School catchment areas

Catchment maps

If you need a catchment map of your area, then you should contact the schools you are applying for directly.

Be aware that children from your area may be attending a school which is not the catchment school. You should not make assumptions, so it is advisable to check with the School Admissions and Appeals Team. 

If you live in the catchment area for your preferred school

If you have named your catchment school as a preference and that school is oversubscribed, then the oversubscription criteria will be used to allocate places.  If you do not get a place at any of your preferred schools, you will be determined a place at the next nearest school with a place available this will include faith-based schools.

If you don’t include a catchment school in your preferred schools

You may then be disadvantaged in getting a place at your catchment school. All the places may already have been allocated to children whose parents have named the school as a preference. 

School transport and your catchment area

Entitlement to free transport is linked to your catchment or nearest qualifying school. Children from your area may be attending a school which is not the catchment school

For community and voluntary controlled schools, the catchment area for deciding priority for admission and assessing transport entitlement will always be the same. 

For a small number of academies, foundation schools and voluntary aided schools, the admissions policy may include reference to a catchment area which is different to the one designated by the Authority for school transport purposes. 

If we have not established a catchment area for a qualifying school, the nearest qualifying school will be used to determine transport entitlement.

How catchment areas are defined

Catchment areas defined by us and are also used in deciding on school transport entitlement. 

In some limited cases, foundation and voluntary aided schools and academies have a different catchment area defined for admission purposes from that which the Local Authority has defined for transport purposes.

 If you have any queries regarding this, please contact the School Admissions and Appeals Team. Where an area does not form part of a catchment area the “catchment” school will be the nearest school, measuring the shortest walking route by road using the Local Authority GIS mapping system.