How close do you have to live to a school to be pretty much guarenteed a place?

[MagicNappySack]

Admission is a year off for DD but reading your stories of your poor DC not being offered a place at your local school is making me nervous.

Really, how close have you lived to a school and still not been offered a place?

Here the cut off can be 400-500m

THanks EldonAve - Are you in the city or more surburbia?

This year it was 374 metres.

Last year it was 481 metres.

we are zone3 London

often your local council will publish the distances for last years admissions

Different in different areas and for different schools. I'm in N London. Most popular schools it's roughly anything between 0.25 miles-0.5 miles. Some also have catchment areas - ask school or LEA for map.

Here the furthest admission for Sept was 773m from school -we had 32 siblings this year! (admit 60 at reception). That's in Surrey. The distances are on our county website.

we are the suburbs of Manchester if that helps.

We also have 32 siblings starting this year in September, intake 60 for the year.

Also depends on admissions criteria - so do check - it's not just about distance

If it's a VA faith school then often (but not always) all places are taken by those practising the religion in question (eg we live no more than 20m from a RC primary, but zero chance of getting in as not all the RC kids get in & we are not RC, not that we wanted her to go there, but it is the nearest school to us obviously!)

Also check if your LA use "catchments" as your nearest school is not always your catchment school & if you are "out of catchment" you are lower down the admissions criteria even though you may live nearer than someone in catchment.

In our area (lancs) I looked at the figures for the last 3 years & it seems that roughly half or just over half of the places go to siblings every year, and that seems a reasonable "rule of thumb" based on the responses on this thread too.

IME, once you know which schools you are interested in, get chatty with the school secretary & they'll tell you the distances for the past few years

It must depend hugely on where you live. Here (large town in South East) the catchment area is roughly 3/4 of a mile round the school and catchment children always get a place. DD's friend has got a place in Reception for next year and she lives about 3 miles away. (the schools round here are all oversubscribed but once you sort out preferences everyone seems to get there first or second choice without any trouble).

There are no guaranteed places here unless youhave a statement of special needs which names the school. It goes on admissions criteria which is: (C&P from council) after statemented children

(1)
Children in Care(2) Sibling applicants
(3)
Highly exceptional medical/social reasons*
(4)
Children resident within the catchment area of the school
(5)
Denominational grounds ? Some Church of England Primary Schools only (see also pages 21 - 39)
(6)
Other applicants

It varies massively depending on area and school.

I am in a small city in East Mids and some schools have a cut-off according to the stats of less than half a mile.

BUT these are schools with a single class intake (ie 30 pupils) and in a densely populated housing estate.

Where I live (leafy suburb) the figure is usually several miles as the schools take kids from well out of catchment. Certainly everyone within say a mile and a half of my DCs' schol gets in.

Outside of London, most schools have a local or catchment area within which you should be pretty sure of a place.

Don't worry about threads on MN OP - these are just a tip of an iceberg, most of which is made up of thousands of people who got their first choice and are very happy thanks - only they don't really need to start a thread!

Around here, it quite often happens that people live too far away from their nearest school to get a place.

Your LEA's website (usually under 'school admissions') should provide details of the farthest distance at which a place has been awarded at each school. But as others have said, there may be other considerations (eg priority for looked after children, social and medical need and siblings).

It varies so, so widely that it's impossible to say. Many rural schools struggle to attract enough pupils and will happily take people from quite a distance. My DD1's lovely, small school in Hampshire is undersubscribed in almost all year groups and trying to attract new children.

It really does all depend on the admission arrangements for the school in question. You could literally live next door to the school and not get a place if it was a faith school that had a faith requirement in the admission criteria, not you could not meet.

As others have said if you find on the LA website the primary school booklet then that should give you information not only on the admission criteria but also what numbers were admitted and on what criteria. Also take care over any distance criteria, is it straight line distance or by walking route or by road? Check carefully on the website.

It depends who else applies.
We don't live near enough to get a place at our nearest school.

You can look on your council or LEA website to find out how far the farthest place was last year, and then go to mapmyrun.com to see how far you are.

We are .55km from our first choice school. Last year the farthest place was something like .65km, this year 37 out of 60 places were taken by siblings and the farthest place was .55km. Meaning, DD1 got a place but our neighbours at the end of the street did not. We are in a highly oversubscribed area though (SW London).

depends where you live. get in touch with your local council