Can anyone tell me about Primary school applicatiuon process?

[SheikYerbouti]

Our LEA, (bath and north east somerset) as I presume all LEAS do, give you the chance to choose 3 schools in order of preference

We really want DS1 to go to a certain school, as the other 2 locals ones are shithouse. I am really worried he won;t get in (although there is no real reason) DP thinks I should just put our preferred school on and nbot any other

I'm not sure about this though, as knowing our LEA he will get sent miles away if he doesn't get in.

I am really worried about this - the nearest school is RC (my kids are not RC - although I am. I am not keen on RC schools, tbh) and the otrher loacl one (which is the frutherst of the 3) is crapola. Rubbish pastoral care etc etc

The preferred one is the 2nd nearest - the RC is 2 mins wlak away and the nice school is about 7 mins away. The crap ione is 30 mins walk.

However, nice school is v over subscribed I think, as has excellent rep.

I am stupid mfor woirrying about it at the mo, I know. I can't even apply til september

Anyway, is DP right, should I just put the nice school down and not the others?

Siblings are a biggy. We have a 60 child, 2 class intake in September, 35 places went to siblings! One whole class gone with siblings! Apparently 105 applications were made for the 60 places.

270 applications for 60 places at the 'best' school near me .

The criteria in your area according to the web site is

PRIORITY A

Children in Public care [Looked after Children]

PRIORITY B

Children for whom there will be a sibling in attendance on the admission date at the preferred school.

PRIORITY C

Any remaining places will be allocated to those children living closest to the school and/or furthest from an alternative school. Usually these places will be allocated to children who live closest to the school. An exception to this could be where a child does not live closest to the school but would have an unreasonable distance to travel to an alternative school if the preferred was not offered. The distance between the home and school is measured in a direct line.

OMG. I have a really bad feeling he won;t get in

I really, really don;t want him to go anywhere else

According to Ofsted website

RC school is 0,1 miles
Preferred school is 0,5 miles
crap school is 0.4 miles

No idea how they worked that out

I think B&NES do it by distance in a straight line

Don't panic yet, but be realistic. DO put it first. That way you will go on the waiting list. What is does mean is that you need to look seriously at other schools in the area and see which you could feel happy about. Book a visit as soon as you can - you have 5-6 weeks after term starts to look around. If you ring now you will be able to see quite a few.

I don't know about your chosen school but I do know that quite a few of the schools in town do find that a number of families move before school starts liberating more places than you may think. Ask the headteacher these questions. Don't bank on it so make sensible back-up plans.

And ask how distances are worked out, don't guess, get it wrong and then feel gutted.

I sympathise - it's a nightmare.

Re distances: try ringing the Council, don't go off websites. Don't know quite how it works in BANES but I'm in S Glos and there is someone there you can ring, give them your postcode, and they will tell you the distances from your house according to their bizarre ways of working out (and some of them are bizarre!! I walk past our second closest school (according to them) to get to our closest)

If you're not sure of getting a place at your 1st choice, be realistic about your other choices, and pick ones you have a chance of getting into and can live with (and when you look around you might find you actually quite like some of the other options - I was pleasantly surprised a number of times). And never write off the waiting list route - we got a place at our 1st choice school just a couple of weeks ago when someone relocated despite it being hideously over-subscribed and everyone telling us we were wasting our time.

Good luck!

From the Banes website:

"If under all the above criteria any single category resulted in oversubscription, priority would be given to those children who live nearest to the school, as measured in a direct line between the home address and preferred school. This rule would still be applied strictly to both children living within Bath and North East Somerset and those from neighbouring authorities."

This would mean that we probably have a better chance then quite a few families in the area

I know quite a lot of kids who go there who live further away than us.

The fact that there are already children at the school who live further away is irrelevant to your application this year. It may be a useful pointer to your likely success but intakes are different every year.

Have you found the table in the admissions stuff showing you how far away the furthest child without siblings already at the school lived in the past three years? This is a better guide, but really no substitute from either ringing admissions office or speaking to school sec/head.