October 2019
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News
BSCS: Realistically, how close do you have to live?
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radley Stoke Community School (BSCS) is one of the most popular schools in South Gloucestershire and it consistently attracts significantly more 1st-preference applications for Year 7 entry than there are places available. Hence the perennial question we hear around this time of year as parents are making secondary school applications for their offspring: How close do you have to live to BSCS to have a realistic chance of getting in? In a typical year, around 40 percent of successful entrants are allocated a place without consideration of how far they live from the school because they are in one of the prioritised categories that include: children with special educational needs, looked-after children and siblings of children already at the school. Once places have been allocated to the prioritised cases, proximity to the school comes into play for the remaining applicants, based on hometo-school distances. Within this process, distances are all measured to three decimal points in a straight line between the
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BSCS ‘catchment area’ in a typical year Radius: 0.666 miles
address point of the child’s main residence and the address point of the school, using the council’s mapping software, to ensure consistency for all applicants. It should be added that a second geographical factor, namely residence within the school’s ‘consortium area of responsibility’ (roughly comprising of the Stokes, Filton and Patchway) can theoretically come into play during the process. However, since BSCS opened in 2005, no places at the school have been allocated in any entry year to applicants living outside the consortium area. As can be seen from the table below, applicants not satisfying the criteria for one of the prioritised categories have typically needed to live within two-thirds of a mile of the school to qualify for a place at BSCS. Disclaimer: Past years’ statistics may not be a reliable guide to the actual outcomes in future years, due to changes in demographics and other factors. The description given above is a simplification; please consult the admissions brochure for definitive information.
Bradley Stoke Community School (180 place entry into Year 7) Year No. of 1st No. of places No. of places Maximum of preference allocated NOT allocated by distance entry applications using distance using distance (miles) 2017 218 63 117 0.792 2018 279 75 105 0.599 2019 254 81 99 0.670
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