Sibling priority screwing over local kids

[SJ1987]

We missed out on getting in to our (extremely popular) local primary school. It’s an extremely good school, multiple ‘outstanding’ oftsteds, amazing pastoral/SEN provision. We live 0.38 miles and the max distance this year is 0.32 miles. The area we live in isn’t desirable for the amazing school. It would be considered rough by a lot of people.

Following a FOI request only 8/30 places went to children on distance criteria. 19 places went to siblings. Siblings are prioritised over distance.

We’ve submitted a further FOI request to clarify average and furthest sibling distance. But I know for a fact that kids attend the school from many miles away - often maybe having lived near the school before moving to ‘better’ places.

Are we able to challenge this? It seems grossly unfair that local kids are missing out to siblings who live in different towns. Is there a distance at which people are supposed to move schools if they move house? Or is this just the game when it comes to the best schools?

The problem isn’t siblings vs proximity. Sibling families are not screwing you over. This divide and conquer bullshit just hide the real problem which is that there aren’t enough good/outstanding schools because there isn’t enough education funding.

Take your anger to the polls!

No, it begins with a C. Maybe this situation is common in London!

The thing is, OP is (understandably, as her child has missed out) only seeing the situation from her point of view. I can see that it is frustrating when people appear to be playing the system, and also agree it’s important for children to go to a nearby school where possible for many good reasons. On the other side, you could say: keeping siblings together at primary is important, both for logistical reasons and to build the school community, so this should take priority; families don’t always have a choice about moving and in those cases (parents’ divorce, financial issues, kicked out of rental by unscrupulous landlord etc.) the continuity of the school community is likely to be all the more important; there won’t necessarily be a place for the older child/children in a school near the new home, making it impossible for parents to juggle multiple drop offs and pickups; it is open to first-time parents like OP to read the admissions criteria and past admissions data of the schools they are aiming for and to work out their chances of getting in, and either move closer / make a plan B if those chances don’t look good.

Some local authorities have addressed this issue by prioritising in catchment siblings only, as PP have pointed out. This is perhaps the fairest way, but still doesn’t deal with the families who have been forced to move since their eldest got in and really need the continuity of the school. As others have said, OP, it won’t help you, but you could lobby for your local authority to make this change for future years? I hope you manage to get a spot off the waiting list and all works out.

Yes I guess it is! Ours was exactly the same, down to the number of siblings - someone who could see into the school
playground from their house didn’t get in 🤯

The allocation figures are published by the council every year so yes you should have thought about it. That’s why rightmove has a “schools in the area” section. It’s clearly something people think about.

our closest is a church school with no availability for my 3 in all their years so perhaps I should start my own thread about fake church mums. It happens, and always has.

And in fact we only got our school as it was a small sibling cohort that year. Otherwise it would be the second choice school which isn’t bad either. OP has a school, it’s just not her first choice.

With ours there had been a "bulge year" two years earlier, with two classes instead of one. Then inevitably two years later...the siblings. The furthest distance accepted was 0.1 miles that year.

If we had to travel miles to the next school, I would be cross, but we are surrounded by them luckily.

So if you have to move you should also punish your child by uprooting them to a different school? What happens if a school closer to their new home doesn’t have a space, does that mean they should just not attend school? Should families be forced to stay in unsuitable accommodation because there’s a risk they lose their school place, or what about families that are forced to move?

“perhaps I should start my own thread about fake church mums. It happens, and always has.”

If the parents (not specifically mums) meet the church attendance criteria, belief is irrelevant

Sorry I just don't think that is common enough to warrant changing the system and fucking over all the families who moved house for legitimate reasons.
90%+ of families couldn't afford to rent a house and a flat near a nice school at the same time so you already know the amount of people doing that is far lower than implied on this thread. Most people move house for other reasons and why should they have to send multiple kids to multiple schools

Thanks all. Lot of food for thought. I suppose it boils down to where your pendulum lies for siblings at any cost vs distance at any cost vs somewhere in between. For me, I still feel distance should trump siblings who live miles away - as a lot of PPs have alluded to having a catchment for siblings as the top criteria seems fair as opposed to open ended distance. It seems unfair to force more disadvantaged kids to travel larger distances across already polluted cities. Ideally I think all children should have the option to walk to a primary school, it would be so beneficial for health. As someone pointed out this issue is probably symptomatic of inequality more generally and the vast discrepancies in quality of schools, even if it is a ‘local’ issue. Equally though I appreciate this view suits my agenda! I can entirely see how heartbreaking it would be to have to move schools due a divorce or housing breakdown or something like that. I real feel for anyone who’s been in that situation.

Thanks again!

Two miles like you mentioned isn’t ‘miles’. It’s a very short distance in real terms and moving from one end of a village to the other shouldn’t warrant changing a child’s school so you can get all siblings into the same school at your new location down the road.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on MN lives in a village. Where I am, 2 miles equates to thousands of kids. Looking at places in the UK that do have ‘catchments’, density of people reflects that - catchments for city centre schools are a lot smaller than catchments for rural or semi rural schools. You’d be hard pushed to find a good or outstanding city centre school with a catchment of > 2 miles in a lot of these places.

Yep that’s about the size of it.

So if you have to move you should also punish your child by uprooting them to a different school?

No, the child who is already at the school retains their place even if you move. Nobody loses an existing school place. It is later siblings, not already at the school, who would be de-prioritised for places if you move.

Yes this could be harsh in a few cases where a family has to move through no choice of their own and cannot find anything to move to close to the school. But that has to be balanced against the significant numbers of families who choose to move for more space, bigger garden etc - should their subsequent children continue to get priority over families living nearby?

I can see your point but when DD got into her Primary it was a new school and not oversubscribed. 4 years later when it was DS's turn there had been a huge amount of housebuilding and I imagine DS only got in due to his Sibling.
We hadn't moved and if he had't got a place we would have had to move her (if that were possible) or put one of them in before and after school club (if there were spaces). Plus he had been visiting the school almost daily, knew lots of people and was looking forward to starting at his big sisters school.

Yes this is the problem with bulge classes - they distort the intakes two and three years below them. In our case there were five “open” spots at the school (after LAC, SEN and the 21 siblings) so the last offered distance was something like 0.05 miles!

I get what you're saying but what if the child that has moved house can't get into the new school as that's over subscribed? What should happen then?

Not having sibling priority would be a logistical nightmare. Unless siblings are in schools practically next door to each other realistically one child is going to be late for school everyday. This would then cause havoc in the classroom as the teacher would then have to delay starting lessons until this child arrives. 30 children could potentially be missing out on 10 mins of education daily.

DH was moved from pillar to post as a child and went to 4 different primary schools. His childhood memories are not great, he was sick of being the 'new kid' all the time. There is no way he would put our children through that.

Hoppinggreen the schools that I know who have this rule, will still prioritise siblings who have not moved. It’s siblings whose families have moved further away since getting first child in, who are de-prioritised and have to apply on distance like everyone else.

It depends what you want to prioritize. The system in most of the United States sounds similar to what's been described as the Australian and New Zealand systems. Each house belongs to a single school district. Each school district is obligated to provide a space for every DC in their catchment who wants one. If you change school districts in the middle of a school year, you usually have the option to remain at the school in the old district until the end of the year or to transfer to the school in the new district immediately. However, you usually won't be allowed to attend the school in the old district the following year. Some implications of this:

1. Parents pay a great deal of attention to the district schools when deciding where to live as there is no uncertainty of the schools their DC are eligible for.
2. Moving across district lines, even if literally across a street, means DC change schools no later than the beginning of the next school year.
3. Temporary classrooms are sometimes required when a temporary or unexpected demographic bulge occurs, and classrooms can be left empty when a temporary or unexpected deficit is projected.
4. Districts can be split or consolidated, or boundaries changed, when permanent demographic shifts are projected, although DC will usually be grandfathered into their current school when possible if the family hasn't moved house.
5. Depending on how close to a district boundary you live, and how centrally within the district the school is located, your DC may not actually attend the geographically closest school, but it probably won't be too much further away.

So the US (mostly) prioritizes shorter commutes and geographically local communities, and puts the burden on DC to make new friendship groups and on school districts to accommodate changes in demographics. England has chosen different priorities.

Seems reasonable then
It was the catchment that moved, not us

Of course the siblings should get priority. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to do school drop off and collection at 2 different schools in completely different areas? Also, some people do choose to move into different homes because they have a need for space due to the living requirements of the family. If we had the chance to move to a bigger home which meant my kids wouldn’t have to share a room I’d jump at the chance. Certainly wouldn’t be giving up school spaces though!

To be honest OP you aren't really entitled to police this and it isn't worth the headspace trying to. Even with the FOI documents you probably don't understand the ins and outs of how places are allocated.

My dd is adopted so classed as LAC. She has a place in a really good school a few miles away from our home. I make zero apologies for this. Anyone who knows anything about children in care knows that she automatically has the odds stacked against her. She's actually doing fantastic but I'm not going to excuse giving her the best chance in life and putting those odds a bit more in her favour. When we started I got lots of questions from other parents about how I got her in. It may just have been smalltalk but in honesty I found it quite hostile because my dd's past is none of anyone else's business.

To be honest even with the issues of siblings there are multiple reasons that people might move out of area so with respect it's a bit bold of you to presume that you understand these issues more than the people making these decisions day in and day out and again these parent's lives are none of your business.

To add something else to the mix, at my dd's school the majority of teacher's own children also go to the school even if out of area so they are obviously also given priority

It is what it is OP. There's no point criticising parents who don't draw the short straw or schools who follow the recommended procedures. If you really feel strongly about it you need to take it higher. I would avoid asking awkward questions of the individual school or local parents because tbh it just makes you look nosy and bitter

I would avoid asking awkward questions of the individual school or local parents because tbh it just makes you look nosy and bitter

Im doing neither of these things. I’ve asked for a breakdown of admissions to our local school which will be freely available this time next year on their website. That’s hardly ‘awkward questions’. And it’s a little presumptive of you to assume I wouldn’t understand the data. You know nothing about me. There is also no need to be so rude calling someone ‘nosy and bitter’. I’m not remotely interested in any individuals reasons. Nowhere have I said I want to know why people move or whatever. People can do what they want, as you say I’m not the police. I’m interested in the process and I am entitled to disagree with it, even if it doesn’t change anything.

Exactly
@Leah5678 There's no such thing as 'the system' as a whole. Every LAC and even school has their admissions criteria. And whether it's a problem depends on the school obviously.

It doesn't matter for supposed 'sink schools' that are undersubscribed, and which nobody wants to go to anyway. Or for schools where the natural rate of movement is such that a few kids in the same area, depending on their birth year don't get in.

However when, year after year, the majority of places go to siblings, with families uniformly moving out after the first child's been placed - people are clearly rigging the system.

You don't believe any of this, with all due respect because you don't move in circles that care enough about education and/or are moneyed enough to do all this. You don't think significant numbers of people care enough, or can afford it but they do!

The issue here really isn't a blanket policy to be applied, but suitability to the demographics and movement patterns of a particular area.