School Admissions Criteria

It is the Government's aim that as many children as possible should be able to obtain a place at their preferred school. Although most schools have enough places for every child that applies, some schools are extremely popular and receive more applications than there are places available. As a guide, the local authority booklet and the school's own prospectus should tell parents whether they had more applications than places in the previous year.

Every school has a set of rules (known as admission criteria) that they use to help them decide which pupils to admit if they are over-subscribed. These rules are set by the admission authority, which in most cases is the local authority, although some state schools (such as voluntary-aided schools) decide their own admission criteria.

These rules (sometimes known as 'oversubscription criteria') must be fair and objective, and must be published each year in the school's prospectus and in the local authority's booklet. It's a good idea to find out about the admission criteria for your chosen schools before you apply so that you can assess accurately which school you have the best chance of gaining a place for your child.

Some commonly used rules for admission criteria include:

• whether your child has a brother or sister at the school already
• whether you live in the area served by the school (the catchment area)
• whether your child attends a feeder school (a school linked to the school of your choice)
• whether your child or your family goes to church (for a voluntary-aided church school)
• whether there are particular medical or social reasons why your child should go to the school
• how far away from the school you live

The admissions criteria must state the order in which the rules will be applied. For example, if having a brother or sister at the school is the first rule, followed by how far away from the school you live, then the authority must offer places to all children with a brother or sister in the school before they offer places to anyone else. The remaining places will be allocated to those pupils who live the closet to the school.