3 school preferences: please help me understand how this works

[Somethingsgotthagive]

We have 4 primary schools in our area, all less than 1 mile from where we live.
3 of these are really good, 1 doesn't have a great reputation. This is what I am planning to do comes September, assuming we will still live here, can you please let me know if I'd have high chances to get one of my top 3 schools:

• 1st choice: this is the school we prefer but it is also the one that is more distant to us, 0.7 miles. I'd still want to put it as my preferred option though as it's an outstanding school and has a lovely reputation
• 2nd choice: nice school, slightly closer than n1, it is 0.6 miles from us
• 3rd choice: also 0.6 miles from us, nice school but is a faith school so wouldn't be my preference as we are not religious but would consider

The issue is, that the one primary that doesn't have a great reputation, is technically slightly closer than the 3 above, being 0.5 miles from us. So my question is, if I don't put that school as one of my 3 options, is it still highly likely I will be given a place there given it's the closest one to us (albeit just a tiny bit closer than the other 3)? How much weight will our list actually have when it comes to assigning places?

You need to read the exact wording of the admissions policy of every school you are considering. How do they admit children? What criteria are used? Does church school require church attendance? You must put down the school your DC will definitely get into. You can check distance admitted on each school. I think when you understand the admission policies, you can make an informed choice.

In general, put what you want in the order you want them but always include a school you will get into. Or you would run the risk of getting nothing near you.

@TizerorFizz I know of families who live very close to our street whose children have been admitted in all of the schools I listed above so it's a bit of a lottery. Admission criteria is always the same: priority to DC in care, siblings, children of school staff and then those living closest to the school. The religious school only caters for 10% of their intake to be linked to church attendance so we still have a high chance of getting in (our neighbours did for example).

You should always list schools in your true order of preference (with the caveat as per @TizerorFizz' post , that you should always include - as your final preference, if necessary- the school that your DC is more or less guaranteed a place at). The law says that you have the right to express preferences and that your preference must be met, unless to do so would prejudice the efficient provision of education - put the school over its PAN for the year group (unless in one of a very short list of defined exceptions) etc. Your LA will look at how your application is ranked against each school's published admissions criteria, and will allocate you a place at the highest of your preferences that can offer, or offer a place at the nearest undersubscribed school, if none can be met.

('Past performance no guarantee of future success' or whatever the phrase is - just because neighbour's DC got in to a school on a different intake, you cannot necessarily rely on your DC getting in in their year group).

Have a look on the schools admissions pages on your council website.

There is usually a list of all the schools which tells you whether they were under or over subscribed last year, and what was the furthest distance they admitted from.

It may be that based on that information you feel confident that one of your 3 preferences will be able to offer you a place.

However, if the 4th less popular / nearest school was also over subscribed it could be a risk. Because they will first allocate places to all those who listed it as a preference (e.g if loads of people listed it 3rd and didn’t get places in the first two, or if it was their favoured school due to distance etc) .

If then none of your 3 can give you a place, the nearest will also be full, and they will allocate you a school elsewhere that has space. And it could be a much worse school miles away.

How confident are you of a place in your top 3?

If your nearest school is usually undersubscribed, fine. You should get a place there if you don’t get your top 3.

Otherwise, how strong is your preference for the faith school over your nearest school? Is your nearest school actually bad, or just not as much favoured?

Thanks all. TBH there are also other primaries within a mile from where we live, most of which have a good reputation, these 4 are the closest but there are other 2 or 3 schools also within 0.8-1 mile from us that would also work in terms of distance to our home/station. I am fairly confident that it's unlikely we will be given a place in a school much more far away. All the families I know have children attending one of the 4 schools I mentioned in my OP and they all live more or less close to us in the neighbourhood.

Thanks for the tip re checking the SA website, will have a look.

Don’t forget that the school will be sitting at the centre of a 360 degree of potential applications hoping to get in on distance. Your neighbours might have got their place in their application year, but that does not mean that in another year someone from way over on the other side of the potential applicants could have been the one to be a metre or two closer.

You need to look at the last distance for the last few years to see how "safe" these are. I'm guessing g you live in a very population dense area!

Also how big are the schools? You could have more chance at a 3 class entry 0.7 miles away than 1 class entry 0.5 miles away for example.

Thanks all. I looked at the max distance and a couple of these were around 3 miles, one of them more strict just under 1 mile but they change massively every year.
General intake seems to be 90 children per year, the less desirable school only seems to take 30 children actually.

And do remember that sometimes strange things happen! One year we had 28 siblings in a class of 30

As long as your first choice school isn't oversubscribed, you'll get in. If it is, then everyone who applies will be assessed against their success criteria and prioritised accordingly. If you don't get in, you'll go through the same process for your second preference school, then the 3rd if you don't get in the 2nd.

If you don't get in to any of your 3 preferences, then they'll allocate your child to the nearest school which still has spaces. That will be the school you're less keen on if it's undersubscribed, but elsewhere if it is oversubscribed as you didn't apply there (so wouldn't be given priority over someone who did, even if you live closer than them).

Basically you'll only get allocated that school if you don't get one of the others and that school has space. They won't give it to you purely because it's your closest school, if any of the schools on your preference list have space. So to answer your question about how much weight your order of preference has in terms of where you get allocated, the answer is a lot. As long as one of them has space, or you meet their admissions criteria ahead of others who apply if they're oversubscribed, you'll get one of the schools that you want.

I hope that makes sense.

"As long as one of them has space". Yes but you must include one that is a cast iron certainty. You cannot hope for the best. Put the "definitely will get into" preference as third.

Imagine you have three people with fruit that is to be handed out to a group. Everybody has said beforehand what they'd like most, 2nd and least.

All at the same time, each person hands a list to the fruit distributors who should be offered their apples, their oranges or their bananas. The distributors look and see Fred who has put down apples as his 1st preference is top of the list. Fred is offered an apple. If Fred accepts it, he then walks away with his apple. Daphne, who didn't particularly want an apple, is next on the list of both apples and oranges. Because she prefers oranges and she's top of the orange list, she gets offered an orange. Vilma wanted bananas, even though she would have got an apple or an orange if she wanted one, so she gets a banana.

This continues until maybe the apples are all gone. For some people, they would have preferred an apple, but they get offered their second choice of an orange. Some accept happily, others accept but say they'd like to be offered an apple if anybody comes back and says they've changed their mind or isn't hungry after all. Others ask for a reconsideration because they've decided they do not want their second/third choice fruit. This happens until everybody has been offered fruit or all the apples, bananas and oranges are gone.

Unfortunately for Shaggy, the fruit he preferred has all gone. However, the fruit distributors say 'We've got some strawberries, would you like those instead?'. Shaggy either accepts, hangs around on the offchance that somebody announces that actually, they've decided to go and buy ice cream so they don't need fruit after all and returns theirs, or asks for it to be reconsidered/if somebody could check out back to see if there's another apple.

Scoobie, though, says if he can't have apples, he's not going to accept anything else, thinking that'll make the apple person give them an apple. As nobody has returned their apple, Scoobie then finds himself without any fruit at all and has to find some himself after everybody else has taken their preferred fruit.

You put your favourite school 1st, your next 2nd and your third, 3rd. If all goes well, you'll get 1 or 2, maybe 3. If not and assuming there's nowhere else further away with spaces/it's not equally oversubscribed and the majority haven't already qualified for an offer at your 1, 2, or 3, the chances are that you'll be offered the one you haven't included.

To be fair, OP sounds like she's being sensible and putting all 3 preferences as schools she's got a realistic chance of getting. Whilst she doesn't want to name her most local school, she's picking the next 3 most local which are all less than a mile away, which all admitted children as close as her child is in recent years.

If she was picking schools totally out of her local area my advice would be very different but she's being sensible.

I'm not sure you can infer the OP is being sensible... if the max distance really does change year to year then the OP absolutely needs to include a banker, a safe bet, rather than risk being allocated to somewhere completely random, possibly miles away.

OP, it sounds like you're doing it, but you just have to go through all the available stats and think school by school what the chances are.

It's no problem to list an outside chance as no.1, that won't prejudice you getting a spot at one further down the list and it would put you on the waiting list.

All of her choices are within a mile of her house, with people from her immediate area attending all 3. How are they not sensible choices? You'd have a point if her 3 choices were all the other side of town but, from the information she has given, yes I think I can actually infer that they are sensible choices (obviously you disagree, you are entitled too, but I do find your comments a bit ott and scaremongering for OP, making her feel there's a high chance she won't get any of her 3 choices and should put the one she doesn't want as one of her 3 options just in case. On the information she has given, she would be incredibly unlucky not to get any of those 3. She doesn't have to put her most local as a 'banker' if she really doesn't want it. The other 3 are all less than a mile from her house with intakes of 90! I've known many people to waste their preferences on silly punts which are never going to come off before but this really doesn't sound like one of them.

What I would advise though OP is that you visit all 4 in the autumn to get a better feel, before you apply. A bad reputation doesn't mean the school will be bad for your child. You may feel differently about it after visiting. If you really don't like it though you don't have to put it as an option just because it's technically your most local school. You're very lucky to have 4 choices 0.7 miles or less from your house and another 3 within a mile. For some people, even their 'banker' local school is further away than that! I'd say all 3 of your preferences sounds quite 'banker' to me, especially as you know people near your house who have been admitted to all 3.

Thank you! @BoleynMemories13 yes so there is a really small difference in distance between the school we don’t want and the other 3 we’d put in our top 3 and as I said all the families in our area I know have kids in either of those 3 so I hope it’s realistic. We’ll definitely look into it further but I don’t want use one of my 3 preferences for the school we don’t like

@Somethingsgotthagive

The problem is that admissions vary year on year. I agree that looking at all distance admitted info is vital. It varies due to numbers of dc who qualify in each year above yours in the criteria. So you won't know how many there are in each category, eg siblings, births, etc. You won't know if the cut off is 100m from you or 400m.

Are you now saying the banker school is the one you don't want? The best info is still the LA web site to see the admission pattern for each school you like.