Admissions/catchment/distance

[Petrie999]

Hi, very new to this and have no idea how it all works. We are looking to move out to a new area. Have found a lovely house but am confused about school admission criteria. Not concerned about primaries as all seem good, and we are years away from secondary admissions but want to choose an area based on good schools so as not to have to move again unless we had to.

New home is located on far edges of local authority area A. Preferred secondary schools in local authority A, 4.5 miles away. Admission criteria after all ehcp/siblings etc says "any pupil for whom the school is the closest non faith based school" based on straight line measurement. This is presumably because another local, oversubscribed school is selective based on faith. Next criteria is just distance from the school and records show that previous years distance has been max 2.5 miles away.

Closest school geographically is 2 miles away in local authority B. Admission criteria is also based on distance from school but this authority provides no data on how far away the last applicants to be offered spaces were. Poorly rated, doesnt seem great.

Can anyone explain what happens when you seem to be out of catchment of.closest local authority school? Should you apply out of area? In this case we would hope not to have to. I feel like this is a very silly question but all my friends children are just going to their closest secondary within the LA, they are not oversubscribed so never have to select as such.

Explain like I'm 5?

LA isn't actually very important other than being who manages your applications.

We are close to the border with two other LAs. DD goes to secondary in a different LA to where we live, and in fact only one of the schools on our secondary application preferences form (CAF) was in our own LA, and that was our fifth choice for DD.

The fact that the school you prefer (that is 4.5 miles away) is in the LA where you would be living doesn't give you any extra right to a place at that school, unless it is stated in the admissions criteria for that school.

When completing the CAF, you should list the schools in your genuine order of preference. You will be allocated the highest preference for which you qualify. So it is absolutely fine to put your preferred school 4.5 miles away as your highest preference, even if there is only a slim chance of a place at that school. It won't reduce your chance of getting one of the other schools on your preference list.

You should include the less desirable closest school as your 'banker' school (unless there is another preferred 'banker' school) otherwise you might be allocated an even worse school, even further away.

Sounds like you’d be quite a lot too far away from the preferred secondary school to be likely to get a place, as it stands right now. If your closest school is the poorly performing one, and admissions say nothing about preference for local authority b, then it seems highly likely that would be the school you would be given. If you are moving for schools, this may not be the best spot for you.

Thanks so much this is really helpful! Yes I think we perhaps need to rethink. There is actually another good school in a 3rd LA 2.5 miles away but they have a catchment area for admissions and are also over subscribed so that seems also unlikely (but perhaps more so than the furthest).