Can I apply to more than one borough?

Baby_A

Hi

Giving thought to primary school application for my daughter. We live on the edge of a borough and less than half a mile walk into another borough. is there anything stopping me from making two applications, one for each borough? Basically listing upto 6 schools, 3 on each?

Paparika

I don't see why not, they will either say yes or no

Curv

Hi Baby A - I'm in exactly the same situation as you! The people we bought our house from sent their kids to school A in Borough A, whilst next door's kids go so school 1 in Borough B, so it must be possible. Both families lived here since before the children were born so it's nothing to do with kids already being schooled somewhere or other.

Worth checking with both LAs though as the might not all be so accommodating...

hobo28

I remember where I used to live, the school was about 1/4 mile from another borough. There were a lot of kids who came from the other borough to our school as it was generally regarded as a good school.

I did enquire once about this and what I was told was that the schools admission policy is applied regardless of which borough the child lives in. So if the criteria is distance from school then the fact that they live in another council area is not considered.

So I think your ok to apply to both.

bunty109

Where I am you make one application to your home county but it can include schools in the neighbouring county. However, that's for secondaries. I recall when I applied to infant schools I could apply to both (but that was 7 years ago now).

Spendless

I don't know if you get 2 lots of choices, but something worth looking up is if the criteria is the same as where I live, where 'outside of county' is bottom of list for criteria in getting a school place. Worth looking into especially if you are looking at an oversubscribed out of county school.

Savvy_Sue

You need to check: policies vary and change over time. For example when I was first applying for secondary schools, an application to a voluntary grant aided church school did not have to go on the County application form, so you got 4 choices, and your first choice on the County form wouldn't know you'd applied anywhere else.

Now I believe that the church schools have been integrated into the application process, so if you put a church school first and don't get in, you probably won't get into your second choice either! It makes the whole process much more complicated.

So, check each local authority's guidance, and talk to the schools to see whether children from your road usually get in.