Confusing situation for school applications

[Sarahgriffin012]

Looking for some advice.
My daughter is due to start primary school in September next year. School viewings are currently taking place but me and my daughters father are facing some difficulties with the applications and address.

We have shared custody, and my daughter resides at both of our houses equal amounts of time. For purposes such as the GP, she’s registered at my address. However school wise, we’d ideally like her to go to schools more local to her father.

We only live a 15 minute drive away from eachother, however I’m unsure if she’s in the correct ‘catchment area’ for the schools local to her father if my address is her ‘permanent residence’.

We have done some research and have seen that there something called a declaration letter, where we’d state that she resides at both addresses equally, however it states that we should agree on what address is her permanent address. This doesn’t give me any clarity on what that means in terms of everything else. For example, do I then have to change her address with the doctors, does her child benefit payments stop going to me and go to her father instead, does her father become her ‘main carer’?

I’m just very confused about the whole situation and I’m wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and wondering what the outcome was.

Ive looked for ‘catchment area’ finders, however they all charge a £30 a month subscription which seems excessive to me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I forgot to add she currently attends a preschool very local to her father and this has worked perfectly for us.

Depending on where you are, your local council may have catchment areas listed (where i live you only have one catchment school) They should also list how many kids got in on each of their criteria and jow far the furthest admission was.

Many areas use distance not fixed catchments in their admissions policy. The data for last year and previous years will show the distance for last child admitted in each admissions category. It should also say how this is measured for each school. Who is registered to receive child benefit?

If you receive child benefit, your address is registered as the primary one, I believe. You can state preferences of schools near to her father, but it will depend on where you fit in the criteria, distance and whether they are over subscribed.

Each authority will have their own policy on how address is decided in this case. It won’t be the same everywhere. Look up the admissions policy for the local authority where you live (or authorities if you aren’t in the same one).

Bear in mind some schools may be their own authority and differ slightly from the LEA.

My local council says use the address they spend most of the time, if its 50/50 custody then parents need to agree together which address to use so there'd be no issue using dads address here.
Just google "X council school admissions shared custody" and see what the policy is.

Each admissions authority is allowed to set their own rules on which address is used when an applicant lives in multiple places and how an applicant's address is verified/supported. They also vary wildly in how lax or not they are in policing it (unsurprisingly, it's far more likely to be policed strictly when an area has one or a few highly oversubscribed schools and some that are less in demand). So start with your local authority's site and read through the information available there. Confirm that the schools you're looking at use the LA as their admissions authority since some do serve as their own, especially academies - if not you'll need to read the application and admissions information provided by each school.

But to answer one of your questions as best as possible without school-specific information... yes, it's quite common for admissions authorities to say that the address the child is registered with the GP at and where they receive the child benefit is the address they need to apply from. In cases of 50/50 the parents can decide which home that's at, but in effect you may well have to make a decision about where the primary residence is rather than picking and choosing for each thing based on what's most advantageous in that specific scenario.

Don’t pay for catchment advice. Where does she / will she sleep Sunday to Thursday during term time? Does the nursery have both your addresses and does your ex take and collect as much as you? Read the admissions policies for 26-27 for each school you are considering (some schools still have 25- 26 on their website), it will explain how places will be allocated. The LA or the school may also have information on how places were allocated in previous years, but check the same Published Admission Number (PAN) will apply, I.e. if they took 60 children this year but reduce to 30 for next year, you will need to take that into account (and vice versa - more likely in a school in a new housing development).