Secondary Admissions - question about catchment area boundaries

[SchoolQuestionAgain]

A quick question about catchment areas please.

Our house straddles the boundary between 2 secondary school catchment areas. Does anyone have any experience of what happens in this situation? Daughter is only year 4 but planning ahead.

Are you in an area with designated catchment areas? They don’t exist here.

Are you in England?
In an area that has specified catchments (Wales, I think?)

Usually 'catchment' means 'the last distance at which a pupil was admitted under the distance criteria'.

The LA Admissions booklet should tell you the stats for every school - which were over-subscribed, and what the last distance was. The last distance published is that on National Offers Day - not later in the summer when all the waiting lists start to move.

As you are between two schools you may find you have a good choice of either - or you are in a 'black hole', and too far from both.

Look at the admissions criteria, and look at the LA website for what happened for the last few years.

If it is a formal catchment, the LA and the school still have to publish their admission criteria, available on their website.

Hi, it’s definitely formal catchment areas in our bit of the country. Have checked all the maps and the boundary goes through our house. You get priority in the catchment area But the admissions policies don’t say what happens if you are innocent the boundary of 2 different catchment areas

Aargh didn’t mean innocent. Should have been “on”

The catchment area boundaries, if a house is near the edge of them are quite difficult to work out. You may find one side of your road is in the catchment for one school and the other side of the road is in catchment for the the other school. This is what happened in our road. My house is in catchment for school A, house across the road is in catchment for school B.

I would check with your local council.

we are in the designated catchment area for 2 different schools. Is that what you mean? It just means that we get priority for both schools (but obviously have to put them in a preference order so would get whichever one we put higher).

Or do you mean that the catchment border seems to go through your house so you're not sure if you're in or not? As well as the map, there should be clearly defined descriptions of what is in, and what isn't e.g. the houses to the eastern side of High street up to number 85 are in catchment.

I would contact the LA and ask for clarification (in writing) as to which side of any boundary line you fall.

For council tax purposes (I had a friend whose front garden was in one county and back garden in another) it was the front doow and I understand that distance allocations go by the front door too.

It is very unusual to have designated actual catchment areas though.

It is very unusual to have designated actual catchment areas though.
I think OP probably means Priority Admission Zones which are often referred to as catchment areas.

In Hants we have catchment areas (referred to as such).

In Hants we have catchment areas (referred to as such).

Also in our area of West Sussex - we got a letter from the Council telling us which school was our catchment one when it was time to apply to secondary school (this was a few years ago).

Defined catchment areas here too - if you live in catchment for a school you are pretty much guaranteed to get in, otherwise you are reliant on oversubscription criteria working in your favour.

I think it does vary by area, but they are very far from being unusual!

The only way is to speak to the LA and ask. They will usually measure from a very specific point, so you need to find out where that is and which catchment they consider you to be in.

Other posters are correct, contacting your LA is the way to go. And get the answer in writing.

We could do with a short term (that isn’t catchment) to describe the area around a school that’s within the distance of the last child admitted when a school admits by distnpance from school.

We have defined catchments where we live with an overlap of a county school and a city school catchment

Essentially, you put them in order of preference on the common admission form and most of the time you get your higher preference

The only time you don’t is if the school is over subscribed with students from higher categories in the admissions criteria

Thanks. We’re in Hampshire too. Will have a word with the council

The catchment line will normally run down the middle of the road and therefore you might be inside or outside the catchment for the school. You need to ask the LA to produce a map clearly defining where the catchment line is rather than rely on somebody telling you, as you might need it later on if things go wrong with the application.
It might, as you have plenty of time till you need to apply, be worth asking for clarification on what the original basis of the catchment line was - it is frequently parish boundaries. If you get that info, then check for old boundary lines to see that it does actually conform to the now agreed map. It is not unknown for the line to "move" with time.