Who's freaking our about school admissions?

JodyBPM

In our area, they operate an "equal choice" system, where by everyone who has put a school down is considered together, (regardless of whether it was 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice etc) and offers are made according to the admissions criteria looking at the whole pool of everyone who has applied to the school. Therefore you are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by only putting one school down within the selection for any one particular school. If you meet the admissions criteria for more than one school out of your choices, you are offered the one highest up in your preferences. If you only put down one school, you will only have the chance to get into one, but they will never offer you a lower preference school if you meet the admissions criteria of one of a higher preference. This seems fair to me. We're in Surrey.

TeamLowe

From what I know of school admissions law/practice that won't happen, no applications are arbitrarily 'put to the bottom of a pile'the admissions authorities use a coordinated system and the following happens as an example:
kid a puts down schools d and e
if both schools are oversubscribed, then kid a is put onto their lists where they fall in the admissions criteria. School d has 30 places, kid a is number 43. School e has 60 places, kid a is at number 12. Kid a is offered a place at school e
Kid b only puts down school e. as kid b is out of area, they end up ranking at number 78 and are not offered a place at their preferred school. Instead, their local authority offer a place at a school withing a reasonable distance, usually 2 miles. In this case, it's one in a rough area with a bad reputation and parents are not happy. They would have much preferred their local school, school g but as they have not expressed this preference the admissions authority could not have considered them for this school and now it's full
No matter if kid b had put down 3 schools, they still would not have got school e

TeamLowe

Bah, jodiebpm explained it more succinctly x

dangers

I'm not too far from Bristol and unfortunately it is the way the system is working around here - totally unfair I think.

TeamLowe

Then I'd complain to the admissions authority/local government ombudsman/schools adjudicator if it's not on the form itself as a warning, sure that would be maladministration
in fact I'd query it with them anyway, have never seen anything in the code, the current one or the one being consulted on, that says anything like that, just that parents have to be given the opportunity to express their prefernce

mrcow

dangers wrote: »

I don't want to worry anyone, but I've heard that our local authority are putting these applications to the bottom of the pile if they only have the one choice on.

Heard from whom?

For an Education Authority to do this, they would have to state it on their selection criteria. Otherwise, they are not following procedure correctly.

*Louise*

Wow, it all sounds so complicated!

Round here people just tend to choose the nearest school for primary unless they want a catholic one then thy will choose one further away. I have 2 next to me, hand in DD's application next week at the smaller of the two, getting a place is guaranteed.

Hope everyone gets the placements they are after

balletshoes

dangers wrote: »

I don't want to worry anyone, but I've heard that our local authority are putting these applications to the bottom of the pile if they only have the one choice on. Apparently we have children coming to school in our town from outside the area, but children from within the catchment area who couldn't get a place because of this reason. I believe our local pre schools have been told to advise parents of this.

I think thats highly unlikely to be honest. If you only have one choice, its your nearest school and you're in catchment, then you'll be looked at in the school/LEAs criteria along with everyone else. The risk you take in only selecting one school is that if you don't fit a high enough criteria, and you haven't expressed a preference for any other school, you will only be considered for a place at the next nearest school to your home which has a place for you (ie after everyone else's full preferences have been considered).

balletshoes

JodyBPM wrote: »

In our area, they operate an "equal choice" system, where by everyone who has put a school down is considered together, (regardless of whether it was 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice etc) and offers are made according to the admissions criteria looking at the whole pool of everyone who has applied to the school. Therefore you are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by only putting one school down within the selection for any one particular school. If you meet the admissions criteria for more than one school out of your choices, you are offered the one highest up in your preferences. If you only put down one school, you will only have the chance to get into one, but they will never offer you a lower preference school if you meet the admissions criteria of one of a higher preference. This seems fair to me. We're in Surrey.

yes, thats the way it works in our area too, we're in Nottingham city LEA.

JC9297

evansmummy wrote: »

When dropping my son off at pre-school this morning a teacher mentioned she'd be handing out school admission forms. This year our area has to list a choice of 5. Eek! :eek:
To add to the anxiety we're moving to another city to take advantage of better schools but it's looking as though we're not going to be moved into catchment areas until after school places are allocated.
Gone are the days where you went to the nearest local school with all your buddies. Now I'm paying through the nose for a smaller house so I can get my children in decent schools. :mad:

The problem you will have is that if you are not living in catchment at deadine day your current address will be used, and you probably won't get a place in any of the desirable schools if you you live in a different city. Any places left for children not in catchment will be allocated to those living nearest the school and presumably you are several miles away.