Advice regarding catchment areas.

[Summerdaydreams]

We are looking to move house to an outer London Borough, and thinking ahead about secondry schools. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about distance from schools and getting a place. is 2.0 miles from a secondry school too far to get a place? I know it depends on numbers applying etc. but roughly?? Thanks.

Which borough and which schools?
The LA can tell you that detail for specific schools.

Which borough and which schools?
The LA can tell you that detail for specific schools.

Have you checked the schools' websites. Some of them indicate the furthest distance from the school that was allocated the previous year.

Many LAs include a table within the secondary schools admissions brochure that gives the number of places given to each category of applicant, and what the furthest distance was.

2 miles sounds a long way for an outer London Borough. Is it the closest secondary?

OP depends on the borough. Some boroughs give this info in their "Moving on to secondary booklet", e.g. Bromley borough. Alternatively buy 1 month subscription to Good schools guide (£9.99) and it will give you a pretty good idea, especially if you are intending to buy well within the catchment.
Disclaimer: I do not work for GSG. I am looking to move myself, partially for secondary schools, and just put an offer on a house of 0.851m from the school. According to the borough the catchment has been 1.1m for the last few years. I should be safe (I hope).

GSG way out for schools round us and misrepresents the admissions criteria of some schools.

But I'm sure you'll be ok at 8.8m meadowlark!

Also the distances are given for the first offer date, not the wider distances as the waiting lists places are offered.

2m in London sounds a long way to me. But as others have noted it can vary widely across schools and locations so best to check the facts if you have a particular school in mind. The other thing to consider is when your children will need a place as if you're trying to plan ahead the situation 5 or 6 yrs from now may be quite different from now wrt school performance, new schools / housing being built and the pressure on places available as is currently being experienced at primary level.

2 miles sounds too far for London.

If you mean 'catchment' in the formal sense of defined priority admissions area, the. It should be on a map. But yo also need to check if all applicants within that formal catchment area secured places, and if not what the distance cut-off has been for the last few years.

Much of London has no catchments. If you simply mean the typical "footprint" (ie greatest distance offered) then that should also be on the website.

There is more 'churn' in London than in many places, but it there is less at secondary than primary. As secondary admissions closes tomorrow, I'm assuming you're nip applying in the main round for 2015. Are you hoping to be in situ before this time next year for a 2016 entry, or will it be an in-year admission at some other point?