Seemingly not near enough any schools.

[bumpyboo]

I thought we would be near enough to the primary school we hoped DD would get into. It is the only school we are within the catchment area of. Yesterday I was looking on the LA ( lambeth) website and it gives you the longest distance away, in meters, from the school from which any child was accepted last time, if that makes any sense!

My problem is that we are about 100 meters outside of the previous longest distance for that school and also at least 5-600 meters further away from the longest distance of any other schools near us.
Has anyone experienced this? I'm not worried ( at the moment ) merely wondering how we would be allocated to any school.

bumpyboo - yes I totally understand what you are saying - if you live on the edge of a catchement area and the school is at the other side then you are going to be last on the list of catchement children by distance.

It is worth you checking though whether the distances for the last child accepted related to those outside the catchment area.

You have priority within the catchment area before allocations from outside the catchment area - so it is possible that the last places when to children from out of catchment but who are closer than you are.

If that makes sense....

I think that this is a big weakness in the admissions system as it could mean that you are allocated to a school much further from home when it would make sense for someone else to attend another school closer to their house and not be allowed into your catchment area.

Thanks Tabouleh. I'm not sure how I would find that out though?
Also I think that because this particular school had three times as many applicants as places that they probably only take children within the catchment area.
All the other schools seemed to be slightly if not very oversubscribed too so it does make me wonder how we would fulfill the criteria to get into any schools at all!

are you near the borough border? you can apply to schools in the neighbouring boroughs too

if you are too far from your nearest ones you may get no school or offered a place at an undersubscribed school on the other side of the borough

Eldonave, not that near the border really. Thats quite a scary thought, no school, or an undersubscribed one far away! EEK

I thought we would be a dead cert, the school we want is about 7 mins walk away.
Curses to high density living!

You do need to know also that the figures quoted are usually for the pupils who were admitted on the first round of placements, so the distance quoted could be considerably further for the actual last pupil who was actually admitted after all the changes that go on from initial aplication to starting in September.

remember the siblings number will vary each year and that can make a difference

at least Lambeth are now publishing the distances - last year they didn't

We have this problem (450m from the school)and are putting DD down for private schools and will wait list her for all the local state schools when (not if!) we don't get a place. Not ideal but things do move pretty quickly in London so hopefully we'll get something. She's not even one yet. London is mad.

Last year was a bulge year due to lots of people planning/having milennium babies. Certainly in our area, last year the local primary was well oversubscribed (134 apps for 60 places), so the last person admitted was 1.5 miles away, yet this year they still have places.

reception is a real pinch point, but if you can keep your nerve places keep on coming up in London as people move out

when dd was in reception, her year was massively oversubscribed so that even children inside the 'priority area' (our LEA's version of catchments for some schools) didn't get in

however, 2 children had already moved out of her class by Christmas and they lost another two at the end of the year

she's now in y2 and it seems that every other week she's been assigned to be a buddy to yet another newbie

you may well not get a place (or at least an acceptable one) for the start of reception, but it's highly likely you'll get something you want by the end of the year, and then you're sorted

Thanks all for your words of wisdom. Its all new to me. Caen, wow thats shocking. Pre kids I had no idea how oversubscribed the schools were. Makes me want to start campaigning.

Please could someone explain something to me after reading this (interesting) thread?

Does it mean that children are actually not being offered a place at any school at all (i.e being denied an education) or does it mean that the child in question is not being offered the school of choice but told to go to a school further afield.

In general, it means that a child would be denied a school that is local to them, and bussed at cost to the LEA to a further afield, out-of-catchment, under-subscribed school.

However, last year was a bulge year, and some places (like Anglesea, I believe) had under estimated place demand by around 1600. Which meant that 1600 children were unlikely to be offered any school.

Generally, the LEA then needs to convince schools to create a 'bulge' class, which means employing extra staff, and putting a temporary building on site, and giving extra money to the school.

Thanks Lou. My DS1 was in this "bulge" year (reception) and because he's an October baby, he plus a few other older ones were put straight into Year One even though they spend the mornings with the Reception Class doing literacy/numeracy. The parents were given a load of guff about it "stretching" the older kids; in reality, it just means that they don't settle into one class which has certainly impacted on them making friends etc. It actually turns out that the school took too many pupils into Reception and so were forced to cook the books somehow. Sorry, gone off topic a bit.

Think the term "catchment area" can confuse people. Now that classes are capped at 30 they basically take as many children until all the classes are full. Hence your proposed school can only say what happened last year, you may find that this year children from further away get in if there are fewer siblings/special needs/children in care which get priority. Makes it very difficult to choose schools in your situation.

In my DC's school a few years back the limit was only 0.4 mls but the following year it went up to 0.8 as a lot of parents got spooked and didn't bother applying to the most popular school for fear of missing out on second choice place too.

In the 70's when I went to school there were true catchment areas. We were on the border so children on one half of the road went to one school and those on the other went elsewhere. Assume the schools just varied their class sizes each year.

First time I've been able to use the emoticon. lou - how could people planning millennium babies have caused a bulge in reception entries last year? Babies born in 2000 would have been 9 years old....

As someone said the distances are for first round... some people go private, some go to schools in other boroughs and some move out of the area before reception starts.

My DD did not get out first choice at initial allocation (although we did get 2nd choice which was ok) BUT we got a call from preferred school in July before reception started, apparently a family decided to emigrate and told school at last minute.

Your borough will have to offer you a place somewhere and if you didn't get a place at the prefered school you would be on the waiting list.

Apparently bulge in London caused by housing market problems - people want to move out of London to bigger houses but can't afford to.

I know in Barnet this year 4 primary schools are taking an extra reception class - it was in local paper, asking if anyone wanted to change their choices because of this - I guess the extra children get allocated to their closest school with places?

rusty - you are right, I've no idea. sorry

Lambeth is one of the LEAs that does not have catchment areas. Places are awarded according to the admissions criteria, which are in the Starting School in Lambeth booklet. The use of distance to school as the criterion (after looked after children, medical/social need and siblings) means that the distance at which places are awarded goes up and down every year, depending on how many places have been taken by siblings and so on.

Many schools in Lambeth are expanding by creating extra classes and, for them anyway, the distance at which places are awarded is likely to go up. If you do some research you should be able to find out whether the school you're interested in is one of those which is expanding. Have a look at Lambeth's website.