Reception Allocation - Can I appeal?

[Maria2Day]

We got our third choice and are heartbroken! Son already attends preschool at the school in catchment, and we’ve lived in the village 10 years (my partner’s been here his whole life!)

At a loss of what to do, I’m really struggling with this and have cried every day since. It just doesn’t seem a fair system, I get there has to be something but still!

The stats published on our LA website says that for the school we did get, last person offered was 1900m away but were 2200 away?? Surely this is an error, either on their published info or our admission? If it’s the latter, is it grounds for appeal? It wouldn’t necessarily help us get into the one we want but, what if it could?

Any advice would be much appreciated xoxo

Yeah I’m felling less and less hopeful of any chance with appealing! Hoping we get in at some point, just feel so bad he has to start school, which is a big thing anyway, knowing literally no one - no one we know is going to that school 😩

It does seem crazy that you’re not in a school 500m away and being sent to one much further away.
I hope you are very top of the list

It does seem crazy that you’re not in a school 500m away and being sent to one much further away.

If there are more applicants than places, then the allocation must be according to the oversubscription criteria, and the OP has already said that Annoyingly our school favours siblings over catchment which would’ve made a difference!.

Back before the new building meant new families with primary school age DC, the school was probably very glad of people from further away naming it as their first effective preference, given that sufficient bottoms on chairs ensures viability. But this means that younger siblings of those DC will still get places above eldest or only DC applying from within the defined catchment / nearest to the school (I'm still not sure whether it's the former that applies here, or 'the distance people get in from' being used as shorthand for 'in catchment') - joined by the siblings of those very close to the school who did get in in previous years on catchment / proximity - to reduce further the places available under lower criteria.

Where this is proving to be a major problem, the admission authority (the LA / Academy Trust / Governing Body, depending on the type of school) can decide to make changes to the admissions policy and initiate a consultation on this during the appropriate window, but if they haven't already done this for 2027, the earliest the change could come into place would be for 2028 entry and potentially all this would do for the OP's DS is move him up the waiting list for an in-year place from year 2 onwards.

In terms of the school much further away part, the allocated school was actually on the OP's CAF, albeit as third preference (although possibly to try to avoid being allocated a school as their 'nearest undersubscribed' which they would have been even less keen on).

I wouldn’t worry about that. I wouldn’t worry about that at all. My youngest has just been offered her place for reception and none of the other kids in her nursery got in to that school so she won’t know anybody there except her big sister, but she’ll be in key stage two so she won’t see her.

@Maria2Day I also wouldn't lose any sleep over the issue that your DS won't know anyone at your 3rd preference school - I can safely say that if any of our three pined for the company of their day nursery friends for any longer than the first day or two in reception, they kept completely quiet on the subject. DS1 had said in advance of starting that he wasn't worried about starting school, but was sad to be leaving nursery, but even he never asked anything along the lines of, Why hasn't X come ro my school? It was inevitable that no-one from their nursery would be at their primary school, because nursery was 10 miles away near DH's work and the couple of other families who lived near-ish to us didn't live so close that we would be applying to the same primary schools.

Through choice, our first preference school was not the nearest (we're urban, so we're talking c. a quarter of a mile/ three quarters of a mile), but it turned out that all of oir DC had pupils in theor year groups whom they did know from various local activities- although tbh, it was initially I who recognised the parents, rather than the DC recognising each other.

This happened at a school near us. Out of 30 spaces 28 were taken by siblings. Kids in the same street as the school didnt get offered a place.