Child left with poor options reception 2025

[BluntPlumHam]

Hi looking for some advice.

We are in the North of the country and in an area with a low birth rate. We were advised by all the schools we visited that you’re more than likely to get your first preference because of the low birth rate and last years admissions criteria’s going beyond the usual limits, I.E going well outside the catchment area.

Our first preference is well within our catchment 10mins walk, second 15 and the third option is not but we applied because they told us that over 40 percent of their intake is from outside of the catchment.

Despite this our DS has not been offered any of his three preferences and instead been given another school which is the closest but not suited to his needs at all.

He has been put on a waitlist for all three schools of preference.

I spoke to admissions and they said it won’t be till next week when the schools data is published that we will know where he is on the lists. She was agreeing with me that it was a low birth rate and doesn’t understand what has happened until the data is published. His nursery are also confused because they’ve never heard of anyone not getting any of their preference especially when sensible options were selected.

i have rejected his offer because the school isn’t right for him, they mix their years and don’t perform well at all. This won’t remove me from the waitlist, they have confirmed.

I am looking for advice, thoughts, anecdotes and anything really because I’m stressed as he doesn’t really have a plan B.

I wonder if the example local to me that I quote is bc the schools are in different LAs - so you can live in x area and be in catchment (or normal area as they call it) for two. But agree in the OP’s case it’s confusing.

Distance admitted is part of the over-subscription criteria. The distance will depend on who has applied year to year.

A poor Ofsted in one school may mean more people apply to an alternative, VAT on fees (this year), siblings, a change in approach from a faith school will all have knock on effects that mean the last distance admitted could change substantially from year to year. On Tuesday you can find out where you stand. Assuming you are relatively high up the list you may still get a place for September at one of the preferred schools.

@BluntPlumHam check with the local authority that they haven't made a mistake. Call them about it, then email them summarising what was discussed, with the subject/title of the email being your child's name and date of birth. Local Authorities make mistakes. They messed up my daughter's application and allocated her to rhe wrong school, thankfully I was able to get it sorted ahead of national offer dat, but if they have made a mistake they have a duty to rectify it even after national offer day

I wonder if there has been any local housing development in the last year. It isn't unknown for a new development aimed at young families to mop up all the spare places after sibling admissions if it is close to the school. I'm thinking of a small development near us which mixed a handful of 2 and 1 bed houses with a few maisonettes almost all of which went to families with similar aged children.

Did you definitely put your address and postcode in correctly? Just wondering if the system could have thought you lived further away.

Or are there a lot of privates in the area, and a larger number of parents this year applying for state for financial reasons?

Catchment is only relevant if the school have a properly defined catchment area and that forms part of the admissions criteria. For example I live 0.3 miles from my nearest school but it is NOT my catchment school, my catchment school is 0.45 miles away. If I wanted to apply to my nearest school, I would be in the last category and those in catchment and actually further away from me would get a place ahead of me. Schools in my area are clustered together so all have different defined areas so ensure everyone gets priority for a school.

If it’s only distance and not priority catchment areas, then it may simply be that large numbers of siblings have skewed things this year especially if the criteria are LAC, EHCP, siblings, distance.

Usually you’re told when they say you were unsuccessful, it says you were in category 4 and the last child was admitted in category 3 and distance was 0.3 miles. The LAs usually publish admission criteria which show how many were admitted under each category as well.

You do get blip years in applications where the furthest distance grows/shrinks dramatically.
Year above me at primary was entirely 2nd children - this was before there were limits on classes, and you just turned up at one of the two schools in the village and went to your choice.
You're probably thinking that would be great at this point, but my dsis' class had over 45 in, so it had huge draw backs too.

It's not you that has the catchment area it's the school. You will only have one school that you are in catchment for (if your area does catchments still, as apparently not all do!)

Also the year my eldest started school (2020) our school was hugely oversubscribed to the point most out of catchment siblings didn't get in. It hasn't been oversubscribed at all before or since then. Sometimes there's just a bigger amount of applications than expected.

Absolutely on the first point, but nope on the second - there are definitely addresses in various parts of the LA neighbouring ours which are officially in the catchment of two primary schools - and there is one particular area where an address can be in catchment for three secondary schools.

@BluntPlumHam - have you seen the statistics for the school acceptances on the website? It will tell you how many were accepted from out of the area and the furthest distance of a child accepted

sorey to hear about what happened to you I wouldn’t be worried as my son a few years ago didn’t get into any of our preferred choice schools and got into the 6th position one but there is a lot of movement from now even up to January next year

as many children move around and get a higher placed school or start and do not like it so change school.

by February the following year my son got into all our chosen schools

You can ask School Admissions where else they have vacancies if you don’t want the school they have offered you. Or you can accept the school that is offered, but stay on the waiting list for the three schools you have listed. Waiting lists do move, so by the sounds of it he may well get an offer, although sometimes it can be very late in the day.

@BluntPlumHam

I see this has popped up on my feed again , and on the feed of everyone else who responded! Just wondering how you got on and hoping you have a confirmed place for September that you are happy with.

Hi
very risky rejecting the offer. There have been cases where parents have rejected the school/s they’ve been offered and then been offered another school within the same EA but much further away. We initially didn’t get the school we applied for with our youngest son when he moved from infants to juniors but we accepted the school we were offered on advice from his headteacher, at least he would then have a guaranteed place whilst we waited to see what happened with the waiting list for our first choice. Luckily he was offered a space at our first choice the day before our appeal.

@BluntPlumHam
Just wondered what happened in the end?
No reason, other than I got invested in the thread and was wondering if you would share the outcome.
Either way, I hope it all worked out for you and your DC.

Have you asked Nursery if they can keep him on their roll for the Autumn term? If you still have no school place by September, the Early Years Curriculum of learning through play is basically identical in the oldest class of nurseries and the reception class in school. Warning - the fees could be complicated as if you use your entitlement to howevermany hours of Early Years Education at a Nursery it will be difficult to transfer that funding to a school and the chances are you will get offered an acceptable place by mid September, so you could have to pay full unsubsidised fees for the Nursery place.