Moving Schools, how do you do it?

suejb2

I'd move in year 5. Gives you time to get to know schoolmates and the options for secondary.

Alice_Walker

jog wrote: »

I don't think you can formally apply for a place until you have an address in the area. Or if you do fhildren living locally will br prioritised over others out of area. When we moved a few years ago we couldn't apply until we'd exchanged contracts on our new house and were therefore committed to the house purchase.

You could visit the schools and get your short list ready for when you apply. It would also be worth checking with the schools their admissions criteria as accadamies may have their own rules.

Good luck

You can apply living anywhere, but as mentioned you will be a low priority if out of catchment. However you would be moved up the waiting list once you moved into catchment.

I would echo the advice about moving earlier, but also look at whether there are any schools that have feeder schools into the popular secondaries. These are becoming quite rare, but in some instances they will get you a higher priority.

With regard to catchment areas, don't rely on Rightmove. They appear to measure by distance, whereas in some cases you can have catchment areas skewed in a certain direction, in some you can even have half a street qualify and the other not. Again the local authority can advise on this.

One caveat, you're generally best to get information from the authority and not approach individual schools. Allocations are usually centralised, and schools have been known to give bad advice because they're not aware of the process (or even their own waiting lists).

Lily-Rose_3

You do have to be careful. My friend lives in a rural village, with a school that has only 43 children. The school is very high in the league tables for primary schools, and they don't accept children into that school, unless the family has lived in the village for 10 years.

A bit exclusive maybe, but they don't want people moving into the village, purely to get their kids into this school. And this does happen, as we all know, and it happens a LOT.

So it's best to see if the school will accept the children first. Around a dozen families moved into this particular village during the past year or two, and they have all had to take their children to a primary school in the town 3 miles from the village.

It's surprising the amount of families who put their house up for sale within the first year of moving there LOL. They were clearly just moving there for the school, and when things didn't go their way, they decided to leave.

maman

Lily-Rose wrote: »

You do have to be careful. My friend lives in a rural village, with a school that has only 43 children. The school is very high in the league tables for primary schools, and they don't accept children into that school, unless the family has lived in the village for 10 years.

A bit exclusive maybe, but they don't want people moving into the village, purely to get their kids into this school. And this does happen, as we all know, and it happens a LOT.

So it's best to see if the school will accept the children first. Around a dozen families moved into this particular village during the past year or two, and they have all had to take their children to a primary school in the town 3 miles from the village.

It's surprising the amount of families who put their house up for sale within the first year of moving there LOL. They were clearly just moving there for the school, and when things didn't go their way, they decided to leave.

Obviously we don't have the detail on this particular school but I'd have though it that's one of the criteria in their admission policy it would be open to legal challenge/appeal.


Schools publish their admission criteria and with a few exceptions (such as children in care and some disability) then the number one criterion is generally to live in the catchment area and closest to the school (generally as the crow flies) is used for heavily subscribed schools where not all the catchment children can fit in..


Well done for thinking ahead OP but you won't be able to do much more than choose an area where you want to live and check out the schools there (or vice versa) at the moment. If you have any friends and family in Swindon I'd talk to them too. If circumstances allow I really would try and move before your DD starts secondary school, ideally towards the end of Year 5 or ASAP.

neneromanova

We'd move tomorrow if we could, we just want to clear our debts first, then we have to sell though house. Hopefully it's achievable by end of year 5, so less than 2 years now. Lol.

Callie22

There's an awful lot of building going on in Swindon at the moment so it's impossible to know what the schools situation might be like in a few years. At the moment the problems tend to be in North Swindon but with the planned developments in West and East Swindon things might get trickier in those areas too - from having talked to friends West Swindon isn't too bad at the moment as there's a reasonable choice of schools there (with some children going out to Royal Wootton Bassett and Purton), I think it's mainly children in North Swindon who end up having to go out of area for schools - and a lot do anyway for Sixth Form. There is talk of building both new primary and secondary schools but infrastructure isn't something that Swindon Borough Council tend to focus on ... I think it's definitely worth aiming to move sooner rather than later, especially if you're set on particular schools.

Savvy_Sue

neneromanova wrote: »

We'd move tomorrow if we could, we just want to clear our debts first, then we have to sell though house. Hopefully it's achievable by end of year 5, so less than 2 years now. Lol.

I'd suggest it's worth doing some sums: would your housing costs go up or down in Swindon? What about your employment prospects? You may have done that already, of course, but it's worth some thought to see if you'd actually clear faster if you moved sooner.

Spendless

Alice_Walker wrote: »

I would echo the advice about moving earlier, but also look at whether there are any schools that have feeder schools into the popular secondaries. These are becoming quite rare, but in some instances they will get you a higher priority.

My kids school have this as a criteria. A few years ago they moved this up their criteria list and siblings down (still catchment in top place). However if you are applying under that category it is still 'and has been at the feeder school for 12 months previously'. I am not totally sure if that is 12 months before the deadline date close but it would still mean you'd have to attended the feeder school from sometime in year 5.