 The Government wishes a lot of parents receive a place for their child at their selected school. Most schools have enough places for each child who applies, but some schools are rather popular and usually have more applications than free places.
The local authority booklet and the school's own prospectus must tell how many applications they had in the previous year, compared to the number of places available.
If there are more children applying to school than there are places available, the admission authority will follow a set of rules to determine who to propose places to. These rules (which are called "oversubscription criteria") must by law be fair and objective, and must be placed each year in the school's prospectus and in the LA's booklet.
When oversubscribed, all admission authorities must give highest priority in admissions to looked after children/children in public care. A school will be named in your child's statement, if your child has a statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN). Even if the school is full, it must admit your child.
Some commonly used rules for oversubscription criteria include:
• whether your child has a brother or sister already at the school
• whether you live in the area the school serves (the catchment area)
• whether your child goes to a school linked to the school of your choice (a feeder school)
• faith based
• whether there are particular medical or social reasons why your child should go to the school
• how far away from the school you live
Various admission authorities will employ various types of rules. They must all state in their prospectuses, the order in which they will use their rules, saying which ones they will employ as a tiebreaker. For instance, if brothers and sisters is the first rule, the authority should propose places to all children with a brother or sister in the school before they propose places to anyone else. If your selected school is popular, look through these published rules attentively and carefully consider whether you think you have a chance of receiving a place. If you have doubts, ask your local authority or the school for advice.
Admissions Criteria
To find out at which school you have the best chance of receiving a place for your child, it is strongly advisable to read the rules of all the schools in your area. This will help you to choose which schools to apply for. Although you may live near to a school, there is no guarantee that you will be proposed a place because of this. Every school has its own admission criteria and distance from the school may not always be one of those criteria.
Alternatively, if your preferred school is very popular and one of its admission criteria is 'brothers and sisters' and your child doesn't have a brother or sister there, you need to find out whether there are other criteria for that school that your child may meet, or whether it would be wiser to apply for another school where your application has a more realistic chance of success
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