Applying for a sec school place under medical need criteria

[Ediham]

Hi, can you apply to two different schools within the same local authority, both based on the same medical need criteria

You can list as many preferences as your form allows - sometimes three, sometimes as many as six. They don’t all have to be I the same LA.

You’re applying for a secondary school place tho, and expressing a preference for those schools you list. If you can be placed in one of them you will be but there are no guarantees.

You need to provide professional evidence at the time of application (so that it can be assessed as part of the application) of the reason(s) why the particular school is the one which meets your DC's specific needs. Schools normally say 'why this school specifically' is the only one which can do this. Which may not actually be the case, but you may need to get whoever (hospital consultant etc) to supply separate letters re each school.

One example might be where for a pupil with mobility issues the only school likely to be allocated in the normal course of events consists of multiple buildings, with no lifts, on an uneven site, where timetabling to ensure that the pupil could access all lessons would be a complete nightmare, whereas there is more than one school further away consisting of e.g. one main block with lifts, and on a level site, with a bus stop right outside.

Presumably you have had detailed discussions with each school in the area as to how it could, or could not, meet your DC's needs?

In terms of the schools being in the same LA, this is actually irrelevant, since you name all state preferences on the same CA, whichever LA the actual schools are in.