Got into fourth choice school

[Mummylove7890]

Hello, my child didn’t get into our nearest primary school, even though someone that lives a bit further did. It is a low birth rate this year. We got into our fourth choice which is our furthest, all a bit strange? But this 4th choice seems like a lovely school, but I never visited, as it’s extremely hard to get into and far from us. Now I need to email the school asking to visit, any suggestions for what to write? As I’m worried it will be seen negatively. Thank you

That does sound weird. Does the person who got in to your first choice who lives further away have a sibling/EHCP/were they previously looked after (if you know) etc? I’d contact the LA and ask for the furthest distance a child was admitted on distance criteria alone to confirm there definitely hasn’t been a mistake.

I’d just say, we’ve been allocated a school place and would appreciate the opportunity for a visit please; try not to overthink it

The person you know who lives further from the school than you will have likely got in on a higher criteria point than distance. The reason why may not be immediately obvious to you, as not everyone will declare private information (such as their child having an Education Healthcare Plan, or being a looked after child), nor should they have to. By all means you can appeal and ask for it to be looked into if you genuinely believe an error could have been made, but don't pin your hopes on it as there's likely a legitimate explanation.

Don't overthink your email to the allocated school. Simply say we've been allocated your school and, having never been before, we'd like to arrange a tour to see it for ourselves please. They will receive similar requests all the time and I'm sure they'll be more than accommodating. They certainly won't find it strange that you want to visit, if that's what you fear? This is the kind of correspondence school administrators deal with all the time.

When we applied for dds first school we weren't successful with our first choice. I rang the education authority to be told, although equal distance from the school as her friends, the street was split in half and our half wasn't in catchment.
The school we didn't apply for, didn't want to go for and knew nothing about sent us a letter inviting us to look round over two open days.
Lovely school and some of dds friends went there too.

@Mummylove7890 definitely call admissions about this, and email them after any phone call, with your child's name and date of birth as the subject/title of the email, confirming what was discussed so it's all recorded in writing.
You just have to keep calling and emailing until it gets fixed unfortunately. I say this as someone whose DD's place was misallocated by the local authority (we live on the boundary between two different local authority, so I pre empted thar a mistake was more likely and called a few weeks before offers day). I got it sorted a week ahead of national offer day, but if I hadn't chased them up and kept everything recorded in writing, my DD would have been incorrectly allocated to a less preferred school. If they've made a mistake with your application, then even if it's after offer day, it's on them to fix it.