How do you check school catchment areas?

[Novid19]

Do you use an online tool that costs money or do you phone up schools you’re interested in?

We’re searching for a house and I CBA to phone up schools for each one I find on Rightmove etc. Are the tools you pay for online accurate?

Most schools have an admissions policy on their website, but I don't think there is an online database.

Our local council website has all the catchment areas for schools in our area. I'd guess that's the best place to look.

@DeathMetalMum

Our local council website has all the catchment areas for schools in our area. I'd guess that's the best place to look.

Seconded. We were looking at several different areas, but it was the council websites in each case that had the info (one had a map overlaid with the catchment areas for each school; another had a form where you entered your postcode and it returned a list of the schools it was in the catchment of, etc)

You can use the local council site. And the DfE for school results.

I preferred to use a paid platform. I don't really care about Ofsted rating but I am very interested in results and rankings. So I just paid for a month's subscription for Locrating.com as it includes all the info I wanted in one place and it was very easy to use.

Thanks everyone! Very useful.

Ofsted are very interested in results and benchmark schools against each other. It’s interesting that posters don’t know what Ofsted does or what data they use. Their recent report on a school is worth reading.

Catchment and admission data is free and every Local Authority publishes it. Every school must have an admission policy. Local authorities should publish data on how decisions were made regarding admission: eg looked after, siblings, send, exam, catchment etc.

Just ring your local authorities school admissions team and they’ll tell you.
Don’t rely on the estate agents or the vendors to give you accurate info, and you defo don’t need a paid platform

Just looked at Locrating.com. The catchment area for my local infant school, was wrong. My location is excluded on the web site but I’m definitely in catchment. I wouldn’t rely on that.

Don’t ring Admissions! For lots of schools, admissions are quite complicated. Some are handled by the schools. It’s best to compare school admissions via the web site info. Only ring if you don’t find clear info.

Not all schools have a catchment area.
DFE can list schools by distance from your home.
Some Foundation schools use the parish boundaries and hence may be an irregular size. 200 yrs one way and 2 miles the other. Check the online map of the church website to see where your house falls.

In my area the primary schools don’t have catchments, it goes off distance away and you can find info on how far away people have got in in previous years on local authority website. Is it primary or secondary?

Usually on the school or local authority website. Our local property website has a school catchment search function which saves a lot of hassle but I don't think the national ones such as rightmove and zoopla do this.

@cabbageking

Not all schools have a catchment area. DFE can list schools by distance from your home. Some Foundation schools use the parish boundaries and hence may be an irregular size. 200 yrs one way and 2 miles the other. Check the online map of the church website to see where your house falls.

We don't have catchments here. There's the list of admissions criteria with the last being distance. Once all of the previous criteria children have places, they fill by distance.

If the situation is the same for you, OP, you'll be able to see how far away the furthest child offered a place lived for the past few years on the applications part of the council website.

Are you moving at the end of the school year or during it?

If you are moving during the school term you may find that schools are full so even if you move next door to a school they may not have a space for your child.

LA web site and school admissions codes both should be checked.

@PaulaSmith1 I’m thinking ahead as DS is only 1. I know that these things change so it may all be irrelevant anyway.

If a CofE school says Parish is the boundary then that is, in effect, a catchment area.

The problem with distance from school is that some people might actually get into three schools! Others might only be close enough to one school to be certain of a place. I generally think catchments are easier for parents to understand as they are well defined. However check the LA info and the info provided by each school. If it’s catchment for a school you like, make sure you are well inside it. Distance is more difficult but living close would be the best policy. CofE Aided is more difficult and RC as they might require Church attendance. You might need to find God if you want these schools. So check now if you need to do that.

I would look at the admissions policy, and then the last distance offered (this is usually on the local authority website). This is because for some popular schools even being in catchment is not a guarantee of a place (in England). If there are more people than places then usually the closest will get the place even if both are in catchment. But some schools have priority areas or faith requirements, so sadly you need to look at each one individually.

Catchment is often irrelevant if they are very popular schools. Where I live it's like this and the best indicator is the distance of the last child that got in by distance. Sometimes these are 0.2 of a mile. Tbh it's hard to forsee this if you're talking about 3 years off applications but it might reveal very popular schools that you pretty much have to live next door to to get in.

City schools are more likely to have compressed catchment areas. Rural schools tend to have larger ones. Some schools don’t fill up. Others do. Some always offer to all applicants in catchment and others rarely do. Total minefield really!