lea restrictions

[Guest]

does anyone know of any restrictions in applying to schools outside your own local authority. We are in Birmingham - but i have been told i can't apply to schools in Solihull. Can anyone verify this.

[solimum]

I'm sure that's not true - there are hundreds of children crossing the Birmingham/ Solihull border (in both directions!). If you live in Birmingham you will presumably not be in the catchment area for any Solihull schools but should be able to apply in theory to any school in the country. I think you need to list the Solihull schools on your Birmingham preference form (take great care with the ordering - you will automatically be allocated to the highest preference school for which you meet the criteria). What I don't know is whether you need to fill in another form for Solihull as well

[Etienne]

The Greenwich Judgement makes it illegal to prevent anyone from applying to a school in another local authority.

However, the Rotherham Judgement entitles local authorities to give priority in their admission rules to children living in the catchment area of a particular school.

[Guest]

I'm sure that's not true - there are hundreds of children crossing the Birmingham/ Solihull border (in both directions!). If you live in Birmingham you will presumably not be in the catchment area for any Solihull schools but should be able to apply in theory to any school in the country. I think you need to list the Solihull schools on your Birmingham preference form (take great care with the ordering - you will automatically be allocated to the highest preference school for which you meet the criteria). What I don't know is whether you need to fill in another form for Solihull as well

You can apply to any school anywhere you want, but if, as in the case of the Solihull schools, their admission criterion is distance between home and school you would be wasting those choices on your LEA form unless you are sure you live within their catchment area. Unrealistic school choices are the commonest reason why parents end up not being offered any of their preferences. Unless the schools are Foundation ones you won't need to fill in anything other than your Birmingham LEA preference form. You need to make sure that you have at least a fighting chance of matching the admissions criteria of the schools you apply to, though, otherwise your child will be allocated to the nearest school which still has vacancies, whether it was on your list or not.

[solimum]

The Solihull website

http://www.solihull.gov.uk/section.asp?catid=1582#8

gives details of those admitted for 2007. The priority categories are (broadly):

1. Children in LA care/ exceptional circumstances
2. Catchment
3. Siblings
4. Distance

Interestingly all schools (apart from Grace Academy) had places for out-of-catchment children without siblings, although the proportion (and the maximum distance) varies across the schools. However this might be worth looking at to see (if you live close to the LEA border) if you would have a realistic chance at any of them. Pressure on places has certainly eased since 5 years ago, when my local school could not accomodate all the catchment applicants and several got in ultimately on appeal

This booklet

http://www.solihull.gov.uk/upload/publi ... cation.pdf

also seems quite helpful, and includes some examples of how preference forms might be completed