should I move house?

[twinterror]

Have twins aged 2.5.

we have 2 primary schools near us, one 250 metres away, one 500 metres.

both oversubscribed we are unlikely to get into either of them (based on this years allocation of places)

we could be allocated then anywhere where there are spaces (likely to be schools that are not very good).

should we move out of town to a more rural area where we are more likely to get into a local school - but if we did move and then the same thing happened there (oversubscribed) we could end up back in square one

we love our house and do not want to move really

any tips?

Why would you be unlikely to be offered a place at the schools?

Before you do anything drastic I think you need to find out the distance allocations from previous years. It may be that last year was a bulge year, either a bumper baby crop or excessive number of siblings.

No other suggestions but good luck!

Are they LEA controlled schools or do they have different admission rules of their own that might stop you getting in (such as church schools)? Living that close to a primary school should in most cases make it a fair certainty that you would get a place. Do your neighbours have children and where do they go to school?

I think moving would be a drastic step without looking into it further.

As others have said look into the stats further and check out previous years.

Speaking as someone who failed to get her DD into her preferred school, if after looking into it you wouldn't get the result you desire...move...NOW!

I would speak to someone at Children's Services first to find out just how likely the worst case scenario is. They will go through the admissions criteria and how many got in on each category and the furthest distance. Are you in London by any chance?

thanks everyone for your comments. Although we live such a short distance from both our local schools, because there are lots of young families in the area the distance you can live from the school has shrunk. At one school they have one class of 30 of which around half are normally siblings and you hve to live within 200 metres of the school to get in (we are 250) and the other one has 2 classes of 30 but this year there were 38 siblings so only 22 other places so the distance has shrunk there as well. It may be that this trend is reversed but we wont know until it actually happens.

Annoying!

twinterror annother thought as you have twins check out the admission rules carefully. In Herts twins have priority over singletons...as a result had DD1 been a twin I would have got her into our closest school but as a singleton I missed by just under 200m.

My local infants has two classes, and gives preference to twins for whom it is their closest 2 form entry school, who also have a doctors letter (and others) to say the twins need to be separated.

Do check the siblings rule, too.

In our area (or at least at DS's school) siblings no longer have first dibs. We were in the ridiculous situation where children living 10 miles away were getting places because their older siblings were already at the school (having lived close by when they were applying), while those a few streets away were not. They've changed the criteria in recent years - the same might happen where you live.