Do school ?Admissions have to publish Catchment Areas

[smellylittleorange]

Trying to help out a friend and was looking for the catchment area map for her school ...can't find it anywhere?

I presumed as catchments are part of Admissions Criteria they should be clearly published ? Does anyone know? If you can help me find catchments for West Sussex schools please do

Catchment areas are not always part of school admissions criteria. It is often done on distance from school so the area would differ year on year depending on applications.

www.westsussex.gov.uk/learning/schools_ages_4-16/school_places/school_admissions_criteria_and/admissions_criteria_2015-16.aspx is a link to the West Sussex LA admissions web page.

You should find full details of all the criteria used for allocating places at each school in the booklet in the above link.

Found the criteria before and we know it it includes catchment within it just find it bizarre that there are no maps! Not even in that document linked (which I have looked at before but thanks Mrscakes) I guess at the end of the day it does not really matter to friend as were are sure she is out of catchment and therefore on last criteria of distance door to door but a map woudl have been helpful to lots of peeps should imagine. I just find it all rather odd we wanted to be nosy and work out if someone was on the catchment boundary

I'm not sure about West Sussex but our LEA doesn't use the term catchment area they call it "Area of first Priority".
However for many secondary schools the final admissions criteria isn't really catchment it's distance from home to school. For very popular oversubscribed schools not all children living in the "catchment area" will be close enough to be offered a place. Catchment may be important if this family have more than one child as sometimes higher priority is given to siblings in catchment than those living in other areas (usually those who have moved since their first child was allocated a place).

We don't have a map, but we do have a website (www.localcouncilname.gov.uk) where you enter your postcode, and it tells you which schools you are in catchment for.

For us, the catchment is a very strange shape, so on distance alone, we would get in. BUT we aren't in catchment, so both distance and catchment matter.

I know in my area the council website refers to the catchment areas but doesn't link to the maps. The maps are find on the individual schools' websites. Have you looked there?

I cannot find any catchment zone maps of the west sussex site which really they should be as it is a key part of the admission criteria.
If the school is a maintained school I email the admission office and ask for an official copy of the catchment zone of the school. If it is an own admission school then ask the school.

DS's secondary school publishes a catchment area map. They also post details of the furthest distances of places awarded to out of catchment pupils every year. It might be worth looking at the school sites.

Mi la publishes catchment radius

Bear in mind that despite bing in catchment for four schools, DD didn't get into any of them.

Some schools are their own admissions authority, so the school should have the details, or at least be able to tell you where to look. In our LA, you can find out the distance children were admitted out of catchment, if applicable.