School Application Question

Pepperoni

Hi,

I'll be applying for my DD school place this year. I just wondered, if you put a school as your 2nd / 3rd choice, does that mean you come in line after anyone that put said school as their 1st choice?

Or do they all get put in one pot (so to speak) regardless and just dished out based on that schools admission criteria?

Thanks

onlyroz

In our area each of the three choices are assessed independently. However there is almost nil chance of getting into anything other than your "designated" school.

KRB2725

If a school is oversubscribed, there is a published set of criteria about how they allocate spaces. It varies, but it will vaguely look something like this

1. Children in local authority care or with a statement
2. Children with siblings already at the school
3. Children who live in the catchment area
4. Children who live outside the catchment area, prioritised by distance (as the crow flies) from school.

It varied from school to school and also by area, but if you go on your councils website you should be able to view the admissions stats from last September.

Whilst there is a huge demand on primary places, there is still a possibility that you can get a place outside of your catchment school. If you look at the above mentioned stats, it will give you a good idea. Ours also publishes the distance from the school that the child that was given the last place lives.

You will be allocated a place at the school that is highest on your list for which you meet the criteria.

jackieblack

At our school (VA) the LA sends us a list of everyone who's put us as one of their choices, we rank everyone according to our admissions policy and send the ranked list back to the LA. We don't know whether people have put us as their 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice.
Our catchment area is mainly fields, so about 2/3 children (on average) come from outside catchment.

Spendless

Each school will have it's published criteria. Every area varies too, where I live in 95% of cases catchment takes higher priority than siblings.

You'd put your 3 chosen schools down in order. The published criteria would then apply to choice A, if there's enough spaces left by the time they get to your application criteria, you'd be offered a place at that school. If not they'd then apply the criteria to choice B and then choice C.

If you don't get any of your 3 choices, you will be allocated a school, usually the nearest one to you that has spaces.

If you were applying to schools that are usually oversubscribed and you're not in the top criteria/s then your chances of getting a place are minimal.

Fireflyaway

Where we are, each of your choices will be looked at in the order you put it down. If your first can't be allocated they will move down to second and so on. Everyone's situation is different so always put down what you want. Your first choice might be someone else's third, but if they fulfill the criteria better than you, they might be allocated and you are not. Its not based on how much you appear to want the school.

susancs

With school admissions, it is always best to put down realistic preferences by considering how your child fits the schools published admissions criteria. In over subscribed schools it often comes down to distance from home to school.

You could also look on your local authorities site to see who many children are admitted under each criteria to help consider your childs success at getting a place in the school e.g. if the furthest distance a child was admitted in each year in the last 5 years was 1.4 miles and you are 1.8 miles away it is unlikely that your child will get a place at the school so putting that down as a choice would be a waste of a preference. Some numbers like siblings can change each year.