Feeling anxious re secondary applications...

[Miloarmadillo1]

Do schools have to publish data on how far away the last successful applicant was in previous years?
Our first choice for our Y6 child is a outstanding, oversubscribed grant-maintained CofE school. We are the highest admission category re church attendance but we are 4 miles away and I can't find any info on how far away their 'catchment' has extended in previous years.
Our second choice is our most local school which is 1 mile away, but based on their published allocation statement last year we would have missed out on a place by about 100m.
Then we have two schools neither of which we like much at 1.3 miles away, but are at least fairly local.
Worried that we put three of these four down and get none of them. There's nothing else within a couple of miles, and whereas we are prepared to foot travel costs for our preferred school it would be pretty galling to have to do it for one that was not a preference at all. Any advice?

Call the school to ask them
Go to the open evening as there is always a map showing previous years' cut offs

In our area this is in the secondary schools admissions information on the council website.

Many local authorities will collate the information and publish it on their website, and/or the school will often put it on their website too. They should be able to tell you if you call them too.

For the church school they should publish the number of places allocated in each category. You say you are in the highest category re church attendance, but did they offer any places within a lower category or not? If this category is oversubscribed then usually the distance is published as well as this is usually used as a tie-breaker e.g. church attendance 150 places (5.0 miles). There should be data about how many applicants there were in each category (you may need to ask for it though). Church schools usually take pupils from a longer distance away than community schools.
I would also list school 2, as you are so close and there would be a good chance of a waiting list place if you miss out in first round.

We can list 6 choices, I would put schools down until there's one within a reasonable distance that's reasonable that you will get into. Though you will have offer through on 1st March and can then go on waiting list for up to 6 which can be a different 6 if you get no choices. Maybe call LEA for advice, I find some won't help but some will, obviously no guarantees. School may also have a good idea. It does sometimes happen people get no choices and then you can be allocated anywhere though sometimes it's as the parent hasn't been very sensible initially like putting down 6 grammars with very borderline marks.

I may be wrong, but normally children with SEN and in care are usually highest priority. Then faith if a faith school. If you qualify on faith grounds you are likely be be high up the list with a good chance of getting in. But the devil is in the detail. Read the schools admission policy carefully to determine which category you fall in and this will give you an idea of your chances.

I have contacted the church school to ask but no reply as yet. There is nobody further down the list as far as church attendance goes that got a place in previous years, there were 180 'church places' (after EHCP, Looked after children etc) but it doesn't say how many people in the highest 'church band' applied or how far away the furthest to get a place was.
We get three choices and there doesn't seem to be a nearby school that we would be guaranteed to get into. In previous years school 2 has been a 1.5 mile catchment and we'd be fine, but last year another school further away which is historically oversubscribed failed it's OFSTED in spectacular fashion and so applications to school 2 went through the roof. All the other schools we are some distance from, so we would only get into an unpopular one. It feels like actually we have no say in the matter at all!

Church schools are their own admissions authority, so they should have this information rather than the LEA.
Our local C of E school does publish some data in their Appendix i.e. a chart with first 2 letters of postcode e.g. XY1, XY2 etc. There is also a list of pupils and their linked churches e.g. X methodist church, St Ys parish church etc If you are on one or both of these lists you stand a good chance of being offered a place.

3 schools seem so few. We have 6 choices. That allows me to have as the top ones the ones we like but are borderline distance for and still have enough for a couple of safe bets. We are grammar area as well so that makes it worse as the chance of getting those is still very low even if we pass exams. None of my top 4 (if we pass 11+) will be at all certain.

I just looked up a nearby VA faith school. It parallels how othe schools (whether their own admissions authority or under LEA) report.

It goes something like:

SEN: all applicants accepted
LAC: all applicants accepted
Faith qualified siblings: all accepted
Faiith qualified in specified parishes: all accepted
Other faith: accepted to a distance of XXX

Total number of places offered: ZZ

I hope you find similar for the school you are interested in.