Secondary school place

[Carole2025]

Hello we live in Heald green and my Sons catchment secondary school is Kingsway which I don't want to send him to. Do you know anyone from this area that has got into Parrs Wood high school? We're 2.21miles away from there. We'd consider Laurus Cheadle Hulme but that's oversubscribed massively. Or are there any other options? Can't afford private school, don't want to do 11+, and we aren't of a certain faith or eligible for bursary funding.

You will have to meet the admission criteria for any school you apply to. You should be able to find out the furthest distance admission previously, but it will depend on how many live nearer than you, especially if the school is over subscribed.

How many preferences are there on your form?

You can have up to 6

Do a search on Ofsted to see what you can find. I don’t know Heald Green that well but I’d be surprised if you only had 3 options. The schools or LA (depending on whether it’s maintained, academy or church school) might provide information about how many children were admitted last year from each category but there is no guarantee it will be the same next year. For example, we would have got my son in our first choice the year before and the year after we applied, just not our year! We did get second choice and we were in catchment for both (so even being in catchment is not a guarantee).

Like PP says, you’ll need to consider the admissions policy of further away schools.

I would always put your catchment school down, even if it’s your lowest choice. I don’t know your objection to it but I would advise going to see it anyway. If it’s because of an Ofsted report and some time has passed since then, things can change for the good in months, if not weeks, so go armed with anything raised in a report to see how they have been addressed since.