How to get step daughter into secondary sch in the town between mum and dads house

[firstpregnancy1]

Hello

My step daughter is in year 6 and so secondary school process is approaching. My husband and I live in a village about 20 minutes south of a large town/city (Maidstone if it matters) and step daughters mum lives about 20 minutes north. She currently goes to a primary near to mums house. There are no feeder schools.
Both our village, and the village where mum lives have a handful of secondaries that kids from the area tend to go to and would be the 'catchment' school. All schools would be a bus ride away from either house.
We all would like for her to go to one of the schools in the main town (Maidstone) as then she can get the bus independently to and from school from both houses. There isn't a bus direct from our house to her mums house or any of the schools near her mums house and would then be dependant on my husband driving her to and from school on the days she is here.
He currently does this for her primary school and contact is roughly 60:40 with a fair degree of flexibility. DH often has days off during the week and so does a lot of the school runs.
If she got into a school in the main town it would mean she could come and go more freely between both houses as time goes on which we all think would help especially when she's older and will want to be spending time with friends at the weekend.

Does anyone with experience of this have any advice on how best to get her into one of the schools in the middle since neither mums nor our house is technically in the Maidstone catchment area. Or rather, there are closer schools.

Admissions criteria seem to be the typical ones - looked after children , siblings , distance from school etc

Any advice or experience greatly appreciated - it would make a big difference to her to have the flexibility to independently come and go from both houses.

For those with knowledge of maistone, we are looking at comprehensives not grammars . Maplesden noakes and valley park would be ideal.

What does your stepdaughter want. Does she want to go to a local school with her friends or is she ok with the one in the main town? Sounds like she has to have a longer commute etc. change her friendship groups to make life easier for the adults

You need to look at the last distance allocated under the distance criteria for the schools, and see if mums address would fall into any of those; that will give you an idea of whether one of the schools is a possible.

If residency is 60/40 to mum, that is the address that needs to be used. The address needs to be the address of her primary residence.

There isn't a way round the criteria; if she doesn't get a place, you could however appeal, but you would need to find stronger grounds than just logistics.

She wants to go to one in Maidstone. There isn't really a feeder secondary from her primary. The kids from her primary go to a range of about 10 different secondary's. The closest school to her mums would still be a bus ride so you're talking just a slightly longer bus ride to the ones in Maidstone . Still a school commute much less than a lot of children.

@PatriciaHolm

Thank you so is it just a case of if mums address is too far out then it's very very unlikely she would get in do you know ?
(Yes it's 60:40 mums - mum claims child benefit)

Just to be clear - the reasoning behind this isn't 'to make it easier for the adults' - my husband has done multiple school runs per week for the entirety of her primary and it's not an issue, it is simply that her being able to independently come and go between both houses before and after school would greatly benefit HER. If she ends up going to a secondary nearer to mums then he will of course continue with school runs as they are currently.

I know one family who had court ordered 50:50 (so no main home) who wanted a similar thing. They were told to submit all the court papers and (according to dad) were going to treat her as a special case as she had no “main address” as defined by the courts. I have no idea if that is true or not (dad did sometimes get things wrong). She did get into the school they wanted but school was undersubscribed so no need for all the court papers.

As your dsd is not 50:50 so has a main address then I think that your best bet is to find an undersubscribed school in Maidstone.

The other option is to go on lots of waiting lists and basically “hold your nerve”. Kids often don’t turn up at the start of term which means that places do become available. You need a certain personality type to cope with that though - and I don’t have it and my dd definitely doesn’t have it!

If she lives further out than the school generally allocates under distance, then yes, it's unlikely, but you never know. Years differ; this year was a bulge year, so distances are likely to have shortened.

You need to look at relevant schools, find out the furthest distance they had admitted to the last few years, and apply accordingly. The schools should be able to tell you that.

Kent may also be able to tell you which schools are historically undersubscribed - you can get an idea from this -which schools have a significant number of central allocations, which means they didn't fill up on applications naming them. This means you stand a greater chance of getting a place there if you name it, as historically they admit all who name them. Both the schools you name seem to be very oversubscribed though.

Admission to Secondary school in Kent 2023

That's all very helpful thank you.

No court orders or anything all contact is arranged between parents amicably and she definitely has mums address as her main address.

Thanks, my husband will call the schools and ask some questions