h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wondered if it's worth expanding on the priorities of a school and where the arguments are likely to be?
E.g. When the highest priority children have all been accepted the school will look at the next highest priority.
This may be something like:
1 Medical need of the child
2 Sibling already at the school
3 Family from the right denomination (Church Schools)
4 Family from the right religion (Church Schools)
5 Children living closest to the school.

Some schools will have other criteria which may be higher priority than some of the priorities I have listed and as you have stated it is important to know what the local criteria are.

If the school is not yet full lowest priority is the one which causes the most problem as people, over time, get used to children from their street going to a school. If the school has 100 places and 60 have been taken up by the higher priority cases the nearest 40 children to the school will be offered a place.
Populations change and sometimes the distance from the school to the 100th pupil can radically change (e.g. a new housing estate being built between your street and the school). The children on the estate will all have higher priority than your child (no matter how long you have lived in the area) if you don't have a better case for attending the school (e.g. their elder brother or sister is already there).

If you are involved with local schools you may wish to think about how they change any of their criteria and how any change may affect the local situation. For instance a school may wish to bring in a proportion of selected pupils (based on ability). This will skew later intakes because, if it is popular, these pupils may live a long way from the school. In subsequent years their younger brothers and sisters can attend as a higher priority than even the child who lives next door to the school.

The catchment area question is, from my experience, fraught with all sorts of problems. You mention the sibling issue, but add religious criteria into the equation and the issue gets exponentially larger. Put these into a community where there are a combination of Grammar Schools, Selective 'Comprehensive' Schools', Voluntary Aided Schools and 100% LEA Schools and confusion reigns supreme. We have all these categories in our immediate area.

The key, so it seems to me, is that parents have an assumption of what each schools admissions criterion ought to be, rather than noting what it actually is. This is a cause of much anguish. Whether the admissions criteria are fair or otherwise is a matter that is separate to the admissions process. If the LEA has agreed it then for the year in question, that is that. One thing is for certain each school will have its subtle, but far reaching idiosyncrasies in their admissions policy and hence my advice for parents to get to know these well in advance of the year of application. Those that go into the admissions process (and many do) on the basis that they can appeal against non admission on the basis of an 'unfair policy' are destined to be disappointed.

The other point you made concerning the length of time that people have lived in the area is a very understandable concern, but I do not know of any mechanism to deal with it. I doubt if it would be legal for a school admissions criteria to specify that priority would be given on the basis of length of time living in a community since, apart from anything else, it might be held to be racist - whatever the honourable intent may have been in formulating such a policy.

I’ve been a school Governor for 15 years now. In this limited time, my impression of where parents make life really difficult for themselves is in not having a ‘Plan B’. If the decision is made ‘this school or bust’ then they will put themselves and often their child through considerable stress.

Many thanks for your comments.