Back to school: What do parents learn about location?

Catchment areas

A catchment area is a defined geographical area centred on each school, which covers the locations within its boundaries from which the school would normally accept each intake of pupils.

While the setting of the catchment area will vary from council to council, as a general rule of thumb, it is usually a roughly circular area, with the epicentre being the school property, with a radius of about one or two miles.

In addition to the geographical location of school and home, there are other considerations (summarised neatly on The Mum Educates), which include:

• Siblings - if your child has a brother or sister at the same school already, priority will often be given to their sibling seeking a placing
• Specific needs - if your child has any mental, physical and medical requirements, this will be taken into account as a priority

In addition, if you are looking to place your child in a faith school, there will certainly be some questions regarding religion and associated practices to verify inclusion.

Bear in mind, too, that this is general information, and each school will have its own admissions criteria, which you'll need to investigate once you've got a shortlist of possible schools.

Finding a good school 

As with any important decision in life, it is important that you do your research before coming to your conclusion:

• Your local council, whether current or where you are planning to move, will have detailed information about schools under their control and catchment areas. This is usually online but there will be a department you can contact to talk through your concerns and plans in person.
• There are several good online resources for finding schools, such as The Good Schools Guide, Admissions Day or Locrating. It's probably a good idea to list your priorities before launching into these sites so that you can keep on top of the wealth of information you'll receive, by tailoring your searches to minimise the returned data.

The Office for Standards in Education (better known as OFSTED) provides a wealth of information as part of its Ofsted inspection report, including assessed standards of education, the best start in education, children's safety and welfare amongst several other aspects.

Moving house into a catchment area

Some parents will almost certainly find a school that they deem perfect for their child's education, but recognize that they are not within the requisite catchment area for that desired school. This means that any application is almost certainly likely to be turned down (unless there is a significant drop in admissions for that school year - but then a good school will understandably have a potentially long waiting list).

One solution that keen parents look into when they are outside a particular catchment area is to move within its boundaries, either in the form of renting or actually purchasing a new home.

But, beware! 

There are legal implications to consider, thus avoiding the temptation to set up a temporary address in order to get the child into the school before returning to the real home outside the catchment area. 

Or perhaps thinking of using a relative's address that is within the catchment area while still maintaining your original address. 

These constitute fraudulent applications.

Specifically, the law states that the registered address for the child you are trying to place must be their permanent place of residence. 

To underline this requirement, you'll be asked to provide evidence of residential status, which might include a tenancy agreement that is at least 12 months in duration or a solicitor's letter confirming the date of completion on the property designated as the permanent address.

If you are found to have made a fraudulent application, your child's place may be withdrawn from the school with immediate effect, regardless of whether a term has started or not.

When it comes to your child's education, you'll want to do what's best for them, including even moving home if circumstances allow and you can afford it.

But this is disruptive in its own right and you'll want a quality service for the conveyancing at as low a price as possible, if you do decide to move.