteria document on the LA website for this school, for the 2025-25 entry has catchment area as one of the admissions criteria. It says that copies of the catchment maps can be obtained on request, or the online calculator can be used to tell you which school is your catchment school.

I'm afraid @Foxesandsquirrels is completely wrong. This school does have a formal catchment area. It is a community school. The LA has standard admission criteria for all community and VC schools that gives priority to children living in catchment (categories 2, 3 and 4 - out of catchment children go into categories 5, 6 and 7). They do not list the roads within catchment for each school. Instead they have a page on their website where you can enter your postcode to find your catchment schools. This is the calculator to which OP refers. It is not using previous admission statistics. It is figuring out whether your address lies within the formal catchment area for the school and hence qualifies your child for one of the higher admission categories.

Oh in that case you're completely right, I didn't check the school policy, I was working with the OPs info when she said she can't find anything about catchment. If there's nothing about the catchment than there's no catchment :S. I did say if there's a catchment than it'll clearly be listed, seems the op has found that now on the policy.

It's interesting each LA does it differently. The only area I know that does catchments outlines the roads clearly.