Rightmove school function

[GoldenPolden]

Sorry if brought up before but it's rubbish, isn't it? They had primary and secondary etc tabs before and locrating style catchments. Now I can barely tell and I'm sure some agents use it to their advantage. If they are worried about legal liabilities just disclaim away.

As the "catchment" which usually means distance of last person admitted of most schools changes every single year I don't see it can be at all accurate.

It's a guide.. but I take your point so they could exclude that and simply include straight line distance to each school.

At the moment I struggle to find the nearest secondary school for example, using the filter I still see primary schools. More of a bad user experience

I think it's cheeky and misleading when agents say "in catchment of popular X school" when you then look up council data of furthedt distance admitted last year and then crow fly it on Google maps... it's way out.

Our county does shortest safe walking route as well rather than crow flies, which makes it even worse for predicting catchments!

The only thing it's useful for is showing you what schools are near the house. The rest of it is complete bobbins. It's not supported by the actual catchment data at all.

Even if you live catchment, doesn't mean you will definitely get in. Just that you are further up the admissions criteria.

And it’s not completely accurate either in terms of distance.

We bought our house in 2015. Our son had already started y7. If it’s the closest school, but more than x miles away with no pavement (rural area and that was the case) then you are entitled to a free bus pass to your closest school.

Rightmove said our school was the closest, which knowing the area was what I would have thought. I was pleased as the bus was £3.60 a day which adds up very quickly.

We applied to the council for the pass… turns out the secondary in the opposite direction was 98 meters closer than the one he was already at so no bus pass (both over 3.5miles away as the crow flies and actually it took longer to get to the ‘closer’ one as you have to drive 3 sides of a square to get to it 🤷‍♀️)

So I would take rightmoves measurements with a pinch of salt. I think they maybe do it by postcode than house?

@BreakfastOfWaffles

The only thing it's useful for is showing you what schools are near the house. The rest of it is complete bobbins. It's not supported by the actual catchment data at all.

This with bells on it.

The schools I'm near don't have a catchment area.

You get in if you fulfil the criteria.

If it does down to direct walking distance using pavements then one year living 1.5 miles from a school you will get in, while the next year you will have to live 0.75 miles from the school.

It doesn't reflect any of the relevant admissions criteria. Can't cope with banded comps where each band has a different catchment, can't cope with lottery, can't cope with different measuring methods (crow flies / safe walking route etc) is entirely inaccurate.

Maybe it's my phone, but I can't even filter for secondary schools or primary only to see where they are located relative to the property

The age filter works for me but it includes any schools with children in the age range so 11-18 shows both primary and secondary. If you're looking for secondary set the filter to 14-14 or something similar and you should get all the secondaries but exclude 6th form colleges. Locrating or London Schools Atlas are still likely to be more useful.

A house builder was building a new road of houses near where I lived, in the blurb it said X school is the closest, which was actually completely irrelevant as it was not the admission zone school and you stand very little chance of getting in if outside the admission zone. The trouble is too many think that admission zones / catchments are a nice circle around the school with the school sat in the middle, always best to check with the local authority.

Our local council has a document listing every street in the area telling you which primary and secondary catchment it is in. (As well as a map). But still doesn't guarantee you a place at that school.

Where we are in London it is actually a really good indicator. I think most people are (or should be) aware that distances on RM should be cross referenced with the local authority. When we were house hunting we used the distances as a rough guide, but I did read the admissions booklets by the schools that we were interested in, to make sure non of them had a feeder school or lottery system. I use the Rightmove app on my iPhone and it distinguishes between primary and secondary. I think if you look at the RM website on a pc it's not so easy to use though.

@Puffthemagicdragongoestobed you are aware that if you live near a borough (council) border your child can go to a school in the next borough based on distance criteria?