Can a school treat pupils differently based on which preference they ranked a school?

[EduCated]

Facebook put a post from a random school not local to me in my feed (as it does) which I’m intrigued by.

This school seems to be offering transport (unclear if it’s free or a paid service) to Year 7 pupils who put the school as their first choice.

It feels dubious to be incentivising first choices with something so tangible, but then to actually go on and provide a different service based on whether or not the school was first choice. Is that actually allowed?

What makes this interesting is that of course we don't know how good this school is and nor should we to answer.

On one hand, my automatic response was no this is unfair and it should be based on need and distance might factor into that.

However, I think it might actually be a good way to separate who chose the school because (with transport) it is their best option, and who would have settled for it (with transport) if they had to. People who could never make it there without transport and it wasnt their first choice probably shouldn't have applied.

My older cousin had her first baby 13 years before me and one thing she always advised me about schools is never to put down a school that you would refuse to attend. She put 1 school both times with her oldest and got them. Sibling then got in to both schools on a sibling place.

By my time, you had to put 3-5 schools and I told her this. She said okay, choose far away ones that you would send them to if you had to. Ones way out of borough. So I did that. My kids have all got their first choices each time.

I don't know about transport, but the head teacher at one school we visited (many years ago) told outright lies about putting the school first or you wouldn't get it. So it might well be the school has it wrong.

BTW, DEAROP you'd have got your first place school whatever you'd put first second and third. You get the highest preference school you meet the criteria for. Where other people have placed the school as a preference doesn't come into it.
You'd probably also have got that school if you placed it last, and put in 4 other, miles away, over subscribed, schools above it.

The schools don’t know the order of preference which an individual applicant places them, this is part of the ‘blind preference’ system, so this can’t practically be implemented.

They do know the total number of applicants who put them as “first choice” and may want to brag about that, hence they are appearing to offer something to those who rank them first.

Advice should always be the same; include schools in your true order of preference, but include at least one which you are a) likely to be offered and b) prepared to send them to. Otherwise the LA will allocate a school of their choice.

In our area the eligibility for free bus transport is clearly published and is based on strict criteria, so I would say that the Facebook post is probably inaccurate, and you’re better off looking at a reliable source of information

As far as I know it is the local council who arrange and facilitate school transport based on their own criteria.

I can't see a school having excess funding going spare that they will use to fund transport so I dont see how this is possible.
Can you post a screenshot, cropping the school name out so we can see the wording.

Depends on subscription. The out of borough ones take a few from outside their area. It is very possible we wouldn't be top of that list of first choice applicants.

To answer your question @EduCated…No a school can’t do what you describe.

It is possible that the school are suggesting that bus places for next September are limited. That those who receive and offer on National Offer Day will be ahead of those who do not, go on the waiting list and receive an offer in the summer term. Hence put us down as first choice blah blah. That bus places will be offered out in March so get in quick.

This approach may be factually correct but is still a bit iffy.

To answer the OP – that feels all kinds of wrong to me. I believe a school does find out how many students listed it first choice but not who they are.

@DEAROP it’s dangerous advice to list only one school. If your relative listed others, they would still get the allocated if listed as first choice, as evidently they qualified for a place. You are wrong to suggest that listing the school you were offered lower on your form would have stopped you getting a place – unless of course a place was available at your higher-pref schools.

I do see tho it’s hard to fight against people who say “I only listed one school and got that” – they see the result and assume causality but they are incorrect.

If you only list one school, and that a very popular school where you don’t qualify on distance (the main criterion as a rule) then the LA won’t allocate you that school anyway – it will allocate whatever school is left after all the people who listed multiple schools have had their go. So most likely that will be an unpopular school, potentially miles away.

That’s why it’s a good idea to list somewhere on the form the local school even if you are not keen; a 5-min walk to a less good school is better than a 45-min bus ride to one.

If you qualify for a place at your first choice, you will get it. Which is why you should always list your genuine first choice first, even it it is a very long shot.

I live nearish but out of catchment for v popular school A; if I had listed it first, then the local OK school B second, I would probably in my DCs’ years got school B. But if there were fewer applications for school A, then I might have got a place if I had listed it first. And doing that would not harm my chances of school B (which we are very close to).

This is accurate for my area and all others I have dealt with. The school do not get told where they were ranked in your preferences. They have no way of checking you put them first.

The transport appears to be MAC arranged rather than council funded.

Sod it, it’s not a school I know and nowhere near me, so the post in full. I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted what they are saying, so bemused how they’re going to achieve it. And yes, fully aware that schools can be woefully ignorant about admissions (wilfully or otherwise).

————————

Dear Parents/Carers,

We are delighted to announce the details of the travel plan for Year 7 MAC pupils joining us in in September 2026.

If SCHOOL is the students first choice school they will be eligible for transportation from their current primary school to the doors of SCHOOL.

Students will also return home safely in the same fashion every evening.

Pupils currently on the grammar school pathway are also eligible for this.

Depending on uptake, this service may extend to older siblings.

Oh blimey.. I’ve just read your update. That’s very strange and I’m not sure how legal it is in terms of admissions. It would put me off a school if that’s what they need to do to fill their places.

If you appeal and you've listed the school, you'll never be able to appeal your place. As I said, we have our places using that advice. I don't know anyone who has won an appeal if they listed the school they were allocated.

Objectively you can appeal any school you have applied for and been turned down from.

Being allocated your third or sixth choice ‘banker’ school doesn’t stop that.

What I mean is that your appeal will never ve successful if you listed the school. Sorry some was distracting me as I posted that.

What?

My friends child got her second preference school, but appealed and got the first choice in the end.

You shouldn’t put schools down you wouldn’t accept, but what if you’d got your second choice school? You’d have been knackered when there might have been a much better, closer second option you belligerently didn’t put down.

No one looks at your 2-5 preference UNLESS you don’t get into the first. In yours and your relatives case you got into the first choice and so everyone stopped reading your application there. Your subsequent choices were irrelevant.

I understood what you meant, but you are wrong. I do indeed know people who have won an appeal for their first/second preference after being allocated their third preference.

I dont think they were. Just like people here assumed that no school sees the order of your choices. I'd give anyone the same advice as I took, especially if they live locally.

In my local authority schools have no idea what order they are placed by the child's parents. I thought every area was the same. And transport of organised and offered by the local authority not the school.
I'd be very surprised if schools are allowed to treat children differently based on where they are placed on the preference list.

You’d still be giving incorrect advice then 🤷‍♀️

Yeh that’s just not true. You can appeal for any school you listed, regardless of if you were allocated one on your list. Not sure where you’re getting your info from but it’s a bit duff.

You can appeal but your chances of success are greatly reduced.

Worked out for people I've given it to.

Based on what please? And to say the advice to list a bunch of schools a long way away “worked” tells nothing. If I listed the school round the corner first and then three schools 10 miles away, yes I would get my first choice, but not because if the other prefs. There’s no causality here and I hope no one misses out on a school they might prefer bc of your advice.

If I had listed popular out if catchment school A as first pref, followed by far away schools as per your advice, we would have been allocated unpopular school Z for sure. Not the popular school we didn’t qualify for. And not our local one if we didn’t list it.

That's the point. I never listed the school around the corner and was never offered it. I listed an oversubscribed school on the other side of the borough and got the place I needed. To be fair most schools where I live are oversubscribed though.

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. We were having this discussion at the school gates today.