School admission rant

tacpot12

While I understand that proximity to a boundary doesn't mean you are inside the boundary, you have to think that the boundary is not set logically if you can see the school from a boundary - the school should be fairly close to centre of its catchment area and hence all the boundaries should be a least a mile away. The only valid reason for skewing the catchment area is to ensure poorer family's get a chance to go to better schools, but if the result is that a well-off family who live outside the school gates can't use the school, this seems unfair.

Definitely worth appealing and make the point about the proximity. I would express your concern for the effect on your child's education if they have an extra 1hr 20mins of walking to get to the school where they have been offered a place, e.g. being more tired after school, so quality of homework may suffer, etc.

If they do have to go to the school that is further away cycling is a great option, but put them through a cycling proficiency course, insist they wear a helmet from day 1, and make sure they have good lights on their bike throughout the winter. Check the school has somewhere secure to store the bike as well. 

Manxman_in_exile

There are always going to be anomalies regarding the size and geometric coverage of "catchment" areas for services like schools and GP surgeries, unless you have communities where they (and the served populations) are distributed equidistantly and the catchment areas are hexagonal.  But I agree it seems daft not to be in the catchment area of a service which is literally across the road - although I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

tacticalbanjo

The problem is that the government talk about the school application system like you have a choice when you don't. You only express a preference. And lots of people don't understand the application process and do things like only putting down one choice because they think that means the council will have to give them that school.

Best thing to do is start getting your son on the waiting lists for the schools you want while you appeal. Did you get any of the schools you applied to? What did you rank the school across the road? Is it oversubscribed?