School Catchment Area Criteria?

[Jon and Michelle]

Hello;

The prospect of school selection has now been thrust upon us for our 3 1/2 year old cherub for 2012 admission. Having fully expected to have long flown London by now, jobs have contrived for us to be staying firmly put in south dulwich.

We rent and need to move house soon, since a recent addition of a second child means we need more space. I am therefore thinking it might make good sense to move to a house right bang outside the school of our choice.

I would have thought though there may be some criteria relating to how long a family must have lived somewhere in order to meet catchent area criteria, but I have not found anything about this on school websites. Would anyone have had experience of this before?

The school we are currently thinking of is rosendale, but we are flexible to move next to a number of good schools in the area, or even completley different parts of London or surrounding counties.

Many thanks in advance.

J+M

[chantelle]

as far as I know, you just need to be in your new address upon application to schools in January. If you were in a rental, they apparently can ask for evidence of a contract that would take you into the start of the school year. The Southwark admissions policy brochure is a good place to start - a new version should be out soon but the existing one on the council web site explains residence criteria.

[BeccaL]

If you're targetting Rosendale, I think that's a Lambeth school - criteria probably the same but check their website too. Distance from school is main criteria throughout I think.

[2Loulou]

We recently applied and were not asked for more than a recent utility bill, so you just have to be there when you apply.

And we are in Lambeth too

[CAMO2]

Hello - just email Lambeth council and they'll tell you the distances for first round offers to non-siblings for Sept 2011, even if the booklet isn't published yet.

[Jon and Michelle]

Thanks everyone, very helpful.

[sillywoman]

. . . but you also have to be living there when you accept - we had to show council tax bill, (letter from child benefit with same name on it as council tax bill) and childs birth certificate when we went to accept a school place each time.