How do schools measure the 'shortest straight line'?

[mypersonalstylist]

We have been refused a place at our local school due to being too far away. The school prospectus says that they measure the 'shortest straight line' between the school and our house. Can anyone confirm that this means 'as the crow flies' rather than safest walking distance? And how can we measure this ourselves to double check the figures????!!!!
THis is for Rosendale Primary in SE21 which is massively oversubscribed.....

I think for our school, it has to be a driveable route, as a commonly used route is a walk across a park, but this wasn't accepted for distance measurements.

primary tends to be safest walking ime

Looked it up on the Council website for our area.

Tie-breaker (except xxxx Community Primary School): where we have to choose between two or more children in the same category as each other, then the nearer to the school the child lives - as measured by a straight line on the map using our electronic mapping system - the higher the priority. Measurement points will be from an internal point of the building concerned (usually the visual centre of the building). Flats are therefore taken to be the same measurement point regardless of floor of location.

Tie-breaker (xxxx Community Primary School): where we have to choose between two or more children in the same category as each other, then the nearer to the school the child lives - as measured by approved public walking route - the higher the priority. Measurement points will be from an internal point of the building concerned (usually the visual centre of the building). Flats are therefore taken to be the same measurement point regardless of floor of location.

So because our school has a peninsular location, so is close as the crow flies to areas which are a long drive away, it has a special rule of it's own. However, they don't yet class the park as an approved public walking route for some reason.

Hi, think different authority do it in different ways - in our borough it's a straight line from school to house but in our neighbouring county they do it as shortest walking distance.

You can get a rough guide from dcsf web-site although it's not as accurate as the systems the LA use. Just enter your postcode and the schools to get a measurement.

Is SE21 still Lewisham? I know Lewisham uses 'as the crow flies' rather than safest walking distance (which Greenwich used a few years ago, not sure what they use now). The LA will use highly specific mapping software which is much more sophisticated than the streetmap/multimap calculations which use a postcode rather than a specific location within that.

A year ago I was surprised to find we were 800m from 'my' school as I'd thought we were about 650m. My Dad is an LA surveyor elsewhere and double-checked the measurements for me using the LA software and 800m it was!

To confirm the measurement of straight line distance is very accurate measurement that can be made on the computer systems available. Every house has a datum point on it and it is usually from this datum to either the datum point of the school or the main gate of the school (which is specified).

The accuracy of the system is very good, literally down to a few Cms if necessary, assuming that the right datum points are used.

Any similar system that uses walking distance or road distance can be measured accurately as well, but there is the obvious comments about alternate routes, cutting corners etc, which makes me think that a straight line measure is theoretical but the most accurate and least open to any criticism.

Thanks Four Arms. You sound like you are talking from experience in our area? When you say 'our school' are you talking about Rosendale? Which electronic mapping system are you referring to and how can we access it to check that the measurement is 100% correct? Sorry to sound so bossy!

"Shortest straight line" is a rather odd phrase. I'm not sure I'd want to send my child to a school that didn't seem to know that a straight line is, by definition, shortest!

Rosendale uses the standard admission criteria for Lambeth. The distance is measured using the SIA Datamap mapping system from "a point on the child's home as identified by the software to a central point in the school's grounds as profiled in the software". As Admission says, these mapping systems are very accurate.

Measuring on an ordinary map will tell you if the figure the LA have used is about right. If you appeal the LA should include in their submission a map showing the location of your house and the school. That will tell you if they have measured from the correct house.

This is from the booklet Starting School in Lambeth 2010/11.

4 Distance

Priority will be given on the basis of distance between the child?s home and the school, measured by a straight-line. This measurement will be done using the SIA Datamap computerised mapping system. This measurement will be from a point from the child?s home as identified by the software to a central point in the school?s grounds as profiled in the software. The child?s home address will be the child?s permanent place of residency and must not be a business address, or the address of a relative or carer, unless they have legal custody of the child.

Applications must only be made from a single address. Applications or offers under this criteria will only be valid once proof of address has been given and confirmed.

They all do it differently and even the online checkers cannot tell exactly as they only use the centre of post codes.

For my prospective one it is the distance to the school gate in a straight line.

Thanks everyone for your help. I am going to call Lambeth Council today to confirm that it is the distance 'as the crow flies' but I'm still not sure exactly how I can measure it myself to check. I have used the DCSF website and as you said, it only shows measurement from the 'mean' postcode and not our house number, although this is considerably less than the measurement that they are giving me. Which is why I need a precision computerised measuring tool.....The difference in 50 metres could save us £10,000 a year on schools fees so I am keen to fact check! Lambeth LEA do not fill me with confidence! Is any way that I can check it now rather than having to go to the dreaded Appeals panel ......?

Sorry no, I'm in Devon.

I believe that google earth is involved in measuring in some councils, but most use the safest walking route - so not all short cuts/ alleys are included.

Mypersonalstylist - As the Lambeth admissions booklet says, it is a straight line measurement from a data point on your home to a data point at the school. The admissions team should be able to tell you the distance from your home to school and - just as important - the distance at which the last place was awarded.

To be frank, I'm nor sure that there is any way you can measure the distance yourself except by getting hold of the same computer package. There is no point (for argument's sake) in measuring yourself using a different method, as you need to be able to make a direct comparison between your distance to school and the distance to school as it was measured for others - and especially the last place awarded.

You should be able to get this information now from the admissions team at Lambeth. That will then give you some idea of whether you are likely to get anywhere at an appeal. You have to remember that if this is an infant class size appeal (which at Rosendale I'm guessing it is) the only grounds on which you are likely to win are if you can demonstrate that there has been some sort of grave error which had deprived your child of a place.

Have you been allocated a place at another school? Why is your only choice Rosendale or an independent school?

Yes, Mypersonal, I live round your way and am sure when I asked it is as the crow flies?

How far away from the school are you?

Out fo interest, what school were you offered a place at?

We are 13th on the list at Rosendale (our first choice) and 13th at Elmwood (our 2nd choice.) Elmwood only have an intake of 30 so no chance there. They have offered us a place at Fenstanton in SW2 which has a terrible Ofsted report and is likely to be pulled down within the next 6 months to be rebuilt alongside a mega secondary. There aren't any other good primaries near to us that aren't ridiculously oversubscribed and I'm not prepared to put him in a school that neither of us think he will thrive in. According to Lambeth we are 750 metres from school, but according to DCSF website we are only 600 metres. Seems like a big difference?

I've just been doing this myself! I used the mapmyrun website. You get a map and can click on 2 locations and it tells you the distance between them in a straight line.

But as you say, OP, the DCSF website uses a point somewhere in your postcode rather than your actual house. This is why it's so important to check the measurement using the same system. You can't make a fair comparison if one measurement is done on a different basis from all the rest.

Does your 13th place on the waiting list take account of late applications and acceptances? If it does, then your chances of getting a place before September seem quite good.

You have nothing to lose by appealing but you need to remember how limited the grounds for allowing a successful appeal are.

I suggest that you get a map of the route from the LEA and see where they take you.

If you use a number of the websites that allow you to check the shortest distance by road from your postcode to the school in question you will get a whole series of different answers and some may be quite a distance apart. You simply cannot rely on one measure giving the same figure as the computer system used by the LA.

The fact that they are using shortest direct line distance means that the result should be very accurate. The difference of 150 metres between the Lambeth figure and the DCSF figure is worrying as that does seem a larger difference than I would have expected. Another computer system that does straightline distance is www.freemaptools.com and you might want to try this and see what figure you get.

If you are still getting a large discrepancy to the Lambeth figure then you will need to bring it up at appeal questioning whether it is right or not. If necessary the LA will have to show the paperwork from the computer system to prove their figure is correct.

I have looked a number of councils and basically, they are all different. You need to find out exactly what their criteria are and how they make their measurements. They have to be able to tell you because it is a criterion for admission.

There is no point surmising and postulating because they surely have something more accurate than there is readily available on the net. You need to find out what that system is from your council and work out how far you are from the school point, or indeed, the nearest school point from you, as there may be more than one.

Why are LA's allowed to use a complex system that a lay person doesn't really understand and has no way of double checking? It says in the Schools Admission Code that LA's MUST use a method which is easily understandable by parents. Not only is the software used not understandable (you need grid reference numbers and unique address point codes etc)it is not even accessible, costing thousands of pounds. Am I misinterpreting the wording regarding this in the Admissions Code?

You wouldn't get anywhere with that argument, I'm afraid. The point of a GIS is that it is a very accurate way of measuring the distance involved. Suggesting they should use a less accurate way of measuring distances won't work.

The bit that parents need to understand is the approach to measuring distance - straight line, shortest walking route, etc. They should also be clear about where on your property they are measuring from and where on the school they are measuring to. Given this information it is easy enough to check the distance using a large scale map and a ruler. The result will be less accurate than the GIS but good enough to tell you if a major error has been made.

It isn't a complex system - just a very accurate one; you can't replicate it easily because it's so granular, it goes from a very specific point in your house to a very specific point in school. It's designed to get a very good and comparable measure for everyone so every applicant can be measured on the same yardstick. You don't need to know the grid reference etc to understand that it measures from your house to a specific point in school.

If you think it's significantly wrong, when you get a good large scale map and ruler and check as Prh suggests, then question it - there is always the possibility of human error, say someone has entered your house number as 77 rather than 17 for sake of illustration.